Gitea vs Gitea Mirror
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted git hosting & forges options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Gitea
Lightweight self-hosted Git service
VS
Gitea Mirror
Automatically mirror GitHub repositories to a Gitea server
| Feature | Gitea | Gitea Mirror |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | ≈5-minute setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 100 · Excellent | 84 · Excellent |
| Category | Git Hosting & Forges | Git Hosting & Forges |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Language | Go | TypeScript |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 256 MB | 256 MB |
| Deployment | docker, binary, bare-metal | docker |
| GitHub stars | ★ 58,142 | ★ 1,452 |
| First released | 2016 | 2024 |
| Replaces | GitHub, GitLab | GitHub |
What are Gitea and Gitea Mirror?
Gitea
Gitea is a lightweight, self-hosted Git service offering repositories, issues, pull requests, and CI integration. It targets developers and teams who want a fast, easy-to-run code platform. It is deployed via Docker or a single binary.
- Fast single-binary Git server
- Issues, PRs and wiki
- Built-in package registry
- Gitea Actions CI
Gitea Mirror
Gitea Mirror Manager is a tool that automatically discovers and mirrors GitHub repositories and organizations into a self-hosted Gitea instance. It keeps local copies up to date on a schedule.
- Automatic GitHub mirroring
- Organization discovery
- Scheduled sync
- Web dashboard
Gitea vs Gitea Mirror: key differences
Gitea is written in Go, while Gitea Mirror is built with TypeScript. Gitea is the more established project (first released 2016), while Gitea Mirror arrived in 2024. Gitea has the considerably larger community, at 58,142 GitHub stars versus 1,452.
Why pick each one
Choose Gitea if…
- Very lightweight
- Easy to deploy
- Familiar GitHub-like UI
Watch out for
- Fewer features than GitLab
- Governance concerns spurred a fork
Choose Gitea Mirror if…
- Keeps offline backups
- Simple configuration
Watch out for
- One-way mirroring
- Requires Gitea
Frequently asked questions
Is Gitea or Gitea Mirror better?
Neither is universally better. Gitea has the larger community; both share a easy setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Gitea and Gitea Mirror free and open-source?
Yes. Gitea is licensed under MIT and Gitea Mirror under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Gitea and Gitea Mirror with Docker?
Gitea: yes. Gitea Mirror: yes.