Gitea vs GitHub
A source-aware comparison of pricing, documented capabilities and workflow fit.
Short answer
- Price: not directly comparable — Gitea is pricing not verified, GitHub is free tier available.
- How to start: Gitea is pricing not verified, GitHub is free tier available.
- 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 Gitea is
Gitea is a lightweight, self-hostable Git service with issues, pull requests and CI, running comfortably on modest hardware.
What GitHub is
GitHub is the social network of the software world and the largest code-hosting platform on earth. It is a Git-based system that allows millions of developers to collaborate on open-source and private projects. Beyond version control, GitHub Actions manages CI/CD processes, while GitHub Copilot provides AI-driven coding support. Whether you're managing a solo project or a massive engineering team, GitHub is the heart of the modern software development lifecycle where code is stored and reviewed.
Side by side
What GitHub is built to do
- GitHub Actions
- Automatically test and deploy your code directly from your repository.
- GitHub Copilot
- An AI assistant that predicts your code and writes entire functions for you.
- Pull Requests
- Review, comment on, and approve code changes collaboratively with your team.
- Dependabot
- Automatically updates your project's libraries and patches security flaws.
Choose Gitea if
- Teams that want their own Git host without running GitLab.
Choose GitHub if
- Software Developers, Engineering Teams, and Open Source Fans.
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
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
GitHub: pros & cons
- World Standard: Acts as a digital resume for developers; this is where the industry lives.
- Open Source Power: Provides access to millions of ready-made libraries and codebases.
- GitHub Copilot: The most effective AI pair programmer support in history.
- Security: Automatically detects vulnerabilities and dependency errors in your code.
- Learning Curve: Requires knowledge of Git concepts like merging, rebasing, and conflicts.
- Enterprise Pricing: Advanced security and management features can be expensive for firms.
- Storage Limits: Not ideal for storing gigabytes of large binary files.
Our verdict on Gitea
The pragmatic self-hosted choice. GitLab does more; Gitea does enough with far less overhead.
Our verdict on GitHub
The de-facto standard for modern software development; the true home of code.