Repository Management Services

bledha

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Feb 22, 2017
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With the recent Microsoft acquisition of GitHub, I was reminded that indeed I would like to use a service to assist with version tracking, public presence of my coding and development projects, and documentation workflows. Any more senior programmers, developers and engineers out there that can suggest what they think is best suited to a lone developer/coder (for now) who is looking to implement the considerations listed above? Choices so far are between the following services: GitHub, Bitbucket and GitLab? There are a lot of vs. this and that articles online but I would rather engage the community, as I don't get great information from these comparative "pieces" and this community has never let me down with informative opinions!

Thanks a lot!
 

Biowarejak

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Mar 6, 2017
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With the recent Microsoft acquisition of GitHub, I was reminded that indeed I would like to use a service to assist with version tracking, public presence of my coding and development projects, and documentation workflows. Any more senior programmers, developers and engineers out there that can suggest what they think is best suited to a lone developer/coder (for now) who is looking to implement the considerations listed above? Choices so far are between the following services: GitHub, Bitbucket and GitLab? There are a lot of vs. this and that articles online but I would rather engage the community, as I don't get great information from these comparative "pieces" and this community has never let me down with informative opinions!

Thanks a lot!
I've personally always found GitHub to be the easiest to use. I am a student though and taking advantage of the free private repositories though.
 

jØrd

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Git Lab. Enough people have jumped ship that their shit had a hard time keeping up on day 1. Also, if you so choose, you can self host your own git lab instance instead of hosting it on their infrastructure.

EDIT: with that being said, were as of yet to see MS ruin Github. If / when they do you can always jump ship at that point in time, or have your origin in one place and mirror to the other. Provided your not super bought into the propriety deployment tools and the like GitHub offer then its generally super easy to do. The best thing to do right now might be to just make sure you have an up to date instance of all your repos locally and just wait and see.
 
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bledha

Airflow Optimizer
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Feb 22, 2017
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taking advantage of the free private repositories though.

How are the free redeposits on GitHub? I am a student too, I have been working in the IT field for years but have decided to go back to do my masters degree in order to up my game, so to speak, with more modern practices and processes. I read GitHub wasn't great for the free repos (and not much information detailed online without signing up) but I would appreciate your input on this point! Thanks @Biowarejak!

Git Lab. Enough people have jumped ship that their shit had a hard time keeping up on day 1. Also, if you so choose, you can self host your own git lab instance instead of hosting it on their infrastructure. EDIT: with that being said, were as of yet to see MS ruin Github.

Thanks for your input @jØrd, any clear reasons you prefer GitLab over the others? For free users, how do you think it compares to the others? I would look into the paid accounts but my goodness are they ever pricey - which I could see solid teams justifying but I am still just trying to build a solid solo profile. With that being said, you think Microsoft will ruin GitHub? I see them making several acquisitions these past few years to broaden their portfolio of services but I am not in the know for how they modified or changed these services. Your thoughts are appreciated!

Senior dev checking in. GitHub is fine. People are over reacting. Dev drama.

@Runamok81, thank you very much for the note of sobriety - I know people can initially freak out with these sorts of things. I understand drama makes good headlines, but since I am not sure how GitHub was before I can't be sure how it would change. Do you expect any changes? I remember when Microsoft bought LinkedIn (for something like over 20 billion) in 2016, and I haven't noticed any user-facing changes. Maybe they just take your private info now instead of whatever company owned it first...

Anyway, thank you for the input!
 

jØrd

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Thanks for your input @jØrd, any clear reasons you prefer GitLab over the others? For free users, how do you think it compares to the others? I would look into the paid accounts but my goodness are they ever pricey - which I could see solid teams justifying but I am still just trying to build a solid solo profile. With that being said, you think Microsoft will ruin GitHub? I see them making several acquisitions these past few years to broaden their portfolio of services but I am not in the know for how they modified or changed these services. Your thoughts are appreciated!

I prefer GitLab because I can self host it, beyond that I dont have a strong preference either way. As for weather or not MS will ruin GitHub, probably not imo. GItHub wernt in the best state before the acquisition either. That said they now own Electron and Atom, products that somewhat compete w/ existing MS offerings. Time will tell I guess but im not going to write off github yet.
 

Biowarejak

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How are the free redeposits on GitHub? I am a student too, I have been working in the IT field for years but have decided to go back to do my masters degree in order to up my game, so to speak, with more modern practices and processes. I read GitHub wasn't great for the free repos (and not much information detailed online without signing up) but I would appreciate your input on this point! Thanks @Biowarejak!
They're pretty much the same as the private repos that you'd pay for :) Plus as a student, you get access to a TON of free software. Here's some of the information.
 

comagoosie

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May 8, 2018
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I'd agree with others here that Github will continue to be _the_ goto opensource hub. There was speculation that Microsoft bought Github as Microsoft thought they could better monetize the enterprise edition with their smorgasbord of partners. Whatever the reason, I'll continue with my preference:

- Github for open source projects
- Bitbucket for private hosting for teams who don't like self hosting
- Else Gitea for lightweight, self-hosted, and private repos
 

jØrd

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The Linux foundation is a trade body and MS pay them a metric fuckton of money to be a member. In this instance at least this comes as no surprise, this is MS getting value for their membership.
 
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ignsvn

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Been using both Github & Bitbucket. But lately running more on Bitbucket, because some of the projects are not open source.
 
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bledha

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Feb 22, 2017
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So far the student developer pack on GitHub seems to be pretty well featured - a lot of great options that can keep getting extended as long as my educational email stays active it seems. Others should check out if they can take advantage of these offers if they still have a .edu account going (or @youruniversity) at the link provided by @Biowarejak above, or here.

It is super helpful for anyone really, not just student. Professionals who haven't worked with some of the bundled services can really get stuck in and learn the stuff.

But lately running more on Bitbucket
@ignsvn, how are the private offerings on Bitbucket?
 
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ignsvn

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@ignsvn, how are the private offerings on Bitbucket?

To be fair, other than personal project (I'm the only person who access my repo), I only use it for small team project (2-3 devs).

Also, we only do simple git operations so far: commit, push, pull, merge.. All in all it was an OK experience, I guess.
 
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Aichon

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Oct 16, 2017
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Not much to add here, other than mentioning that we use GitLab at work and that I have no complaints.

I agree with the others that the concerns about the Microsoft acquisition of Github are likely overstated, at least in the short-term. Microsoft tends to move slowly when it comes to changing products they acquire. That said, as I look back towards past acquisitions, Microsoft seems to have a mixed track record. Skype and LinkedIn slowly grew worse after their acquisitions (at least in my opinion), but Xamarin seems to have some decent buzz since the acquisition (though I'll admit I don't pay that area much attention, so I could be mistaken). Unless you have concerns about their data collection/tracking/telemetry practices expanding to Github (admittedly, I'm in this camp), I can't think of anything they'd realistically do in the short-term that'd make Github seem less attractive to its current user base.
 
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