Gogs Alternatives for Self-Hosted Git

Gogs is a small self-hosted Git service written in Go, and it still gets releases. The Gogs releases page lists 0.14.3 from June 7, 2026 as the latest, after 0.14.1 and 0.14.2 earlier in the year. The 0.14.0 build was pulled because SSH clones hung. The 0.14.3 notes are almost all security work: 22 fixes covering remote code execution, arbitrary file writes, Git LFS data leaking across repositories, SSRF and XSS.

That list is the main reason people search for a replacement. The other is features. Gogs has repositories, issues, pull requests, wikis and webhooks, but no built-in CI runner and no package registry, two things its forks added years ago. The seven picks start with those forks, then cover heavier forges, a minimal SSH server, a review-first tool and a hosted option.

Prices below are as of November 8, 2026. Our method is on How we review tools.

Quick comparison

Gitea

Gitea began as a Gogs fork in November 2016 and the two still share a layout and config style. Ten years on, the gap is large. Gitea Actions runs workflows that its docs call similar and mostly compatible with GitHub Actions, and there is a package registry, project boards and a much busier release cycle.

The Gitea releases page shows v28.0.0 on September 29, v28.1.0 on October 6, v28.2.0 on October 18 and v28.3.0, with 20 security fixes, on November 1, 2026, after the version numbers jumped from 1.27 to 28. The open source edition stays MIT with unlimited users. Our Gitea alternatives page goes further if Gitea is already on your shortlist.

Best for: Gogs admins who want the same lightweight model plus CI, packages and frequent security releases.

Pricing:

• Open source: free, MIT, unlimited users and repositories
• Enterprise: $9.50 per user a month (discounted from $19), one-year commitment, 30-day trial
• Gitea Cloud: price on request

Watch out for:

• Gitea's trademark and domains sit with a for-profit company, Gitea Ltd, which is why Forgejo split off in 2022.
• Gitea Cloud is priced on request, per the Gitea pricing page, so hosted Gitea means talking to sales.

Official site: Gitea.

Forgejo

Forgejo is Gogs' grandchild. It forked from Gitea in October 2022, became a hard fork in early 2024, and is run under the German non-profit Codeberg e.V. rather than a company. Day to day it feels like Gitea: same kind of web UI, Forgejo Actions for CI, packages and a single binary.

Release support is spelled out on the Forgejo releases page. Stable v17.0.1, from October 26, 2026, is supported until January 28, 2027, and the LTS line, v15.0.11, until July 15, 2027. Since v9.0 new code is GPLv3 or later, while most of the code base is still MIT.

Best for: Self-hosters who left Gogs over governance worries and want a forge no company controls.

Pricing:

• Free software, no paid edition
• Your only cost is the server

Watch out for:

• Stable releases are supported for about three months, so plan regular upgrades or stay on the LTS line.
• Copyleft for new code matters if you ship a modified build to customers.

Official site: Forgejo.

OneDev

OneDev puts Git hosting, CI/CD, a package registry, code search and a kanban board that updates itself from commits into one Java server. Pipelines are built in a GUI editor that writes YAML for you, which the OneDev README sums up as CI/CD as code without writing code. It is MIT licensed with about 15.3k stars.

The free Community edition already includes the CI engine, LDAP and Active Directory, SSO and 2FA, which Gogs users usually bolt on separately. Enterprise adds high availability, cross-project search, security scanning, Kubernetes workspaces and audit logs.

Best for: Small teams that want CI and a Git server in one install without adding Jenkins or Drone.

Pricing:

• Community: free
• Enterprise: $6 per user per month, minimum 12 user-months
• Disabled users, service accounts and AI users are not counted

Watch out for:

• There is no hosted plan, so you run the server yourself.
• Issues and pull requests go to the project's own server at code.onedev.io, not GitHub, which can slow outside contributions.

Official site: OneDev.

GitLab

GitLab is the opposite of Gogs in size, and that is the point for teams that outgrew it. Pipelines, a container and package registry, merge request approvals, issue boards and security scanning are one product, self-managed or on GitLab.com. The free tier includes the CI runner Gogs never had.

Budget for hardware. The GitLab requirements page sets 8 vCPU and 16 GB of RAM as the single-node baseline, with 8 GB as a floor in memory-constrained setups. Gogs runs on far smaller machines than that.

Best for: Teams of dozens or more that want CI/CD, security scanning and planning in one place.

Pricing:

• Free: $0, self-managed or GitLab.com (5 users per private group on GitLab.com)
• Premium: $29 per user per month, billed annually
• Ultimate: contact sales

Watch out for:

• Memory use rules out the small VPS or Raspberry Pi that many Gogs installs live on.
• Going from Free to Premium jumps straight to $29 per user per month, billed annually.

Official site: GitLab.

Soft Serve

Charm's Soft Serve keeps the part of Gogs some people liked best: one small binary. You start soft, and it serves Git over SSH, HTTP and the Git protocol, with Git LFS, public and private repos, collaborators and access tokens, per the Soft Serve README. Browsing happens in a terminal UI over SSH.

It is MIT licensed with about 7.2k stars, and v0.12.4 came out on October 23, 2026. Admin is done through SSH commands, so a new repo is a push away.

Best for: Solo developers and small homelabs who want private Git hosting with almost nothing to maintain.

Pricing:

• Free, MIT

Watch out for:

• There is no web interface for browsing code in a browser, which non-terminal users will miss.
• It is a Git server, not a forge. There are no issues or pull requests, so review happens elsewhere.

Official site: Soft Serve.

Gerrit

Gerrit is for teams whose problem with Gogs is review, not hosting. Each commit becomes a change that collects patchsets, review scores and submit rules. It runs from a single gerrit.war on Java and is Apache 2.0 licensed.

The current stable release is 3.14.5, per the Gerrit site, and 3.15 is in development with Java 25 as its requirement. Releases 3.11 and older are end of life.

Best for: Engineering teams that want strict, per-commit code review with voting and gated merges.

Pricing:

• Free, Apache 2.0

Watch out for:

• The review flow is different from pull requests, with amended commits and Change-Id footers, so expect a learning curve.
• It covers review and hosting only. Issues, wikis and CI need separate tools.

Official site: Gerrit.

Codeberg

If what you want is to stop patching a server, Codeberg hosts Forgejo for you. The Berlin non-profit Codeberg e.V. runs it mostly on its own hardware, with Woodpecker CI for builds and Weblate for translations, per the Codeberg FAQ. Signing up is free and membership is optional.

It suits open source projects that used a public Gogs instance. Our Codeberg alternatives page covers hosts with fewer rules.

Best for: Open source projects that want a Gogs-like forge without running one.

Pricing:

• Free; funded by donations and optional membership
• Ask before passing 750 MiB of Git storage or 1.5 GiB of packages and LFS

Watch out for:

• Only free software is welcome. Private content is capped at 100 MB per contributor and private commercial hosting is ruled out.
• CI is not on by default; Woodpecker access is requested through a form.

Official site: Codeberg.

How to choose

When to stay with Gogs

Gogs is still fine for a private, single-team server behind a VPN where you only need repos, issues and pull requests. If you stay, upgrade to 0.14.3 or later now: the 0.14.3 notes include remote code execution and privilege escalation fixes. Building it yourself needs Go 1.25 since 0.14.1, and it stays lighter than any other web forge on this list.

Frequently asked questions