Codeberg is a free, nonprofit Git hosting service for open-source projects, operated by Codeberg e.V. in Germany. It runs on Forgejo, the forge the same organization stewards, and it carries no ads and no tracking. Funding comes from donations and memberships rather than paid tiers or data collection, so the service answers to its community rather than to advertisers.
Reviewed by Gabriel Bachmann
Codeberg
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Threat level
Covered
A covered pick. Anyone can use it as a private drop-in, with no setup or know-how. Enough for most people. Threat levels
Our take
Codeberg is the easiest way to leave GitHub without becoming a sysadmin, because it hands you a full Forgejo forge as a hosted service with none of the upkeep. There are no ads and no trackers, which follows directly from its nonprofit structure: it is funded by the people who use it, so it has no reason to mine your code. The honest catch is scope. Codeberg is aimed squarely at open source and public projects, so it is not a home for large proprietary or commercial setups, and you lean on shared community resources rather than a paid SLA. Pick Codeberg if you publish open-source work and want a principled host that respects it, and run your own Forgejo instance instead if your code is closed or your needs are heavy.
Codeberg alternatives
GitLab CE Full DevOps platform whose Community Edition is open source under the MIT license and self-hostable, with a hosted cloud option too. Based in the US.
Forgejo Community-driven, self-hosted Git forge forked from Gitea and stewarded by Codeberg e.V. Lightweight and copyleft, built to be owned by the people who run it.
SourceHut Minimalist, fully open-source forge built around an email-driven workflow, with no required JavaScript. Available as paid hosting or self-hosted. Based in the US.
Frequently asked
- Is Codeberg really free?
- Yes. Codeberg is run by a nonprofit, Codeberg e.V., and funded by donations and memberships rather than ads or paid tiers. There is no business model that depends on mining your repositories or selling a profile of you, which is the whole point of a community-run host.
- Who can host code on Codeberg?
- Codeberg is built for free and open-source projects. Public repositories are welcome, and the service is run on the understanding that what lives there benefits the commons. It is not the place for large proprietary or commercial setups, so a closed-source product team is a better fit for a self-hosted forge.
- What software does Codeberg run?
- Codeberg runs Forgejo, the community-governed forge it also stewards. So the experience you get on Codeberg is the same one you would get self-hosting Forgejo, minus the server maintenance. If you outgrow the hosted service, you can move to your own Forgejo instance without relearning anything.
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