Gitea: Lightweight Self-Hosted Git Service
Gitea is a self-hosted Git service covering repositories, issues, pull requests, code review, releases, and a package registry, in a single Go binary that runs comfortably on very small hardware.
Why self-host a forge
Code hosting is the place where dependency on a platform is most consequential: your history, issues, and review discussion all live there. Self-hosting keeps private work private, removes per-seat pricing for a small team, and means a policy change at a vendor cannot affect your workflow. Gitea in particular runs on a Raspberry Pi, which makes it practical for individuals rather than only organizations.
What it includes
Repository hosting over HTTPS and SSH, issues and milestones, pull requests with review, wikis, releases with attachments, organizations and teams, a package registry covering many ecosystems, and Gitea Actions, which is largely compatible with GitHub Actions workflow syntax. Mirroring from other forges is built in.
The Forgejo fork
Gitea’s governance moved to a for-profit company in 2022, and Forgejo was forked in response by community members who preferred a nonprofit structure. The two remain broadly compatible and either is a reasonable choice; Forgejo has since diverged toward stricter copyleft licensing and federation work. If governance matters to you, that is the deciding factor rather than features.
Deployment
A binary with SQLite is genuinely enough for personal use. For teams, run it with PostgreSQL behind a reverse proxy. Docker images are official and straightforward, and backups mean the repositories directory plus the database.
Alternatives
Forgejo as above, GitLab for a full DevOps platform at much higher resource cost, and OneDev which bundles CI more tightly.
License
Gitea is released under the MIT License.