Gitea
Git Hosting & ForgesLightweight self-hosted Git service
Replaces GitHub, GitLab
Best Lightweight Git Hosting & Forges for self-hosting
The 10 best Lightweight git hosting & forges you can self-host, ranked by community traction.
Gogs
Git Hosting & ForgesPainless self-hosted Git service
Replaces GitHub, Bitbucket
Soft Serve
Git Hosting & ForgesSelf-hostable Git server for the command line
Replaces GitHub
Forgejo
Git Hosting & ForgesCommunity-driven self-hosted software forge
Replaces GitHub, GitLab
Athens
Git Hosting & ForgesSelf-hosted Go module proxy
Replaces JFrog Artifactory
SourceHut
Git Hosting & ForgesThe hacker's forge, 100% free and open source
Replaces GitHub, GitLab
Gitea Mirror
Git Hosting & ForgesAutomatically mirror GitHub repositories to a Gitea server
Replaces GitHub
GitPrep
Git Hosting & ForgesPortable GitHub clone in Perl
Replaces GitHub
Gitea Pages Deploy
Git Hosting & ForgesStatic site hosting server for Git repositories
Replaces GitHub Pages, Netlify
Forgejo Runner
Git Hosting & ForgesCI runner for Forgejo Actions
Replaces GitHub Actions
No apps match these filters.
At a glance
| App | Deploy effort | Difficulty | Min. RAM | License | ★ Stars |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gitea | ≈5-minute setup | Easy | 256 MB | MIT | 58,484 |
| Gogs | Under-an-hour setup | Easy | 128 MB | MIT | 47,868 |
| Soft Serve | Under-an-hour setup | Easy | 64 MB | MIT | 7,255 |
| Forgejo | Under-an-hour setup | Easy | 256 MB | GPL-3.0 | 5,000 |
| Athens | Under-an-hour setup | Medium | 256 MB | MIT | 4,806 |
| SourceHut | Read-the-docs project | Hard | 1,024 MB | AGPL-3.0 | 2,000 |
| Gitea Mirror | Under-an-hour setup | Easy | 256 MB | MIT | 1,487 |
| GitPrep | Read-the-docs project | Easy | 128 MB | MIT | 934 |
| Gitea Pages Deploy | Under-an-hour setup | Medium | 128 MB | Apache-2.0 | 400 |
| Forgejo Runner | Under-an-hour setup | Medium | 256 MB | MIT | 300 |
Quick picks
- Most adopted: Gitea (58,484 GitHub stars).
- Lightest footprint: Soft Serve (from 64 MB RAM, against 1,024 MB for the heaviest here).
- Fastest to deploy: Gitea (verified single-container compose).
- Licensing: 7 of 10 use MIT; check the rest individually if you plan to modify and redistribute.
Every option here is open-source and self-hostable, tagged Lightweight within the git hosting & forges category. Deploy effort is graded from published container recipes, not vendor claims — see the methodology.