Yes, the main reason I’d want federation is for public access and decentralization. For personal or small-team use, running it privately is enough.

Is there something wrong with Gitlab?

Not inherently—GitLab works fine, but it’s corporate-owned, collects some data, and isn’t fully decentralized. If your goal is privacy, open source, and independence from Big Tech, that’s why people look for alternatives like Gitea, Forgejo, or federated solutions.

Not just storage costs — mainly for privacy, avoiding Big Tech control, and having an open-source, decentralized alternative where I’m not tracked or subjected to ads.

All software should be open source.

Yeah!

Classic: modern policies, prehistoric execution.

I agree there are cases where sensitivity matters, like national security or systems tied to critical infrastructure. But when it comes to publicly funded software developed specifically for government use, the default should be open by principle. Exceptions can exist, but they must be justified — not the other way around. With COTS products like Microsoft Office, it’s different because the government is just a customer, not the owner of the development.

Absolutely!

interesting!

I self-host forgejo, it’s one of the easiest systems I self-host.

But which features other than a plain git repo are you looking for? That will mostly determine your options. There are tons of git repos, and even just a plain git repo on a server with an ssh tunnel is enough if you don’t need anything beyond that.

My main goal is to stay independent from big tech and have full control over my data, but I’m still new to programming (2/8 in Software Engineering).

I’m not a git expert. If we Primarily use private repos and use gitea why would this be good ? I presume it’s only good for public repos right?

Even with private repos, it can be useful for backups, CI/CD, or local mirrors. If you just care about public exposure, then yes, it’s mainly for public repos.

Yes, codeberg, and it’s going to be decentralized soon when forgejo implements federation

amazing!

@fajre @Codeberg ist “a non-profit, community-led organization that helps free and open source projects prosper. Our services include Git hosting (using @forgejo ), Weblate, Woodpecker CI and Pages.”

interesting man, i’ll try!

OMG, I didn’t know this site, thanks man!

No, because the people hiring and the people working with you will be using GitHub.

maybe not! Life isn’t just work.

interesting!