7 Best European Alternatives to GitHub (2026), Compared

The best European alternative to GitHub is Codeberg (Germany): a free, non-profit Forgejo forge with pull requests, CI, Pages and package registries, run on its own hardware in Berlin. For private or commercial code, pick CodeFloe – free private repositories and CI on Hetzner in Germany, run by a Swiss company.

This ranking is for developers and teams who like how GitHub works but no longer want their code with GitHub, Inc. in San Francisco, which Microsoft bought for $7.5 billion in stock. GitHub’s privacy statement says it processes personal data in several places including the United States, transfers EU data under standard contractual clauses and may share it with affiliates including Microsoft. I compared ten code hosting options with a European connection and kept seven, run from Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands.

What are the best European alternatives to GitHub?

1. Codeberg (Germany) – free, non-profit Forgejo host with 449,000+ users. Best for open-source projects.
2. CodeFloe (Switzerland, servers in Germany) – free private repositories, CI and Pages. Best for private projects at no cost.
3. Forgejo (self-hosted) – the open-source forge behind most of this list. Best for full control.
4. STACKIT Git (Germany) – dedicated instances with managed runners. Best for companies.
5. Codey (Switzerland) – managed Forgejo on a Swiss cloud from CHF 39 a month. Best for small teams without ops.
6. CodeTrunk (Netherlands) – private repositories from €8 a month on German servers. Best for cheap private hosting.
7. SourceHut (Netherlands) – minimalist, email-driven forge with strong CI. Best for mailing-list workflows.

GitHub alternatives compared

Prices from public pricing pages. Affiliate links and sponsored placements are labelled.

“Data hosted in” is based on each provider’s own hosting statement and a DNS and ASN lookup of its main domain (25 Oct 2026). For Forgejo it is wherever you install it.

How I compared the GitHub alternatives

The order is driven by how much of GitHub you keep after switching, then by sovereignty, then by price. I weighed five things:

• Jurisdiction and ownership – where the operator is registered and where the servers are.
• Feature match – pull requests, issues, Actions-style CI, packages, Pages and import from GitHub.
• Private code – whether private and commercial repositories are allowed.
• Price – the free tier and what a small team pays.
• Maturity – size, track record and, where they exist, Trustpilot ratings.

I left out GitLab.com (run by GitLab Inc., listed on the US Nasdaq – though you can self-host GitLab in Europe), Bitbucket (Atlassian) and Gitee (China), whose operators are not European. Gitea Cloud is run by CommitGo, Inc. with no European seat stated, and RhodeCode signs as RhodeCode, Inc., so both are out. openCoDE is a GitLab platform run by ZenDiS for the German public sector, not for general use. All data comes from the providers’ own pricing, documentation, imprint and privacy pages and from Trustpilot, checked on 25 October 2026.

The best European alternatives to GitHub, reviewed

Each service gets the same treatment: who is behind it, what it replaces from GitHub and what it does not, and who should move to it.

1. Codeberg

The European home for open-source code – non-profit, free and community-owned

Codeberg is run by Codeberg e.V., a non-profit association in Berlin whose members elect the board. It says it is backed by 1,691 paying members and donations, with no large sponsor or venture capital; its blog dates its finances back to 2019. Most services run on Codeberg’s own hardware in a rented facility in Berlin, with backups and DDoS protection partly at netcup and Hetzner in Germany. Codeberg is also the umbrella organisation of Forgejo.

What users say. On Trustpilot Codeberg has 3.4/5 from only 4 reviews on an unclaimed profile – too few to mean much. GitHub itself scores 1.8/5 from 280 reviews.

What it replaces from GitHub – and what it doesn’t. You keep repositories, issues, pull requests, organisations, releases, a package and container registry, Codeberg Pages and a Weblate instance for translations. The migration tool imports issues, labels, wiki, releases and milestones from GitHub. What you lose: Codeberg is for free and open-source work only and does not offer private hosting (up to 100 MB of private content for contributors). Woodpecker CI needs a manual access request, and hosted Forgejo Actions is in limited open alpha. Crypto projects and heavily LLM-generated projects are no longer welcome.

Facts: HQ Germany (Berlin) · non-profit · free, membership from €24/year optional · 744,000+ projects, 449,000+ users · ask before exceeding 750 MiB Git or 1.5 GiB packages and LFS · runs on Forgejo.

Switching from GitHub: easy for public projects; CI needs an access request or your own runner.

My take: Codeberg is the most important European GitHub alternative: a real community, its own hardware and owned by its members. For an open-source project it replaces almost everything GitHub gives you for free. If your code is private, look further down. Best for: open-source maintainers who want a community-run home in Europe. Not for: companies with private code.

