Gitea vs Pagure
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
Pagure
Git-centered forge built by and for the Fedora community
| Feature | Gitea | Pagure |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | ≈5-minute setup | Read-the-docs project |
| Category | Git Hosting & Forges | Git Hosting & Forges |
| License | MIT | GPL-2.0 |
| Language | Go | Python |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Hard |
| Min. RAM | 256 MB | 1,024 MB |
| Deployment | docker, binary, bare-metal | bare-metal, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 58,142 | ★ 900 |
| First released | 2016 | 2015 |
| Replaces | GitHub, GitLab | GitHub, GitLab |
What are Gitea and Pagure?
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
Pagure
Pagure is a self-hosted Git forge with issue tracking, pull requests, and documentation hosting. Notably, project metadata such as issues is itself stored in Git repositories.
- Issues stored in Git
- Pull request workflow
- Documentation hosting
- Fedora community maintained
Gitea vs Pagure: key differences
Gitea is written in Go, while Pagure is built with Python. Licensing differs — MIT for Gitea versus GPL-2.0 for Pagure. Gitea is the lighter option, starting around 256 MB of RAM against 1,024 MB for Pagure. Gitea has the considerably larger community, at 58,142 GitHub stars versus 900. Gitea lists first-class Docker deployment; Pagure does not.
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
Frequently asked questions
Is Gitea or Pagure better?
Gitea is the stronger all-round pick: it has both the larger community and the simpler easy setup. Consider Pagure if its specific feature set fits your needs better.
Are Gitea and Pagure free and open-source?
Yes. Gitea is licensed under MIT and Pagure under GPL-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Gitea and Pagure with Docker?
Gitea: yes. Pagure: check the project docs for container support.
Which is lighter on resources, Gitea or Pagure?
Gitea has the smaller minimum footprint at 256 MB of RAM, compared to about 1,024 MB for Pagure. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.