3 Best European GitHub Alternatives in 2026

Forgejo is an open-source self-hosted software forge for Git repositories, issue tracking, pull requests, CI/CD pipelines, and package registries — governed by Codeberg e.V., a German democratic non-profit. Forked from Gitea in 2022 over governance concerns, it uses an order of magnitude fewer server resources than comparable forges and can run on a Raspberry Pi or minimal VPS.

Installation takes minutes on any Linux server or container host. ActivityPub federation is in active development to enable cross-instance interactions — following repositories and commenting on issues across independent Forgejo servers. A GitHub-compatible interface and API simplify migration from proprietary platforms without workflow disruption.

Key benefits:

• Full Git hosting — repositories, branches, tags, and LFS with a familiar web interface
• Issue tracking and PRs with labels, milestones, projects, and code review workflows
• Forgejo Actions — built-in CI/CD compatible with GitHub Actions workflow syntax
• Package registry for Docker, npm, PyPI, Maven, Cargo, and other formats
• ActivityPub federation for cross-instance interactions across the Fediverse
• Minimal resource footprint — runs comfortably on a Raspberry Pi or 1-vCPU VPS
• MIT licensed and governed by Codeberg e.V., a non-profit with no corporate investors

Forgejo is maintained by Codeberg e.V., a democratic non-profit registered in Berlin, Germany, under German law and GDPR. The project uses only Free Software for its own development and is hosted on Codeberg — not GitHub. Self-hosted deployments keep all code, issues, and CI data on infrastructure you control, with no telemetry by default.

The upstream project behind Codeberg, Europe's largest community-run Git platform — and the default forge for teams requiring full infrastructure ownership.

Codeberg is a non-profit Git hosting platform run by Codeberg e.V., a registered German association providing free, community-owned hosting for free and open-source software. Launched in 2019 and based in Berlin, it runs on the Forgejo engine (a Gitea community fork) and is funded entirely by members and donations.

The platform offers public and private repositories, issue tracking, pull requests, a built-in CI service (Codeberg CI, based on Woodpecker), package registries, static site hosting through Codeberg Pages and federated identity through its own account system. No commercial tier exists — all features are free for FOSS projects that align with the charter.

Key benefits:

• Unlimited free repositories for free and open-source projects aligned with the charter
• Forgejo-powered Git hosting with issues, pull requests, wiki and project boards
• Codeberg CI based on Woodpecker, running free for member and FOSS repositories
• Codeberg Pages for static-site hosting from any repository branch
• Package registry for npm, Maven, PyPI, Composer, NuGet, Helm and container images
• Federated activity streams and ongoing ForgeFed / ActivityPub integration work
• Non-profit governance with member voting, public finances and transparent moderation

Codeberg is operated by Codeberg e.V., headquartered in Berlin, Germany, and hosts all repositories on servers in the European Union under GDPR and German association law. The non-profit is financed by membership fees and donations, with no advertising, tracking or AI training on user code.

Trusted by thousands of maintainers — including F-Droid, LibreOffice contributors and Framasoft projects — Codeberg is the reference choice for developers who want non-commercial, EU-sovereign Git hosting.