head to head · open source
Gitea vs GitLab
Gitea has 58,826 GitHub stars, 7,348 forks, 2,455 open issues and last shipped yesterday. GitLab has 24,549 stars, 5,943 forks, 36 open issues and last shipped 11 days ago. Gitea leads on adoption by 140% (58,826 vs 24,549 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 | ★ 59K | ★ 25K |
| License | MIT | Custom / other |
| Written in | Go | Ruby |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-23 |
| Forks | ⑂ 7.3K | ⑂ 5.9K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Gitea if
- You weight community size — 59K 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 繁體中文 简体中文 Purpose The goal of Gitea is to make the easiest, fastest, and most painless way of setting up a self hosted all in one software development service, including Git hosting, code management, code review, issue tracking, project kanban, wiki, team collaboration, package registry and CI/CD which can reuse GitHub Actions. As Gitea is written in Go, it works across all the platforms and architectures that are supported by Go, including Linux, macOS, FreeBSD/OpenBSD and Windows on x86, amd64, ARM, RISC V 64 and PowerPC architectures. For online demonstrations, you can visit demo.gitea.com. For…
read the full Gitea overview →
About GitLab
GitLab Canonical source The canonical source of GitLab where all development takes place is hosted on GitLab.com. If you wish to clone a copy of GitLab without proprietary code, you can use the read only mirror of GitLab located at However, please do not submit any issues and/or merge requests to that project. Free trial You can request a free trial of GitLab Ultimate on our website. Open source software to collaborate on code To see how GitLab looks please see the features page on our website. Manage Git repositories with fine grained access controls that keep your code secure Perform code reviews and enhance…
read the full GitLab overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Gitea or GitLab more popular?
Gitea has 58,826 GitHub stars and GitLab has 24,549. 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 (58,826 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose GitLab if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.