Self-Hosted Version Control

The default, and the engine both projects' Docker guides show as their database example. It holds users, repository metadata, issues, pull requests, comments, and Actions run records, but not the Git repositories themselves, which are files in the data folder. Gitea needs PostgreSQL 12 or newer and Forgejo 14 or newer. It is the usual choice once more than a handful of people push at once, and the project's dump command bundles its contents with the repositories.

The simplest start: one file in the data folder and nothing else to run, so the whole instance is a single folder to back up. Gitea's own docs say SQLite does not scale well for a growing instance, and it suits a few people better than a team. Moving to PostgreSQL later means migrating the data, not flipping a setting, so choose it knowing the instance may stay small. Forgejo's official binary includes SQLite support.

Supported by both projects with the InnoDB engine: MySQL 8.0 or newer for Gitea and 8.4 or newer for Forgejo. It holds the same metadata as PostgreSQL, with no advantage for a new install, so pick it when MySQL already runs on the server and you would rather not add a second engine. Take its dump together with the data folder, since a restore needs both.

The default. A shared-vCPU server with 2 vCPUs and 4 GB of RAM costs about €19 a month, which is more than a small team's Git server needs and leaves room for PostgreSQL, package storage, and a few mirrors on the same box. Install Docker, run the Compose file with a real database password, and allow SSH for administration, HTTPS, and the host port you publish for Git over SSH. Repositories and the database live on the server's disk, so snapshots and dumps are your job.

The budget entry. The KVM 2 plan has 2 vCPUs, 8 GB of RAM, and 100 GB of NVMe at $8.99 a month on a two-year term, $14.99 at the standard rate, a comfortable size for a team Git server with room for packages and large files to grow. Root access is full and the panel adds weekly backups; still take your own dumps with the project's dump command, and set up HTTPS, the Git SSH port, and updates yourself.

A cloud VPS billed per second up to a monthly cap. A 2 GB Droplet is about $12 a month, with snapshots and a cloud firewall in the panel. Managed PostgreSQL, from about $15 a month, can take the metadata database off the Droplet with automated backups, though the repositories stay on the Droplet's disk, so the server is not stateless. Add a block-storage volume when repositories, large files, or packages outgrow the disk.

Your own hardware, a classic home-lab Git server for a small group. Gitea and Forgejo publish arm64 images and are light enough for a Pi 4 or 5 with 4 GB; a Pi 5 costs about $110 once, plus a few dollars of electricity a month. Keep the repositories and database on a USB SSD and not the SD card, since constant writes wear cards out. A home connection sits behind NAT, so pair it with the Tailscale or Cloudflare Tunnel addition to reach it from outside, and run CI on a stronger machine.

The family default: it discovers the Git server container from Docker labels and renews certificates itself, with one router for port 3000. It only carries HTTP, so Git over SSH needs the container's SSH port published separately, or a TCP entry point on Traefik. Set the server's public URL to the HTTPS address so clone links and webhooks use it. Traefik has no request-size limit by default, so large pushes over HTTPS go through.

Automatic HTTPS from a short site block that forwards to port 3000, the simplest fit for one Git server container. Caddy has no default request-size limit, so big pushes over HTTPS work without extra settings. It proxies HTTP only: Git over SSH still needs its own published port, and Caddy has no TCP proxy without an add-on. Set the public URL in the Git server to the HTTPS address.

The most familiar proxy, with TLS through Certbot. Raise client_max_body_size well above its 1 MB default, which rejects large pushes and uploads over HTTPS, and lengthen the proxy timeouts for big clones. Pass the Host and X-Forwarded-Proto headers so the server builds HTTPS links. NGINX's stream module can proxy the SSH port as plain TCP if you want Git over SSH on port 22 of a separate address.

A free, self-hosted deploy platform with Gitea and Forgejo in its service library, each in versions with PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, or SQLite, and variants that add a runner. The Gitea template tracks the latest image and publishes the container's SSH on host port 22222, while the Forgejo template pins version 15, behind the current 16, so check the tag before the first start. HTTPS through Coolify's bundled proxy covers the web interface only; Git over SSH uses that published port directly.

Free and self-hosted, with templates for Gitea on PostgreSQL (a generated database password and large-file storage switched on), Gitea on SQLite, and Forgejo on PostgreSQL 17, served on your domain with HTTPS through its bundled Traefik. The Forgejo template ships with the database password set to forgejo in the file, so change it before the first start. The templates expose the web port only and do not publish SSH, so Git over SSH needs a port mapping you add. Check the pinned image tags.

Free and self-hosted, with no template: create the app, deploy the project's official image with git:from-image, link the official PostgreSQL plugin, and mount storage at /data. Dokku uses the server's SSH port for its own git push, so publish the Git server's SSH on another host port with docker-options and put that port in the clone URLs. HTTPS comes from the Let's Encrypt plugin; Dokku's built-in nginx proxies HTTP only. A fit for people who like a command line over a dashboard.

The default and the larger project, with most of the guides, templates, and one-click catalogs written for it. It is MIT licensed and run by Gitea Ltd, which sells an Enterprise edition with SAML single sign-on, audit logs, and support at $9.50 to $19 per user a month on a one-year commitment; everything else is free. The project publishes its own container images, in a standard and a rootless variant that are not interchangeable, with the web interface on port 3000 and SSH on 22 inside the container. Gitea Actions workflows are mostly compatible with GitHub Actions, so existing .github/workflows files often run once a runner is registered. Pin a version tag rather than latest.

The community-governed alternative: owned by the non-profit Codeberg e.V. and licensed under the GPL, with no commercial edition behind it and no paid tier to be steered toward. Codeberg e.V. also runs Codeberg, the free hosting service built on Forgejo, and its own container registry is where the project's images are published, not Docker Hub, in a standard and a rootless variant. It started as a Gitea fork and has been a hard fork since 2024, so the two cannot be swapped by changing the image tag. Forgejo releases quarterly with a long-term-support version each year, is building federation (ForgeFed) between servers, and keeps workflows in .forgejo/workflows, which its docs call familiar to GitHub Actions users but not designed to be compatible.