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Comment by xorglorb | Hacker News Reader

They provide a great service, and I use them all the time, but I don't like how their pricing scheme works for freelancers. You end up with a million small private repositories, and BitBucket has much more reasonable options.

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Yeah, it's ridiculous. I have enough repos that I'd need the Platinum 200 dollar a month plan.

All the repos are small and most are updated once or twice a year -- but the pricing is the same as if I had a whole team of people pushing to github every day.

And the team plans offer very little value for money vs the normal plans...

It'd be great if you could trade diskspace for # of repositories or something like that.

But what's the point of having those on Github anyway? GH is great for teams or for sharing your code with 'the community', but I don't see what it buys you for private, single developer projects over a directory in your drive(s).

Code availability from anywhere without having to manage your own repo server.

Even for a single dev it might be worth it to be able to check out to your normal dev workstation, your laptop, and even on a totally random pc when the need arises. It also allows you to checkup on things through the web when a pc to checkout on isn't available.

Yeah, I guess I assume any developer has some online "drive", be it Dropbox, a NAS or just some web based storage. That's all you really need for a git repository.

And for a single dev who actually has a need to be concerned about all of these things, $200/month doesn't seem unreasonable to have someone else manage it all for you.

The alternative is of course to run your own repo server as you said, which with git can be as simple as just a directory you can access via SSH.

I've been running my own SVN server for nigh-on 10 years and it requires very little management, if any at all. I imagine git is similar.

A git server (at least on a personal scope) requires close to zero management. Fire up an Ubuntu box on Linode or such, `sudo apt-get install git`, boom, there's your server. A git server is nothing more than "filesystem + SSH + git".

Not to say GitHub doesn't make it even more convenient, but the DIY option isn't exactly difficult either.

Gitosis also takes like all of 5 minutes to set up and then you've got repositories that you can collaborate on and manage permissions between projects.

http://scie.nti.st/2007/11/14/hosting-git-repositories-the-e...

I set up our repo hosting using Gitosis a few years back and haven't had to think about it since. Accounts are also managed via a special repo so even that is done over git.

You could also put your collection of repositories on your Dropbox and clone from / push to there.

Gitolite is a better tool, with more options. It's easier to manage who gets access to what as well with gitolite.

I do this now. It works. It just sucks. Rather than have everything in one consolidated location, I have to recall where I put things. It seems like a small thing, and in the grand scheme of things it is, but it's really annoying. And if I'm already going to manage my own server for private repos, then why bother with a paid GitHub account?

I agree. I have a 40 Euro per month server solely for things like a MediaWiki, backup storage and git repositories. Granted, it takes a little bit of Linux-administration, but that's a useful skill anyway.

And creating a new git repo just takes 15 seconds:

  cd /opt/git
  mkdir reponame.git
  cd reponame.git
  git init --bare
  cd ..
  chown -R username:username reponame.git

That's it. Having said that Github is obviously great (nay, awesome) for larger teams (comment features etc.) and, of course, open-source projects.

You can use Dropbox as Git server if you wan't.

Please don't ever do this, unless you wish to invite Dropbox's file syncing to destroy your repo.

(See http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1964347/mercurial-and-i-g... and http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1960799/using-gitdropbox-... )

The top-rated answer there warmly recommends using Git on top of DB.

Yes. I'm sure it works for the common case. It's the edge-case problems outlined in the answers below it that worry me more.

Going out on a limb: I'd assume that if you care enough about your data to version it in a git repo, then I'd also assume that you'd not enjoy it exploding because of a sync problem between two computers.

> wan't

In what implementation of the English language would that contraction make any sort of sense?

Don't you have even an old spare computer to put aisde in the attic/closet for your personal ssh/web/git serving needs?

One side-affect of having your projects on Github is that they are now backed up and you won't lose all your work if you drop your laptop or your drive goes kaboom.

I love using GitHub Issues even as a single dev. I give clients read access to a repo and they can log feature requests or bugs they find. As a single dev I'm less inclined to manage and backup a server for my repos. Also, I try to delete projects I'm not actively working on from my drive so I'm less likely to tinker with stuff when I should be working on paying projects. Just my $0.02.

Out of curiosity, why don't you keep several repos in a single repo as sub-directories? AFAICT, this should work quite well if the work done on those directories is unrelated to other work. Yes, there will be more revisions but merges shouldn't be more difficult because work is done on different parts.

Exactly what I was thinking, but this'd kill the convenience of GitHub anyway.

This is intended usage in svn, but it just feels so very very wrong in git. If I want to transfer a project to someone else, I want to be able to give them the whole history. Granted, I'm sure there's some relatively easy way to replay a subdirectories commits to a new repo (with all the sha1s changed obviously), but I would prefer to actually pay Github more money, or else just use some other hosting rather than do something like this.

Another new service on the scene, providing cheap unlimited git hosting repositories, is sourcehold.com specifically to help solve this problem.

Full Disclosure: I am writing it, and it is still in beta.

Unlimited? You may want to rethink your business model.

Yes unlimited repositories, but you will have a space limit.

Sounds like an interesting model for my workflow. Keep HN posted.

@0x0x0x will gladly do that. I am still working through stuff, but that is why it is in beta.

How much are you going to charge?

Will be $4 a month and a 1gb limit and $1 p/g after that. I am still trying to figure out pricing for collaborators, but it won't be bad at all. The $4 will include 3 collaborators automatically.

What about non-collaborators, like clients so they can clone repo's and use the ticketing features but not commit?

Then use bitbucket, recently after they updated the website its actually really good service

I recently switched to Unfuddle for private repos. It's designed for small teams and freelancers.

Or RepositoryHosting.

BitBucket is also very nice for students, their deal gives you unlimited private repos among other things, far more generous than GitHub.

Did they change that recently? For as long as I have been on Bitbucket I have had LOADS of private repos ...

RepositoryHosting.com

I've been there for years and I couldn't be happier. The only downtime was when AWS went down for everyone.

I just have my own Github repository on an EC2 instance that I rent. I can have how many repositories I want with GB of data, whatever for something like $12 per month.

http://projectlocker.com/ provides free private git repositories. Sure, their GUI is nowhere close to Github's, but you get what you pay for.

Have a look at http://xp-dev.com which does not have any limits on number of projects

(disclaimer: I run it)

Disclaimer: I haven't used these company before, but they do seem like an okay option: https://codeplane.com/

I just signed up for them earlier today, actually. It seems simple so far. Nice looking interface.

Less features than GitHub (no file browser, no web interface that shows commits) but hopefully they will address that.

I suspect one of the reasons why github just hit a million users is that people use more than one account to get around that limitation.

What limitation does this get you around? Private repositories do cost more if you use more private repos, but creating another account doesn't get you anything. Look at our plans — it would actually cost more to use multiple accounts to publish many private repos.

Apologies I was mixing up your plans with one of your competitors.

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