Forgejo
Open SourceBeyond coding. We Forge.
Published 16 October 2026
Scores
Popularity2/5
Well known in self-hosting circles and increasingly recommended there, but most developers outside that niche have never heard of it, and it has a fraction of Gitea's reach.
Learning Curve2/5
A single binary or container and a GitHub-like interface make it quick to start. Runners, federation settings, and moving workflows over from other platforms need extra reading.
Flexibility4/5
Repositories, packages, Actions, and a choice of four databases cover most small-team needs. The extension surface is smaller than GitHub's or GitLab's.
Performance5/5
A Go binary that runs in a few hundred megabytes of memory, so one small VPS serves a team. CI load sits on separate runners.
Portability5/5
GPL licensed and built on standard Git, with importers for other forges and a free choice of database. Its own Actions format differs from GitHub's.
About Forgejo
Forgejo is a community-governed, self-hosted Git platform written in Go. It began in 2022 as a fork of Gitea, started by the Codeberg community after Gitea's trademark and domain moved to a for-profit company, and it has been a hard fork since 2024, with its own releases and no longer a drop-in swap for Gitea.
For a team the experience is close to GitHub: repositories, pull requests with review, issues, project boards, wikis, and a package registry in one lightweight program. It ships as a single binary or Docker image and needs only a few hundred megabytes of memory. The database is a free choice between SQLite, MySQL, MariaDB, and PostgreSQL, with SQLite included in the official binary.
CI comes from Forgejo Actions, a built-in system whose workflows live in a .forgejo/workflows folder, with .github/workflows as a fallback. The project describes it as familiar to GitHub Actions users but not designed to be compatible, so migrated pipelines usually need some changes. Jobs run on a separate runner that you install, not on the Forgejo server itself.
The project is owned by the non-profit Codeberg e.V. and licensed under the GPL (version 3 or later), which prevents a later move to a proprietary license. It is also working on federation through ForgeFed, so separate Forgejo servers can interact. Codeberg runs a free public Forgejo instance, and the project has been adopted by public bodies that want to host their own code. There is no commercial edition: everything is free, and you install it on your own VPS.
Key Features
- Git hosting with pull requests, code review, issues, and project boards
- Single binary or Docker image that runs in a few hundred megabytes of memory
- SQLite, MySQL, MariaDB, or PostgreSQL as the database
- Forgejo Actions CI/CD with a separate runner
- Built-in package registry for container images, npm, PyPI, and more
- ForgeFed federation work for linking separate servers
- Migration from GitHub, GitLab, Gitea, and other forges
- GPL licensed and governed by a non-profit
Pros
- Owned by a non-profit with a GPL license, so it cannot be relicensed
- Very light and simple to run on a small VPS
- Free in full, with no paid edition or feature gating
- Active development with a steady release schedule and long-term support branches
- Familiar GitHub-style workflow for most developers
Cons
- No longer a drop-in replacement for Gitea since the 2024 hard fork
- Actions is not designed to match GitHub Actions, so pipelines may need edits
- CI needs a separate runner that you install and secure yourself
- Smaller commercial ecosystem and no paid support plan from the project itself
- Fewer built-in enterprise features than GitLab
Forgejo Pricing
Open SourceTech Stacks with Forgejo
Self-Hosted Version Control
InfrastructureRun your own Git hosting with Gitea or Forgejo in Docker on a server you control: repositories, pull requests, issues, and a package registry for your team, with a database (PostgreSQL by default, SQLite for a small group) keeping the metadata. Both are lightweight programs that run on a small server, and both have CI built in that runs on a separate runner.
Tools Related to Forgejo
Alternatives to Forgejo(3)
Forgejo is a community-governed fork of Gitea under the GPL, with federation work and its own Actions format, and the two no longer swap in place. Gitea is the larger project, run by Gitea Ltd under the MIT license with a paid Enterprise edition.
Forgejo offers a GitHub-style pull request workflow on a server you own, under a non-profit and a GPL license. GitHub is the hosted service with far larger reach, an Actions marketplace, and the open-source network effect.
Both can be self-hosted for free. Forgejo is a light, community-governed Git host with pull requests and Actions; GitLab Community Edition is a much heavier all-in-one DevOps platform backed by a single company.