"Why X are doing Y" articles like these pretend that the premise of "X are doing Y" is true, conveniently skipping to the "Why" before proving that the premise is even accurate in any meaningful way.
This is why I never buy headlines that start out with "Why".
> developers are ditching
Proceeds to list but a handful of remotely meaningful repos against the hundreds of thousands on there
Our CI for our entire org at https://github.com/lightningdevkit was turned off for 3 weeks because an outside contributor who was wrongfully banned made a PR. After multiple appeals we received no explanation and was told it was a permanent ban until we made a stir on twitter. They sadly are no longer a good place to work.
Currently I self-host Gitea [0], use its registry for Docker, NPM etc and act runners [1] for github actions alternative, everything secured under tailnet.
I'm extremely satisfied with that setup. It is batteries included & fire and forget.
Now I use Github only as backup by mirroring my self hosted repos.
Not GP. Probably less dependencies on github, e.g. actions which sometimes don't work. This way github is a "dumb backup".
I selfhost forgejo (gitea fork) on home sever (nuc), similar setup with tailscale. I was planning to setup git mirror on a remote VM for backup, but since I am the only one using it and have everything on dev laptop and remote backups of nuc server I didn't bother to do that (I know I still should).
The self hosting will still be there and working as expected no matter what GH does (fails... again, DMCAs the repo, bans the account, etc.). Self hosting isn't only about being the only one with the data, it's also for the independence aspect. GH as a backup doesn't hinder the independence. Network effects are strong and make a lot of developers still have a GH presence as a secondary platform.
The evolution is when one can finally fully disconnect from GH, the main self hosted platform will continue to operate as if nothing happened.
A migration can have a period of parallel running.
It reminds me of the time where I deployed Gitea for self-hosting my git projects. In the end, nobody wanted to use it beyond myself. I would love to have a true federation protocol for Git, to decentralize the solution further.
Why don't open source alternatives just copy the UI to make it easier to switch? Everyone knows the GitHub UI and it's intuitive. I'm happy to get more privacy and freedom, you don't have to make a worse design just to be different.
Fluxer figured this out and they're the best discord replacement imo.
I think they have the same interface. Pull requests are renamed to merge requests, that's all the difference I see. Wait for github to reshuffle the ui in a redesign churn.
Until you have to work with stale GHAS tool configurations, remember whether a project uses rulesets or branch settings or find that comment you wrote on a PR (and then learn that the new PR "experience" fucking hides them above a certain threshold). Those are just the issues I encounter in a typical week.
I’m not disputing how intuitive the GitHub interface is, but seriously, why is it so hard for technical professionals to set aside 10–20 minutes of their time to learn a new interface? Why has this even become an issue worth discussing?
For private code, it just feels safer to self host that -- ideally behind wireguard for an extra layer of security.
For public code hosting, GitHub have banned too many people/projects for comfort. From security researchers to 18+ game devs, too many have been wrongfully banned.
Not good but that’s unsurprising since Thread’s value proposition is indistinguishable from twitter’s. Mastadon and bluesky seem to have healthy userbases though
Do they? Or is it that a new account is opened every second? Because I’ve been seeing so many spammers and scammers that those numbers have to be skewed.
Yes, but the thing is just that if people are looking around for new providers it's an opportunity for alternative systems to attract attention and users.
Did we all forget that GitHub’s military-industrial complex owners over at Microsoft made sure to send the “business as usual” signal to the USG when they refused to stop helping ICE violate human rights en masse?
This was during the kidnap-and-rape-kids-in-cages days and before they started a general policy of kidnapping and/or summarily executing law-abiding citizens in the street. There are more reasons now to disassociate with collaborators with the US federal government than ever. I guess I could say I dropped GitHub before it was cool?
Microsoft is a morally bankrupt and despicable organization, just like Meta, Amazon, and modern Google and Apple. Anyone still doing ongoing business with them in 2026 is, imho, a fool.
I've ditched Github for all personal stuff. I just keep my repositories offline. I have a reliable backup process so what's the point in pushing it there? I don't give a shit about public profile, stars or any of that gamified crap and I certainly don't trust them.
Sentiment for/against GitHub aside...
"Why X are doing Y" articles like these pretend that the premise of "X are doing Y" is true, conveniently skipping to the "Why" before proving that the premise is even accurate in any meaningful way.
This is why I never buy headlines that start out with "Why".
> developers are ditching
Proceeds to list but a handful of remotely meaningful repos against the hundreds of thousands on there
> a handful of remotely meaningful repos
If there's a trend to leave a platform it won't start with the most entrenched users (largest repos).
You can just insert the word "some" as required.
Agreed, but the headline wouldn't travel nearly as well, if at all.
> Why some Americans are switching to soy
Would be more accurate than
> Why Americans are switching to soy
But wouldn't garner nearly the same amount of clicks.
There is conscious exaggeration in omitting 'some' - a fluff-blog click-farm trope I don't enjoy seeing in the developer space.
Our CI for our entire org at https://github.com/lightningdevkit was turned off for 3 weeks because an outside contributor who was wrongfully banned made a PR. After multiple appeals we received no explanation and was told it was a permanent ban until we made a stir on twitter. They sadly are no longer a good place to work.
It's been 9 months since I ditched Github.
Currently I self-host Gitea [0], use its registry for Docker, NPM etc and act runners [1] for github actions alternative, everything secured under tailnet.
