Gitea is a free, open source version control & collaboration project written in Go and released under MIT. It has 58,048 GitHub stars, 7,153 forks and 2,455 open issues, and was last pushed 4 hours ago. On this registry it ranks #1 of 30 tracked projects in Version Control & Collaboration, and is listed as an open source replacement for 1 paid product, with 5 head-to-head comparisons available. It gained 82 stars over the last 6 tracked days.

Gitea — Self-hosted Git service for seamless collaboration

What is Gitea?

What it is

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.

It solves the problem of heavy, complex, or proprietary development platforms by offering a minimal-footprint, open-source solution that integrates essential DevOps workflows without requiring separate services for each function. Unlike cloud-only or enterprise-grade tools, Gitea is designed for teams wanting full control over their infrastructure while retaining modern development practices.

Key capabilities

  • Full Git server implementation with push/pull, hooks, and SSH key management
  • Built-in pull request workflow with code review, comments, and merge strategies
  • Issue tracking with labels, milestones, and project boards (kanban-style)
  • Integrated CI/CD engine compatible with GitHub Actions workflows
  • Package registry supporting Docker, npm, Go, Maven, NuGet, and Helm
  • Git LFS support for large file storage
  • Web-based GUI for repository, user, and organization management

Who uses it and how

  • Small to mid-sized development teams self-hosting Gitea on-premises or in private clouds for internal code management
  • Organizations replacing GitHub Enterprise or GitLab CE/EE with a simpler, resource-efficient alternative
  • Developers running Gitea in containers (Docker/Podman) for lightweight CI pipelines or personal projects
  • Teams needing GitHub Actions-compatible CI/CD without relying on external CI services
  • Users of Bitbucket Server seeking a lighter, open-source migration path

Getting started

Deploy using the official Docker image gitea/gitea, install via package managers (e.g., apt, brew, pacman), or download the single binary. Run ./gitea web to start the server, or use the web installer after first launch. A hosted option is available at gitea.com with repository limits.

When to use it — and when not to

Gitea replaces paid services like GitHub Enterprise or Bitbucket Server with lower operational overhead and no per-user licensing, but lacks native support for SAML/SSO out of the box and requires manual configuration for email, LDAP, or external databases. It is ideal for teams comfortable managing a self-hosted stack (SQLite by default, PostgreSQL/MySQL optional) and prioritizing simplicity over enterprise-scale integrations. Avoid if strict compliance features (e.g., audit logging depth, granular data residency controls) or large-scale distributed CI workers are required.

project readme (upstream, from github) — read inline

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 accessing free Gitea service (with a limited number of repositories), you can visit gitea.com.

To quickly deploy your own dedicated Gitea instance on Gitea Cloud, you can start a free trial at cloud.gitea.com, or use container (docker/podman/etc) to deploy on your own server with the official image.

Documentation

You can find comprehensive documentation on our official documentation website.

It includes installation, administration, usage, development, contributing guides, and more to help you get started and explore all features effectively.

If you have any suggestions or would like to contribute to it, you can visit the documentation repository

Building

See docs/build-setup.md for prerequisites and docs/development.md for setting up a local development environment, linting, and testing.

If you'd like to build from source or make a distribution package, see docs/build-source.md for more information.

After building, you can run ./gitea web to start the server, or ./gitea help to see all available commands.

Contributing

Expected workflow is: Fork -> Patch -> Push -> Pull Request

[!NOTE]

  1. YOU MUST READ THE CONTRIBUTORS GUIDE BEFORE STARTING TO WORK ON A PULL REQUEST.
  2. New to the codebase? The development guide walks through setting up a local environment and building from source.
  3. If you have found a vulnerability in the project, please write privately to [email protected]. Thanks!

Translating

Crowdin

Translations are done through Crowdin. If you want to translate to a new language, ask one of the managers in the Crowdin project to add a new language there.

You can also just create an issue for adding a language or ask on Discord on the #translation channel. If you need context or find some translation issues, you can leave a comment on the string or ask on Discord.

Get more information from the translation section of our contributing guide.

Official and Third-Party Projects

We provide an official go-sdk, a CLI tool called tea and an action runner for Gitea Action.

We maintain a list of Gitea-related projects at gitea/awesome-gitea, where you can discover more third-party projects, including SDKs, plugins, themes, and more.

Communication

If you have questions that are not covered by the documentation, you can get in contact with us on our Discord server or create a post in the discourse forum.

Authors

Backers

Thank you to all our backers! 🙏 [Become a backer]

Sponsors

Support this project by becoming a sponsor. Your logo will show up here with a link to your website. [Become a sponsor]

FAQ

How do you pronounce Gitea?

Gitea is pronounced /ɡɪ’ti:/ as in "gi-tea" with a hard g.

How do I configure Gitea?

For dynamic config options, you can change it on your admin panel's configuration section.

For static config options, you can edit your app.ini file and restart the instance. See app.example.ini or configuration documentation for more details.

Where can I find the security patches?

In the release log or the change log, search for the keyword SECURITY to find the security patches.

(more FAQs are listed in FAQ documentation)

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for the full license text.

Further information

Looking for an overview of the interface? Check it out the screenshots!

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User Profile

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readme truncated — read the full docs on github

Frequently asked questions

Is Gitea free to use?

Gitea is open source under the MIT licence. There is no licence fee and no seat count — you can self-host it or, where the project offers one, pay a vendor for a managed version instead.

What does Gitea do?

Self-hosted Git service for seamless collaboration

What is Gitea written in?

Gitea is primarily written in Go. Its source is publicly available at https://github.com/go-gitea/gitea, and it has 58,048 GitHub stars.

What is a good open source alternative to Jira?

Gitea is one of the open source options listed as an alternative to Jira. Compare licences, stars and activity side by side on the Gitea profile.