Pagure vs SourceHut
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted git hosting & forges options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
SourceHut
The hacker's forge, 100% free and open source
| Feature | Pagure | SourceHut |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Read-the-docs project | Read-the-docs project |
| Category | Git Hosting & Forges | Git Hosting & Forges |
| License | GPL-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Language | Python | Python |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Hard |
| Min. RAM | 1,024 MB | 1,024 MB |
| Deployment | bare-metal, source | bare-metal, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 900 | ★ 2,000 |
| First released | 2015 | 2018 |
| Replaces | GitHub, GitLab | GitHub, GitLab |
What are Pagure and SourceHut?
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
SourceHut
SourceHut is a software development suite consisting of Git/Mercurial hosting, mailing lists, CI, bug tracking, and more. It is designed to be lightweight, JavaScript-free, and email-driven.
- Email-driven workflow
- No JavaScript required
- Git and Mercurial support
- Integrated CI builds
Pagure vs SourceHut: key differences
Both projects are written in Python. Licensing differs — GPL-2.0 for Pagure versus AGPL-3.0 for SourceHut. Pagure is the more established project (first released 2015), while SourceHut arrived in 2018. SourceHut has the considerably larger community, at 2,000 GitHub stars versus 900.
Why pick each one
Choose SourceHut if…
- Released under the AGPL-3.0 license
- Active community (2k GitHub stars)
- Written in Python
Frequently asked questions
Is Pagure or SourceHut better?
Neither is universally better. SourceHut has the larger community; both share a hard setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Pagure and SourceHut free and open-source?
Yes. Pagure is licensed under GPL-2.0 and SourceHut under AGPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Pagure and SourceHut with Docker?
Pagure: check the project docs for container support. SourceHut: check the project docs for container support.