Self-Hosted Git Forges

The candidates

• ★ Forgejo — community fork of Gitea; copyleft license; Codeberg's choice. Active, friendly, fast. The default for new self-hosted forges in 2026.
  • https://codeberg.org/forgejo/forgejo
• ★ Gitea — original Go forge; lightweight; mature; many integrations.
  • https://github.com/go-gitea/gitea
• GitLab Community Edition — full-featured; CI / Pages / registry / wiki built in. Heavyweight.
  • https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab
• OneDev — newer; CI built in; clean UI.
  • https://github.com/theonedev/onedev
• Sourcehut (sr.ht) — minimalist; mailing-list-shaped workflow; runs on any hosting.
  • https://git.sr.ht/
• Codeberg — hosted Forgejo for OSS; not self-hosted but worth knowing.
• Phabricator / Phorge — older; Phorge is the maintained fork.
  • https://we.phorge.it/

Forgejo vs. Gitea (the active fork question)

• ★ Forgejo — copyleft license; community-governed; pure OSS focus.
• Gitea — the original; now backed by a for-profit company (Gitea Ltd) which prompted the Forgejo fork in 2022.
• API-compatible; you can switch back and forth.
• For new installs: pick Forgejo unless you have a specific reason for Gitea.

CI runners that pair with these

• ★ Gitea Actions / Forgejo Actions — GitHub-Actions-compatible runner; reuses YAML workflows from GitHub.
• act_runner — official runner for Gitea / Forgejo Actions.
  • https://gitea.com/gitea/act_runner
• Drone — older Gitea-friendly CI.
  • https://github.com/harness/drone
• Woodpecker CI — Drone fork; community-maintained.
  • https://github.com/woodpecker-ci/woodpecker
• GitLab Runner — for GitLab CE.
• Forgejo Runner — see above.

Bundled features worth knowing (Forgejo / Gitea)

• Issues / PRs / Wikis / Releases — GitHub-shape, all included.
• Container Registry — bundled OCI registry; great for personal projects.
• Package Registry — npm / Maven / NuGet / RubyGems / PyPI / Composer / Helm / generic.
• Code search — full-text via bleve.
• Git LFS — built in.
• Webhooks — Slack / Discord / Telegram / generic.
• Federation (ActivityPub) — Forgejo experimenting with cross-forge federation.

Migration tools

• gitea migrate — pull repos + issues from GitHub / GitLab / others into Gitea / Forgejo.
• GitHub Repo Mirror — keep a Forgejo / Gitea mirror of an upstream GitHub repo.
• gh CLI + scripting for bulk migrations.

Discovery

• Awesome Forgejo / Awesome Gitea community lists for plugins / themes / runners.

Patterns to adopt

• ★ Forgejo + act_runner in 2026 for new self-host.
• Use the bundled registry for personal / team Docker / npm / pip packages — saves a separate Harbor / GHCR instance.
• Mirror critical upstream repos to your Forgejo so you can build even if GitHub is down.
• Pin runner versions — runner / server compatibility matters for Actions.
• Backups — DB + repo dir + LFS storage. Restic to R2 daily.
• Run behind Tailscale or Cloudflare Access for personal / small-team forges.

Pick this if…

• Default new self-host: Forgejo.
• Existing Gitea install: stay; it works.
• Need full CI / Pages / Registry / Wiki integrated like GitHub: GitLab CE.
• Mailing-list-flavored workflow: Sourcehut.
• Just need git for personal projects: Forgejo.