Gitea is a self-hosted Git service written in Go that delivers pull requests, code review, CI/CD and package registries on a fraction of the hardware. Here is how it replaces GitHub and GitLab Enterprise — and the trade-offs.
GitHub and GitLab Enterprise pricing has outgrown most budgets
GitHub Enterprise Cloud charges per seat, and GitLab Ultimate charges even more. A 50-developer organisation pays 300 000 to 600 000 SEK per year before a single CI minute is consumed. Add GitHub Actions minutes, GitLab CI runners and advanced security features and the number doubles. For a company that just needs Git hosting, code review and CI, that is a heavy tax.
Gitea is a self-hosted Git service written in Go. It is a single binary, runs on minimal hardware, and ships pull requests, code review, issue tracking, a package registry and Gitea Actions (a GitHub Actions-compatible CI engine). It is the closest thing to a drop-in replacement for GitHub that you can run on your own metal.
What Gitea gives you
- Git hosting with SSH and HTTPS, unlimited repositories and organisations
- Pull requests, code review, protected branches and required checks
- Issue tracker with labels, milestones and project boards
- Gitea Actions — GitHub Actions-compatible CI/CD workflows
- Package registry for npm, Maven, Docker, NuGet, PyPI and more
- Wiki, releases, webhooks and a full REST and GraphQL API
- LDAP, OAuth2, SAML and OpenID Connect authentication
Resource footprint: Gitea vs GitLab
GitLab CE recommends 4 CPU cores and 8 GB RAM minimum, and realistically needs more. Gitea runs comfortably on a 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM instance and uses under 200 MB of RAM at idle. That difference translates directly into hosting cost: a Gitea instance for a 50-person team costs under 500 SEK per month on a Hetzner CPX instance, versus 2 000 to 4 000 SEK for a GitLab node.
Gitea vs Forgejo
Forgejo is a community fork of Gitea created in 2022 over governance concerns. It is API-compatible and feature-parity is close. If governance and community ownership matter to you, Forgejo is the safer long-term bet. If you want the largest ecosystem and the most third-party integrations, Gitea still leads. Both are excellent; pick based on your values.
Migration from GitHub or GitLab
- Mirror repositories first: use Gitea's migration tool to import repos, issues, PRs and wikis
- Migrate CI: Gitea Actions reads standard GitHub Actions workflow files — most pipelines port with minimal changes
- Move secrets and variables into Gitea's secret store
- Re-point package registries and update dependency manifests
- Update developer SSH keys and clone URLs in local configs
- Run in parallel for one sprint, then archive the SaaS organisation
Honest limitations
Gitea is not GitHub. Advanced security features like code scanning and secret scanning are thinner. The marketplace of Actions is smaller, so you will write more of your own workflows. Large monorepos with tens of thousands of files are slower than on GitHub's infrastructure. And you own the backups, upgrades and availability — plan for that.
Verdict
For teams of up to a few hundred developers who want Git hosting, review and CI without a six-figure annual bill, Gitea is a mature, production-ready choice. It is the backbone of many self-hosted SIAX deployments and has never been the bottleneck.
About the publisher
SIAX Technology AB publishes guides on cloud infrastructure, data, automation and open source.
About SIAX