Apparently GitHub doesn't allow adding people to private repos if you don't pay, I switched to Codeberg after that
this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2026
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The right time to look elsewhere was when Microsoft bought it.
The next best time was when viable alternatives like GitLab and later, Codeberg appeared.
The next best time was when it became clear that they were stealing your code to feed into their sparkly autocomplete and were going to sell it back to you.
The next best time was when they dumped a bunch of vibecoded garbage into the codebase and killed the uptime.
The next best time is now.
You don't even have to migrate all your stuff. Just start all your new projects on Codeberg, or GitLab, or something self-hosted. Once you get used to the new place, you can migrate your old stuff when you're ready.
Comments like this are so frustrating to see, as my company goes backwards, moving from Gitlab to GitHub.
I mean, didn't Gitlab also say they were going all-in on AI?
There's no major forge you can use for proprietary projects that isn't shitty.
Don’t remind me …. The doublespeak at my company ….. we had to use GitHub for the built in AI, but couldn’t even evaluate GitLab’s AI because it costs extra
Forgejo, if you self host it, you can use it for propietary projects
(And it's as easy as deploying a docker container and hitting start, really)
Yes, but then you hold all the liability for your shit going missing. The entire point of using a managed service like github or gitlab is that you have someone to sue.
Codeberg/Forgejo also have a simple button to migrate directly on the web UI
This is exactly it, Microsoft always makes things about themselves. They change everything, mostly for the worse.
Federated git forges can't come fast enough. Fuck gitlab for so willingly dropping the ball
Self-hosted Forgejo works well for my own use. My employer is moving to GitHub Enterprise where it’s a separate instance per company with certain infra shared. Should be a slight improvement, I guess, though probably not a bad idea to make sure internal tooling is built with the git forge being configurable. 😉
I've been eyeing Gitea. Do you have any reason for using Forgejo that I might overlook Gitea in favor of it?
I used to run Gitea and switched to Forgejo mainly because I prefer a community project over one run by a for-profit company. I never had any substantive complaints against Gitea during my time with it to be honest, but thought I’d get off of it before investing too much further in case it went in a bad direction.
That is a solid enough reason and one I wasn't aware of. Exactly the kind of thing I was hoping to find out, thank you!
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Is your code free for others to do whatever the fuck they want to with it? : codeberg
Do you want to put certain restrictions (eg financial)? Gitlab
Codeberg doesn't allow you to use AI with your repos. Even if it is just writing your docs for you.
Radicle is decentralised though!
Radicle is awesome, but having to create a new account for each device is a pain, especially if you want them all to have access to the same private repo.
Doesn't allow you to use AI with your repos
You say that like it's a bad thing, that's a EXCELLENT THING, get the slop outta open source
That's completely irrational but you do you. Maintaining documentation is one of the best and safest uses for LLMs in coding - devs generally write bad documentation because they don't want to do it.
You say irrational, I say it's rational not to trust the predictive text on steroids that often just makes shit up.
I say irrational because clearly there is a bias here and not an experience being referenced.
So you're saying they never hallucinate? Ever?
I have evidence to the contrary;
https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-copilot-election-questions-misinformation-2024-2
https://cronkitenews.azpbs.org/2025/10/28/lawyers-ai-hallucinations-chatgpt/
https://www.envive.ai/post/case-study-of-air-canadas-chatbot
Literally just use doxygen. You don't ever need LLMs for docu.
doxygen
There is zero chance for getting this approved to use in our Enterprise.
We have an existing tool that can do this without assessing another tool.
There is zero chance for a FOSS, offline tool that uses a decades-established formatting and annotation system, but there is 100 dicksuck on AI?
Wow... get your resume ready to migrate.
Correct, if we have something included in a contract we already have there is little reason for us to procure a FOSS tool and maintain a security understanding of said tool and maintain versions.
Organisation of 60K. Job is far too senior, lucrative and actually very enjoyable to consider moving over a puerile thing.
You can always self host forgejo, but yeah, codeberg is an opinionated place, I suspect primarily due to resource constraints. Not a github replacement and not really trying to be.
I do run a local instance but what I do is then replicate certain repos out to Github and Codeberg. (The ones I like to keep public)
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Yeah it was completely useless today.
I mean yes, Microsoft and slopcode probably plays a role, but it only got really bad once the LLM mass scraping started, for which I assume Github is also a major target.
And running your own public git forge is a real PITA these days for similar reasons.
Codeberg then
Moved to codeberg.org when that Microslop VP took over running github. I have nothing on the platform but my account so I can look at other stuff on the site.
Any alternatives with a good UI? Really don't like the ones for codeberg or gitlab tbh, and GitHub is bearable
Honestly, for me the Forgejo/Codeberg UI is the best out there, I actually like it even better than GitHub. I think you just need to get used to it. If you had been using Codeberg the last 10 years and just discovered GitHub today, you'd take one look at it and say the UI is bad.
Maybe yeah
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