I'm extremely satisfied with that setup. It is batteries included & fire and forget.
Now I use Github only as backup by mirroring my self hosted repos.
[0] https://gitea.com
[1] https://docs.gitea.com/usage/actions/act-runner
You use github as a backup, why bother self-hosting then?
Because the existence and continued normal operation of the primary is not dependent upon the capricious whims or instability of GitHub.
Not GP. Probably less dependencies on github, e.g. actions which sometimes don't work. This way github is a "dumb backup".
I selfhost forgejo (gitea fork) on home sever (nuc), similar setup with tailscale. I was planning to setup git mirror on a remote VM for backup, but since I am the only one using it and have everything on dev laptop and remote backups of nuc server I didn't bother to do that (I know I still should).
Github is an extra layer of backup, among normal backups.
The self hosting will still be there and working as expected no matter what GH does (fails... again, DMCAs the repo, bans the account, etc.). Self hosting isn't only about being the only one with the data, it's also for the independence aspect. GH as a backup doesn't hinder the independence. Network effects are strong and make a lot of developers still have a GH presence as a secondary platform.
The evolution is when one can finally fully disconnect from GH, the main self hosted platform will continue to operate as if nothing happened.
A migration can have a period of parallel running.
It's pretty much broken by AI. Not only your private repos are not private, but also the LLM will leak them.
Mostly because developers (me included) don't like to be told we are being laid off due to AI that was trained on our free open-source hobby projects.
Anyone tried tangle as a replacement? Verdict?
It reminds me of the time where I deployed Gitea for self-hosting my git projects. In the end, nobody wanted to use it beyond myself. I would love to have a true federation protocol for Git, to decentralize the solution further.
+ predatory pricing hikes for AI
+ not honouring yearly commitments plans
Why don't open source alternatives just copy the UI to make it easier to switch? Everyone knows the GitHub UI and it's intuitive. I'm happy to get more privacy and freedom, you don't have to make a worse design just to be different.
Fluxer figured this out and they're the best discord replacement imo.
https://fluxer.app/
I think they have the same interface. Pull requests are renamed to merge requests, that's all the difference I see. Wait for github to reshuffle the ui in a redesign churn.
Acquiring github users may not be their highest priority.
>it's intuitive
Until you have to work with stale GHAS tool configurations, remember whether a project uses rulesets or branch settings or find that comment you wrote on a PR (and then learn that the new PR "experience" fucking hides them above a certain threshold). Those are just the issues I encounter in a typical week.
Inst gitea doing this?
> copy the UI
Good luck. The amount of features and screens on GitHub are vast aside from just those code / issues / PRs tabs.
I’m not disputing how intuitive the GitHub interface is, but seriously, why is it so hard for technical professionals to set aside 10–20 minutes of their time to learn a new interface? Why has this even become an issue worth discussing?
For private code, it just feels safer to self host that -- ideally behind wireguard for an extra layer of security.
For public code hosting, GitHub have banned too many people/projects for comfort. From security researchers to 18+ game devs, too many have been wrongfully banned.
Anyone has suggestions for hosting open source hobby projects managed with Mercurial.
Loved Bitbucket's Mercurial offering. Looking for a replacement.
I guess three nines availability is important.
Not even hitting 1 nine at the moment - https://mrshu.github.io/github-statuses/
I object!
The dashboard clearly says 89.15% uptime!
Who says nines need to be leading?
With enough precision in the time metric there are infinitely many nines!
Im just glad the wider world has finally snapped out of their GitHub mono culture trance.
Extreme generalization, most devs aren't ditching GitHub yet.
People are going to copy GitHub the way people copied Facebook… how is "Threads" doing again?
Not good but that’s unsurprising since Thread’s value proposition is indistinguishable from twitter’s. Mastadon and bluesky seem to have healthy userbases though
> One new user joins every second
Do they? Or is it that a new account is opened every second? Because I’ve been seeing so many spammers and scammers that those numbers have to be skewed.
So sad to see that no articles about this even mention Mercurial. This is a golden opportunity for Hg providers to shine.
I miss Bitbucket's mercurial offering.
this not a `git` failure per se...
Yes, but the thing is just that if people are looking around for new providers it's an opportunity for alternative systems to attract attention and users.
I understand what you convey, however, users are tired of the git GUI, not git itself.
self-hosted gitea/forgejo is still better
Did we all forget that GitHub’s military-industrial complex owners over at Microsoft made sure to send the “business as usual” signal to the USG when they refused to stop helping ICE violate human rights en masse?
This was during the kidnap-and-rape-kids-in-cages days and before they started a general policy of kidnapping and/or summarily executing law-abiding citizens in the street. There are more reasons now to disassociate with collaborators with the US federal government than ever. I guess I could say I dropped GitHub before it was cool?
https://github.blog/news-insights/company-news/github-and-us...
https://github.com/sneak
Microsoft is a morally bankrupt and despicable organization, just like Meta, Amazon, and modern Google and Apple. Anyone still doing ongoing business with them in 2026 is, imho, a fool.
Can’t go a day without propaganda on HN.
> Anyone still doing ongoing business with them in 2026 is, imho, a fool.
So that would be almost everyone.
I've ditched Github for all personal stuff. I just keep my repositories offline. I have a reliable backup process so what's the point in pushing it there? I don't give a shit about public profile, stars or any of that gamified crap and I certainly don't trust them.