head to head · open source
Gitea vs gentle-shell
Gitea has 58,080 GitHub stars, 7,157 forks, 2,455 open issues and last shipped today. gentle-shell has 934 stars, 138 forks, 369 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Gitea leads on adoption by 6,118% (58,080 vs 934 stars). Gitea is written in Go under MIT; gentle-shell is written in TypeScript under MIT. Gitea has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, gentle-shell 15%. Gitea was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Gitea | gentle-shell | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 58K | ★ 934 |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Go | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-09-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 7.2K | ⑂ 138 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Gitea if
- You weight community size — 58K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick gentle-shell if
- You want the gentle-shell feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and gentle-shell fits your workflow better
About Gitea
Gitea is a self hosted, all in one software development service written in Go. It provides Git hosting, code review, issue tracking, project management (kanban), wiki, team collaboration, package registry, and CI/CD capabilities. The project aims to deliver a lightweight, painless alternative to larger platforms by running as a single binary across Linux, macOS, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and Windows on multiple architectures.
read the full Gitea overview →
About gentle-shell
gentle shell is a senior architect development harness for the Pi platform that turns a terminal coding agent into a controlled workspace with spec driven development, focused subagents, strict TDD evidence, review guardrails, and skill discovery.
read the full gentle-shell overview →
More in Developer Tools
Related comparisons
More Version Control & Collaboration projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Version Control & Collaboration field.
Frequently asked questions
Is Gitea or gentle-shell more popular?
Gitea has 58,080 GitHub stars and gentle-shell has 934. Gitea has the larger community by that measure.
Are Gitea and gentle-shell free?
Both are open source. Gitea is licensed under MIT and gentle-shell under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Gitea and gentle-shell?
Gitea is written in Go and gentle-shell in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Gitea or gentle-shell?
Choose Gitea if you want the larger community (58,080 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose gentle-shell if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.