Selfhosting for personal projects is cheap. I'd choose Forgejo because it not so resource hungry as GitLab.
For my personal projects (all FOSS) I use Codeberg and mirror them to hosted GtiLab and GitHub.
this post was submitted on 01 Apr 2026
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Programming
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Codeberg.
If you actually read his message you can see he is interested in hosting projects that aren't open source.
Codeberg, and because I already have a VPS (server), I'd check for Forgejo packages (I would only use them if security updates automatically update/install).
Codeberg or GitLab.
Already do; Codeberg is great.
I moved all my private projects to Codeberg from GitHub. IDK why but I feel safer that way
Note - you can completely disable all the AI features in Gitlab. In fact, they're disabled by default unless you explicitly enable them by configuring model integrations. I think its one of the better self hosted options because it had a clear maintenance and path to profitability.
I run my own GitLab on a NUC with no issues.
Disclaimer: I have contributed open source code to GitLab before.
I have been using self hosted Gitea for a while now (few years) with 0 regrets.
Radicle, codeberg, gitlab, sourcehut, tale your pick. Github isn't the only option. Far from it.
Some alternative self-hosting options (besides full-fledged "forges"):
If you don't need issues and stuff, you could just use git and back it up (by copying or cloning/updating to some other machine).
You could deploy soft-serve, which is a self-contained git/ssh server with cool cli (beware: it's not super performant on large repos, so don't host a clone of the linux kernel on it). Since you'll use it via ssh, you don't have to bother with https, certificates, reverse proxies and stuff.
If you are willing to put some effort into it, the (imho) coolest option would be to use radicle, which is a p2p forge (beware: documentation is not great, and - even if the "core" is solid - the cli tools are very much beta still).
I went with the simplest self-hosting I could think of for my private repos:
ssh my-server 'git init --bare git/foo.git'
git clone my-server:git/foo.git
You don't get a web UI or anything but that's OK for me, I just want the repo.
sourcehut, codeberg or self-hosting (cgit, forgejo, gitea, which ever suits your needs)
I'm not a programmer, but I have my dotfiles and bash scripts I like to keep in private repos. I just moved my dotfiles over to Codeberg, gonna do my scripts here soon...
But been relatively painless. I can see how bigger and public projects will take some coordination and planning but...it's probably worth it?
Codeberg has been fun and simple to use, but again, I'm just a hobbyist.
I've exclusively been using gitlab.com and self hosted gitlab ce for years. So that would be my choice.
GitLab. You can't be emotional about ai., it's a tool
When github puts ads in commits, you say "fuck no" but gitlab giving you ai devops tools is fine. If you don't want to use it, don't.