Visit codeberg.org →

2. CodeFloe

Free private repositories and CI on Forgejo, hosted on Hetzner in Germany

CodeFloe is operated by devXY GmbH in Baar, Switzerland (CEO Dr. Patrick Schratz) – outside the EU, but in EFTA. It says everything runs and is stored on Hetzner in Germany; sub-processors add Scaleway (France, Netherlands) for storage, backups and email, and bunny.net (Slovenia) as CDN, whose edge servers outside the EEA serve visitors there. Its infrastructure code is public.

What users say. No reviews on Trustpilot yet.

What it replaces from GitHub – and what it doesn’t. Everything Codeberg does not: private repositories, CI/CD, pages, package registries and preview environments, all free. CI runs on Crow CI with up to 4 CPUs and 7 GB per job, currently unmetered, and CodeFloe pledges not to train AI on your code. What you lose: quotas of 5 GB per repository, 5 GB of packages and 2 GB of LFS, no upgrade tiers yet, and no long track record.

Facts: Operator devXY GmbH, Switzerland · Hetzner, Germany · free tier with all features · paid tiers planned · Crow CI · runs on Forgejo.

Switching from GitHub: easy – the Forgejo importer works, and CI is ready without a request.

My take: CodeFloe is the closest thing to GitHub’s free plan in Europe: private repositories and CI on German servers. It is second only because it is young and small, so keep a mirror of anything important. Best for: developers with private projects who want a free tier in Europe. Not for: companies that need contracts and an SLA.

Visit codefloe.com →

3. Forgejo

Run your own GitHub-style forge – the software behind Codeberg

Forgejo is free software developed under the umbrella of Codeberg e.V., which holds its domains. It forked from Gitea in December 2022, became a hard fork in 2024 and is licensed GPL v3+ since version 9. Development is funded by volunteers, grants, donations and employers. Your data lives wherever you install it.

What users say. As free software it has no Trustpilot profile; it powers Codeberg, CodeFloe, Codey, CodeTrunk and, according to reseller innFactory, STACKIT Git.

What it replaces from GitHub – and what it doesn’t. Repositories, issues, pull requests, wikis, releases and a package registry with 23 formats. Forgejo Actions is designed to feel familiar and reads .github/workflows, but is not designed to be fully compatible, so expect small edits. What you lose: you run the server, updates, backups and CI runners yourself, and federation is still experimental.

Facts: Umbrella Codeberg e.V., Germany · GPL v3+ · v17.0.0 released 15 Oct 2026, LTS v15 supported to July 2027 · binary or container · SQLite, PostgreSQL or MySQL/MariaDB · free.

Switching from GitHub: moderate – installing is quick, maintenance is on you.

My take: Self-hosted Forgejo keeps more of GitHub than any hosted option and leaves nothing in someone else’s hands. It sits third only because you do the work. Codey and CodeTrunk run it for you. Best for: teams with ops skills who want complete control. Not for: anyone who wants zero maintenance.

Visit forgejo.org →

4. STACKIT Git

Dedicated Git instances with managed CI runners from a German cloud

STACKIT Git is sold by Schwarz Digits Cloud GmbH & Co. KG in Bad Friedrichshall, part of the Schwarz Group. Each customer gets a dedicated instance in STACKIT’s German data centres, available in the portal since April 2025; reseller innFactory says it is based on Forgejo.

What users say. No reviews on Trustpilot yet.

What it replaces from GitHub – and what it doesn’t. A private instance for up to 100 users with 10 GB of code and 120 GB of object storage, packages and documentation. STACKIT Pipelines claim about 90% GitHub Actions compatibility, with STACKIT-managed runners since March 2026, plus IdP integration, workflow approval and IP allowlists. What you lose: no free tier, no public community, and hourly rather than monthly prices on the product page.

Facts: Schwarz Digits, Germany · German data centres · Git-10 €0.02083/hour (about €15/month) · Git-100 €0.14/hour (about €102/month) · managed runners · no free tier.

Switching from GitHub: moderate – workflows mostly carry over, but users and runners need setting up.

My take: STACKIT Git is the most complete company option: GitHub plus Actions in a German cloud with managed runners. It sits fourth because it has no free tier and no public side, which is half of what GitHub is. Best for: companies that need a sovereign private GitHub with CI. Not for: open-source projects and hobbyists.

