Everything you need to know about github is sinking david bushell.
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TL;DR: GitHub used to be cool and now it’s a lame slop graveyard.
GitHub is racing towards the mythical zero nines of uptime. Users are starting to notice that GitHub is now a Microsoft product. Eww!
Official uptime paints a concerning chart. The missing status page tell a far worse story. Whatever the truth, it’s impossible to miss the delightful experience that is Microsoft GitHub if you use it semi-regularly.
Line chart showing GitHub average uptime by month following the Microsoft acquisition. A green line turns into an orange and red roller coaster.
Microsoft acquired GitHub and applied their unique brand of enshittification. Amongst their achievements was the spawning of the Copilot circle of hell. Now they’re effectively DDoSing themselves with slop. I won’t dwell on what else went wrong. I don’t know and I don’t care. GitHub is impressively bad now. It’s embarrassing. Shameful.
As I write this the obituaries are flooding in:
It’s long past time to get off this sinking ship!
Git is not GitHub
GitHub has become synonymous with “source control” and I worry too many users don’t know that Git is not GitHub. The core technology of Git is open source. It’s distributed, meaning that all repositories are equal. Git works without a centralised service. Such a practice is a construct of social convenience. GitHub was a useful add-on. Microsoft has turned GitHub into an expensive liability.
But network effect…
Network effects are hard to topple but if anyone can do it, Microsoft can. GitHub’s fake star economy is worthless. GitHub is inundated with bots and drowning in slop and doing everything to encourage it. Microsoft is turning GitHub into the Moltbook of code, it ain’t for you and me anymore.
But continuous integration…
Your CI pipeline is over-engineered and GitHub Actions are an abomination (see: [1] [2]). Finding another solution is an absolute chore but do you trust GitHub to be reliable?
But more excuses…
Look, the ship is sinking! Sure, the water looks freezing. Don’t hang around and allow Microsoft to pull you under. You don’t need to move everything in one go. Start the process.
Alternatives
The nearest lifeboat to escape GitHub is another centralised Git forge. Just sign up and push your repo to the new upstream. Some services can automate the migration and maybe even import issues. Personally I’d leave issues behind in a tragic boating accident.
Edit: none of the options below are 100% rainbows and butterflies. They are not GitHub, that’s all I can vouch for. Do your own research etc.
Codeberg — a non-profit and community-led project with an established track record. This is the safe alternative that’ll stick around. It’s the flagship instance of Forgejo.
Tangled — an alpha stage start-up with interesting AT protocol integration. Worth considering for smaller solo projects.
Gitea — they offer cloud managed Git hosting. It’s the original open source project that Codeberg/Forgejo forked away from.
GitLab — enterprise grade, meaning it’s bloated and confusing but it’ll impress your boss. This could be the choice if you need multiple meetings to make the choice.
Bitbucket — trade one soul destroying corpo fun vacuum for another. Strongly discouraged, but Bitbucket does technically fit the anything but GitHub category.
Edit: Game of Trees, Radicle, and Sourcehut were suggested to me. I’ve no idea how they work, investigate yourself!
Self-hosted
If you’re cool like me, you or your organisation can self-host a Git forge with actions and releases. My recommendation is
When I said “Git is not GitHub” the same applies to other forges. Do you need those add-ons? Nothing is stopping you from raw-doggin’ Git over SSH:
git clone user@192.168.1.67:/path/to/repoHow you manage collaboration is another question. If Linux can be maintained by sending patches to an email mailing list, “doesn’t work at scale” arguments are skill issues. But seriously, a centralised Git forge is a decent compromise in my opinion. Maybe they collapse like GitHub in future. Always have an exit plan.
Just use anything but GitHub.
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Frequently Asked Questions
He says GitHub is racing toward zero nines of uptime, that its official status page paints a rosier picture than reality, and that Microsoft has applied its brand of enshittification since acquiring it.
He explains that Git is open source and distributed, so every repository is equal and Git works without a centralized service. GitHub was just a useful add-on that Microsoft turned into an expensive liability.
He lists Codeberg as the safe non-profit flagship Forgejo instance, plus Tangled, Gitea, GitLab, and Bitbucket, though he strongly discourages Bitbucket.
His recommendation for self-hosting a Git forge is Forgejo. He notes Gitea and GitLab also have self-hosted options, but GitLab is comparatively heavy.
