Gitea vs Soft Serve
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
Soft Serve
Self-hostable Git server for the command line
| Feature | Gitea | Soft Serve |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | ≈5-minute setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 100 · Excellent | 91 · Excellent |
| Category | Git Hosting & Forges | Git Hosting & Forges |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Language | Go | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 256 MB | 64 MB |
| Deployment | docker, binary, bare-metal | docker, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 58,142 | ★ 7,228 |
| First released | 2016 | 2021 |
| Replaces | GitHub, GitLab | GitHub |
What are Gitea and Soft Serve?
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
Soft Serve
Soft Serve is a tasteful, self-hostable Git server with a built-in terminal UI accessible over SSH. It makes hosting Git repositories simple without a web interface.
- SSH terminal UI
- Single binary server
- Repository browsing in terminal
- Simple access control
Gitea vs Soft Serve: key differences
Both projects are written in Go. Soft Serve is the lighter option, starting around 64 MB of RAM against 256 MB for Gitea. Gitea is the more established project (first released 2016), while Soft Serve arrived in 2021. Gitea has the considerably larger community, at 58,142 GitHub stars versus 7,228.
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 Soft Serve if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Mature project with 7.2k GitHub stars
Frequently asked questions
Is Gitea or Soft Serve 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 Soft Serve free and open-source?
Yes. Gitea is licensed under MIT and Soft Serve under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Gitea and Soft Serve with Docker?
Gitea: yes. Soft Serve: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Gitea or Soft Serve?
Soft Serve has the smaller minimum footprint at 64 MB of RAM, compared to about 256 MB for Gitea. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.