head to head · open source
Gitea vs GitLab
Gitea has 58,048 GitHub stars, 7,153 forks, 2,455 open issues and last shipped yesterday. GitLab has 24,544 stars, 5,983 forks, 36 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Gitea leads on adoption by 137% (58,048 vs 24,544 stars). Gitea is written in Go under MIT; GitLab is written in Ruby under a custom or non-standard licence. Gitea has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, GitLab 24%. Gitea was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (gitlab), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| Gitea | GitLab | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 58K | ★ 25K |
| License | MIT | Custom / other |
| Written in | Go | Ruby |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 7.2K | ⑂ 6.0K |
| 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 GitLab if
- You want the GitLab feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Ruby
- You evaluated both and GitLab 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 GitLab
GitLab is an open core DevSecOps platform that gives teams Git repository hosting, merge request code review, CI/CD pipelines, issue tracking, and wikis in one self hostable application, aimed at organizations that want to run their development lifecycle on infrastructure they control.
read the full GitLab overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Gitea or GitLab more popular?
Gitea has 58,048 GitHub stars and GitLab has 24,544. Gitea has the larger community by that measure.
Are Gitea and GitLab free?
Both are open source. Gitea is licensed under MIT, and GitLab has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Gitea and GitLab?
Gitea is written in Go and GitLab in Ruby. 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 GitLab?
Choose Gitea if you want the larger community (58,048 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose GitLab if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.