Development
Forgejo vs Gitea: what is the difference?
Short answer
Forgejo and Gitea are two lightweight, open source Git platforms with the same origin. Forgejo split off at the end of 2022 after Gitea came under a commercial company, and has since been governed by the non-profit Codeberg. Feature for feature they still look much alike. The difference is in governance and licence: Forgejo is fully free software with no paid edition, while Gitea also has a commercial variant.
Where do they come from?
The family tree is short. Gogs began in 2014 as a simple Git server in a single program. In 2016 a group of developers split off under the name Gitea, because Gogs was run by one person. In 2022 history repeated itself, and Forgejo came out of Gitea.
The pattern is the same each time: developers who want the project to stay with the community.
What differs now?
| Subject | Forgejo | Gitea |
|---|---|---|
| Governance | Under the non-profit Codeberg e.V. | A commercial company |
| Licence | GPL, since version 9 | MIT |
| Paid edition | None | Yes, next to the open version |
| CI/CD | Forgejo Actions | Gitea Actions |
| Direction | Independence, federation between servers | Features for companies |
| Biggest user | Codeberg | Many own installations |
In daily use you see little difference. The screens look alike and the terms are the same. Whoever knows one can find their way around the other.
Why does the licence matter?
Under the MIT licence anyone may use the code and turn it into a closed product. Under the GPL, whoever distributes a modified version must also make those changes public.
As a user you notice nothing. For the future of the project you do: it rules out Forgejo ever disappearing behind a paywall. If you choose a platform that will hold your source code for years, you may weigh that.
Which do you choose?
Forgejo if independence is the reason you host yourself. You choose your own Git server to avoid depending on one company; then it makes sense that the software does not depend on one either.
Gitea if you need a feature that only exists there, or if your organisation wants a supplier with a contract and support.
We host Forgejo. That is a choice for the first argument.
And Codeberg?
Codeberg is an association in Berlin that runs a public Forgejo server for open source projects. It is the biggest user of Forgejo and also the organisation that carries the project. So the developers use at large scale, every day, what they build.
What about GitLab?
GitLab is of a different order: much bigger, with everything from planning to security scanning built in. It also needs a heavier server and more maintenance. Teams that mainly store code, review it and run builds do not need that. Teams that use the extensive features of GitLab every day are better off staying there.