Visit stackit.com →

5. Codey

A managed Forgejo instance on a Swiss cloud

Codey comes from VSHN AG in Zurich, founded in 2014, 100% self-owned, ISO 27001-certified and with 40+ employees. Switzerland is outside the EU but in EFTA. Each customer gets an isolated instance on Cloudscale, a Swiss cloud with Swiss data centres.

What users say. No reviews on Trustpilot yet.

What it replaces from GitHub – and what it doesn’t. Your own Forgejo with Actions built in; VSHN handles backups, monitoring, patches and updates. The importer brings issues, pull requests, releases and LFS objects from GitHub. What you lose: no managed runner yet, only 2 users on Mini, and no guaranteed availability unless you add an SLA on Small or Medium.

Facts: VSHN AG, Switzerland · Cloudscale · Mini 39/month (2 users), Small 79 (10 users), Medium 148 (50 users), CHF or EUR 1:1, billed hourly · no minimum term.

Switching from GitHub: easy – VSHN says most teams run within a day.

My take: Codey is self-hosted Forgejo without the maintenance. It sits below STACKIT because you still bring your own runner. CHF 79 a month for 10 users is fair for a private, sovereign forge. Best for: small teams that want their own Forgejo without running it. Not for: teams that need hosted runners today.

Visit codey.ch →

6. CodeTrunk

Cheap private repositories on Forgejo, servers in Germany

CodeTrunk (formerly gitbuild.dev) is operated by StennMedia in Breda, Netherlands (KvK 99876302). Compute runs at netcup and backups at Hetzner, both in Germany, payments via Mollie in the Netherlands; it says it uses no US cloud.

What users say. No reviews on Trustpilot yet.

What it replaces from GitHub – and what it doesn’t. Private Forgejo repositories with pull requests, issues and GitHub import. What you lose: no hosted CI is described, the free plan has one private repository, and organisations need the per-seat Business plan.

Facts: StennMedia, Netherlands · netcup, Germany · Free: 1 private repo, 500 MB · Pro €8/month or €80/year (10 GB) · Business €18/seat/month · incl. 21% VAT.

Switching from GitHub: easy for code, moderate if you rely on Actions.

My take: CodeTrunk is a simple EU-only home for private code at a low price. Without hosted CI it replaces less of GitHub than the services above. Best for: freelancers who want cheap private repositories in the EU. Not for: teams that depend on hosted CI.

Visit codetrunk.eu →

7. SourceHut

A minimalist, email-driven forge – Dutch and fully open source

SourceHut is registered in Hoorn, Netherlands; its data protection officer is Drew DeVault. Data is mainly on servers SourceHut owns in a Dutch colocation facility, but encrypted off-site backups are stored in the United States and payments go through Stripe.

What users say. I found no Trustpilot profile.

What it replaces from GitHub – and what it doesn’t. Git and Mercurial hosting, CI (builds.sr.ht), mailing lists, tickets, wikis and static sites, all working without JavaScript. Review happens by emailed patches, not pull requests, and the service is still in public alpha.

Facts: Netherlands · €4, €8 or €12 a month excl. VAT, same features · most services free during alpha · financial aid available · 100% open source.

Switching from GitHub: hard – your team must adopt an email workflow.

My take: SourceHut is lightweight and paid for by its users, excellent for those who want that. It replaces the least of the GitHub workflow, so it is last. Best for: developers who like mailing-list workflows. Not for: teams used to pull requests.

Visit sourcehut.org →

What European code hosting costs compared with GitHub

Prices from each provider’s pricing page on 25 October 2026. STACKIT lists hourly prices; the monthly figure assumes 730 hours. STACKIT and Codey do not state whether VAT is included.

How to switch from GitHub to a European code host

1. Decide public or private. Open source fits Codeberg; private code needs CodeFloe, CodeTrunk, a managed instance or your own Forgejo.
2. Import with a token. Forgejo hosts import repositories, issues, labels and releases from GitHub with a personal access token – delete it afterwards.
3. Move your CI. Copy workflows to Forgejo Actions or STACKIT Pipelines, expect small edits, and register a runner where none is hosted.
4. Update remotes and links. Change git remotes, package URLs and badges.
5. Archive the GitHub repository. Leave it read-only with a pointer to the new home.

GitHub alternatives: FAQ

My verdict: which European code host to switch to

For open source, move to Codeberg: free, non-profit, its own hardware in Berlin and the biggest European community. For private projects at no cost, CodeFloe. Companies that want managed CI in a German cloud should pick STACKIT Git, and small teams that want their own instance without ops Codey.

If you have the skills, self-hosted Forgejo is the most future-proof choice, because every Forgejo host can import from it later. Keep the GitHub repository archived for a while so nobody loses your project.