In this post, we talk about the Popular Source Code Hosting Services such as the GitHub source, Bitbucket source, Gitlab source & Source Forge source. Presently code repositories for open source software have been continuously growing around the world. Research has shown that there are different code hosting services. Also, you will agree that there is no possibility for you test all of them before choosing the one that suite you. Bearing that in mind, we will walk you through the few that are mostly in demand by users.
1. GitHub source code hosting service
A review on code hosting service reveals that GitHub is one of the leading, and most popular code hosting service around the world. They came into existence in the year 2008. They allow the developer to use Git version control system so as to host a project inside it.
There is a special slogan has been given to GitHub; “a social networking site for developers”. Apart from helping users to store codes, the members are also able to carefully interconnect with each other. As a matter of fact, this helps them to make comments and contributions on each other’s changes and challenges.
In short, Github offers the following features to its users:
- It provides a personal page for the project
- Helps to collaborative code review
- Showcases Syntax highlighted feature for more than 200 programming languages
- Availability of Wiki section
- Errors and Bug tracking system within each project
- Provides several levels of access
- All the source codes are handled through Git, however, there are options for importing SVN and Mercurial repositories
- Enables branch comparison views
- Security (SSL, SSH) is provided for each account’s data transmission, as well as TFA for login
- Reliable and comfortable team members management within organizations
- Windows and OSX applications on desktop, and an app for Android
- Last but not least, the open source Jabber, Jira, integration, IRC, Bugzilla.
GitHub source code hosting service is available free of charge for public projects. On the other hand, private plans comes with a price that may be purchased. The basic private plan costs about seven dollar per month. After paying for it, you will have access to five private repositories (sources).
2. Bitbucket source code hosting service
Keep in mind that an assessment of Bitbucket shows that it is another popular source code hosting service. The code repository also started in year 2008, and since then it has taken a leading position in the market share.
Going forward, Bitbucket source code hosting service provides the following features to its users:
- They provide Mercurial and Git support
- Offers unlimited number of public repositories
- Unlimited number of private repositories for small teams (up to 5 persons)
- Bitbucket’s paid subscriptions are accessible from $10 per month. On the other hand, subscription plan for 100 users costs about $100 per month. Keep in mind that needing access for more than 100 users, costs up to $200 per month.
- There is a possibility to host on private server for more customization at extra charge
- Onboard comments by team members and threaded conversations
- Errors and Bug tracking system is vital
- Help to easily pull requests for facilitation of code reviews
- Extended and/or branch permission for control over access levels
- Branch evaluation and commit history
- It has Mac and Windows client plus an app for Android
- Strong SSL and SSH security support
Simple Comparison of GitHub and Bitbucket source code hosting
As can be seen, the two above mentioned services are much related to each other since both of them are offering the most required features a code repository hosting site must have. From our review, it has been deduced that you won’t urgently lack any feature while using any of the two services, since they are reliable to be used.
There are numerous benefits of using GitHub because it has some positive facts:
- ‘WebHooks’ notifications feature is available;
- There is a comfortable advanced search option (by repositories, users, programming language or issues)
- …and gist Pastebin service for instant publication of code fragments.
On the other hand, Bitbucket, is wonderful in because it provides unlimited disk space and OpenID support.
However, the demerits on the other hand, is that none of them support localization and translation. Non-English speaking countries has a setback while using them. This may be unsatisfactory for users who do not understand English properly. (As luck may have it, the majority of repositories’ users understands simple English.
3. Gitlab source code repository
Another very popular web-based hosting service for projects is the Gitlab that is self-hosted. If you check well, you will see that the functions and structure are similar to the above GitHub. Nevertheless, we have seen a single difference between them. Gitlab allows users to make use of their software on third-party servers but unlike GitHub does not. Also, Gitlab provides unlimited number of public and private repositories and unlimited number of both public and private collaborators. We have noticed that a lot of prominent companies use the source code repository tools it for their projects.
4. Source Forge source code repository
The last source code respiratory platform is the Source Forge which is another site worth for repository comparison. Previously, it sprung up as one of the most influential sources in the coding field, but currently, it has been dislodged by stronger competitors – GitHub and Bitbucket. Source Forge is however still strong like the above mentioned sources, since it provides its users with collaborative development tools. They also support discussion with team members and instruments, forum and wiki. One important option from Source Forge is that it supports OpenID and gives users the possibility to have their own unique sub-domain. For example like https://hybridcloudtech.sourceforge.net. However, in recent times, they have discontinued the strategy of demanding publicity they had used in the past. It definitely ought to have given them another trend of acceptance among the coders and developers. That being said, it still doesn’t entail any paid subscriptions in the meantime.
Conclusion
In summary, the majority of web-based hosting services for projects is switchable, because a lot of them delivers almost the same set of tools and related service quality at equal level. Looking at other aspects of these providers, the difference is simply a matter of taste and loyalty to popular brand names. At the same time, it is presumed hard to select the best open source code repository, since there is high competition between several code repository tools that brings fine quality to their users. In conclusion, you have to ensure you list all your requirements before opting-in to the one that suits your team better.
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