Moving from GitHub to Codeberg, for lazy people

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

CI, runners, and GitHub lock‑in

  • CI is seen as the hardest part of moving off GitHub.
  • GitHub Actions’ big advantages: free (for public), integrated checks in PRs, merge queues, broad platform matrix (especially macOS), and “good enough” UX.
  • Complaints: runners are slow, often degraded, and “infinite” capacity is rate‑limited and abused by crypto‑miners.
  • Forgejo Actions mostly follows the GitHub Actions syntax, but official runners are Linux‑only due to free‑software constraints; Windows/macOS runners exist but aren’t first‑class.
  • Many suggest decoupling CI from hosting (self‑hosted runners, Woodpecker, Namespace, NixCI, CircleCI‑style services). Others argue integrated CI is now table‑stakes.

Codeberg’s mission, policies, and fit

  • Codeberg is a German nonprofit with a charter focused on FOSS and free cultural works.
  • Private repos are technically possible but only as support for FOSS work and are size‑limited; not intended for commercial or random private code.
  • Personal homepages and non‑FOSS content are discouraged unless accompanied by real FOSS contributions, which makes it unlike GitHub’s “host anything” stance.
  • Some want paid plans for unrestricted private repos; others say that would undermine its nonprofit/FOSS focus.

Reliability, DDoS, and scraping

  • Mixed reports: some say Codeberg has frequent downtime; others say GitHub’s uptime is worse recently. Metrics cited in both directions; overall status is unclear.
  • Lack of Cloudflare‑style protection is blamed for Codeberg outages; others dislike Cloudflare’s dominance but admit it’s practically useful.
  • Self‑hosted git servers and forges are being hammered by generic and AI scrapers, driving bandwidth/CPU costs and forcing rate‑limits, blocks, or “trap” content.

Self‑hosting and alternative forges

  • Strong thread around self‑hosting Forgejo/Gitea/GitLab or even bare git over SSH; many claim it’s lightweight and more reliable than GitHub for small teams.
  • Counterpoint: lots of developers lack ops skills or time; keeping a public service secure and available (updates, firewalls, bandwidth, DDoS) is non‑trivial.
  • Forgejo and Gitea are praised for being small, single‑binary Go services; GitLab is feature‑rich but heavy and frequently patched.
  • Federation projects (ForgeFed, Tangled, Radicle, git‑bug) are mentioned as ways to align with git’s decentralized nature, but they’re not mainstream yet.

Community, integrations, and discoverability

  • Many keep GitHub because “that’s where the community is”:
    • ecosystem integrations (SaaS tools, registries, editors, AI assistants),
    • discoverability via GitHub search and mirrors,
    • other services explicitly requiring GitHub repos.
  • Fragmentation across hosts hurts search and license/language filtering; some propose at least mirroring from Codeberg/self‑hosted back to GitHub.

Motivations for vs. against leaving GitHub

  • Reasons to leave: Microsoft ownership, Copilot/AI training on code (including fears about private repos), association with government agencies, perceived enshittification (worse uptime, flaky UI).
  • Reasons to stay: unmatched free CI/resources, rich features (issues, PRs, Pages), strong network effects, and the sense that alternatives either can’t or shouldn’t try to match GitHub’s full scope.
  • Some see current anti‑GitHub sentiment as ideologically driven; others see staying as over‑reliance on a single corporate platform.