Bitbucket vs Gitea
A source-aware comparison of pricing, documented capabilities and workflow fit.
Short answer
- Price: not directly comparable — Bitbucket is free tier available, Gitea is pricing not verified.
- How to start: Bitbucket is free tier available, Gitea is pricing not verified.
- Where they differ: only Gitea has open source / self-hostable; both offer public api and sso (saml).
These lines are generated from the pricing we track, not from a paid placement. How we score tools.
What Bitbucket is
Bitbucket is Atlassian's Git hosting service, and its main argument is how tightly it connects to Jira. Commits, branches and pull requests link to issues automatically, which is worth a lot if your team already plans work in Jira. If your team does not live in Jira, that advantage disappears and you are comparing it against larger ecosystems on their own terms. Pipelines are built in, so small teams can host code and run CI without adding a second vendor.
What Gitea is
Gitea is a lightweight, self-hostable Git service with issues, pull requests and CI, running comfortably on modest hardware.
Side by side
| Bitbucket | Gitea | |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Developer Tools | Developer Tools |
| How to start | Free tiernot a monthly price | Not verifiednot a monthly price |
| Public API | Yes | Yes |
| Mobile app | No | not checked |
| Open source / self-hostable | No | Yes |
| SSO (SAML) | Yes | Yes |
| Visit | Bitbucket ↗ | Gitea ↗ |
What Bitbucket is built to do
- Jira integration
- Links commits, branches and pull requests to Jira issues automatically.
- Bitbucket Pipelines
- Runs CI/CD from a YAML file in the repository without a separate service.
- Branch permissions
- Restricts merges and pushes per branch with required approvals.
Choose Bitbucket if
- Teams already invested in Atlassian tools, particularly Jira.
Choose Gitea if
- Teams that want their own Git host without running GitLab.
Evidence and freshness
Where a claim on this page comes from a vendor page, it is linked here.
Gitea
Open source, free — vendor page verified · reviewed 2026-09-03
Bitbucket: pros & cons
- Deep Jira integration that competitors cannot match
- Built-in Pipelines for CI
- Free tier for small teams
- Smaller ecosystem and community than GitHub
- Less appealing if you do not use Jira
- Pipelines minutes run out quickly on the free plan
Gitea: pros & cons
- Runs on very little hardware
- Familiar interface for GitHub users
- Open source with no seat limits
- Fewer features than GitHub or GitLab
- You handle backups and upgrades
- Smaller plugin ecosystem
Our verdict on Bitbucket
Choose it for the Jira link, not on its own merits. Outside the Atlassian stack the case is much weaker.
Our verdict on Gitea
The pragmatic self-hosted choice. GitLab does more; Gitea does enough with far less overhead.