GitHub
Web-based Git repository hosting with pull requests, issues, Actions CI/CD and Copilot.
Commenters like it for its generous free tier,12 its approachable fork-and-pull-request workflow, and having many tools in one place.345 The most common complaint is frequent outages that block pushes, Actions and deployments,6789 which has pushed some to Codeberg, Forgejo or self-hosted git.10111213
Why people recommend it
Reliable for some · 3
Some users say they have had no noticeable downtime, or that it holds up well given its load.
“I've literally never had any noticeable downtime or issues”
“I use github almost daily and can't remember when the last downtime was.”
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“considering the insane amount of code being pushed to it every day, I'd say they're doing quite well”
Free tier · 2
Users value how much it provides for free, including Actions minutes and private repos.
“I use GitHub for free, and I'm incredibly grateful for the amount of stuff they provide.”
“I have used Github for years, pushing many thousands of commits on personal, private projects.”
All-in-one · 2
Having code browsing, issues, review and packages in one place is seen as convenient and good enough for most people.
“it's the worst out of all the systems I use regularly”
“It Just Worked (TM) to unite all the work we used to do”
Fork/PR workflow · 1
Forks and pull requests made a collaborative Git workflow approachable to anyone.
“with Forks and Pull Requesrs, GitHub made a particular workflow in Git approachable to anyone!”
Discoverability · 1
Even some who are leaving keep public projects there for discoverability and discussion.
“GitHub is now one of the least reliable services in my stack, I'm in the process of moving everything off”
Caveats and dissent
Outages · 3
Many report frequent downtime that blocks pushes, Actions, releases and deployments, even for paying customers.
“was moved away from Github like a year ago, because of the horrible uptime.”
“GitHub is at what, one 9 of reliability? That's a disaster.”
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“it sucks when I get blocked at work because GH is down.”
AI push · 3
Users object to Copilot and AI features being pushed on them, and to AI-generated spam and projects.
“what ultimately pushed me to ditch it was the way github was shoving copilot/chatgpt in my face”
“The reason for switching was shoving all the slop down my throat, even when just browsing.”
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“It is mostly all AI agents, bots and spam anyway”
Bugs and slowness · 3
Users report UI bugs, broken diffs, slow page loads and a heavy JavaScript-dependent site.
“couldn't GitHub fix the essential ones first?”
“Whatever they have going on over there is quite a mess.”
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“their site stopped functioning without a JITed JavaScript engine”
Weak orgs and CI · 3
Some find it poor for organizing many repos and for CI, and less reliable than Azure DevOps or GitLab.
“it sucked _hard_ for any kind of organisation. It also sucked really hard for CI.”
“GitHub has been neither for us.”
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“GH is nowhere near Enterprise-ready and it feels a downgrade across the board”
Account lockouts · 3
Users describe automated fraud locks, takedowns and a passkey change that broke YubiKey login.
“Their automatic fraud detection is “very frustrating.””
“GitHub's unreliability, poor moderation and random/illegitimate takedowns, and overuse of AI”
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“GitHub was also super shitty with it, suddenly a passkey broke my YubiKey login...”
Microsoft control · 3
Some organizations rule it out because of Microsoft ownership, or distrust its use of code for AI training.
“Azure and GitHub are completely out of the question”
“took down[1] years ago when some of us kicked up a fuss over just blatantly training on OSS projects without respecting licenses”
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“Github moving towards closer and a closer system is good opp for alternatives to take some of that space.”
Often compared with
1 moved from Forgejo to GitHub
16 moved from GitHub to ForgejoCodeberg52 comments mention both
2 moved from Codeberg to GitHub
11 moved from GitHub to Codeberg
2 moved from GitLab to GitHub
5 moved from GitHub to GitLabGitea26 comments mention both
7 moved from GitHub to Gitea
1 moved from GitHub to Tangled
1 moved from GitHub to SourceHut
2 moved from Bitbucket to GitHub
Who recommends it in their own words
Threads where it came up
- Ask HN: Alternatives to GitHub 24 mentions
- Moving from GitHub to Codeberg, for lazy people 5 mentions
- GitHub's new dashboard experience now the default 4 mentions
- GitHub Outage Tracker: Is GitHub Cooked? 4 mentions
- The August 17 outage, and the work ahead 4 mentions
- Incident with Github.com 4 mentions
Data: github.json. Quotes are verbatim; the verdict and theme labels are written by a model from these comments, and every clause links to its sources.
All comments 46
“Github I have not used in years and will probably delete once I finish migrating repos to my self hosted git.”
“just keep Github for discoverability/backups/namespace "squatting"”
“I'm stuck on GitHub at current job, but I do miss our self hosted Gitlab at last job.”
“I like github, but it’s getting kind of nuts.”
“Some of our deployments got affected multiple times in the last 6 months alone”
“Github is the place to go for issues/errors”
“with Forks and Pull Requesrs, GitHub made a particular workflow in Git approachable to anyone!”
“Whatever they have going on over there is quite a mess.”
“I've literally never had any noticeable downtime or issues”
“Azure and GitHub are completely out of the question”
“GitHub was also super shitty with it, suddenly a passkey broke my YubiKey login...”
“GitHub has been neither for us.”
“My company has heavy handily moved from self-hosted version control system to github and now we’re suffering more outages.”
“took down[1] years ago when some of us kicked up a fuss over just blatantly training on OSS projects without respecting licenses”
“Dev guy here, so tailscale + Antigravity (+ GitHub).”
“Github moving towards closer and a closer system is good opp for alternatives to take some of that space.”
“GitHub is now one of the least reliable services in my stack, I'm in the process of moving everything off”
“If I can't push my code, I'd say that's a critical issue. And if my Actions won't run (that I pay for), I'd also put that in the critical issue bucket.”
“was moved away from Github like a year ago, because of the horrible uptime.”
“Hobby code goes in Github/codeberg.org”
“it does seem GitHub is fairly friendly anyway”
“how about making notifications good?”
“Email is certainly more reliable than sh*thub.”
“It shows that they are not using the product much anymore.”
“couldn't GitHub fix the essential ones first?”
“Just last week Github went down due to a stupid retrial error.”
“I love GitHub”
“They cannot count how many packages I have.”
“I went from Azure to Github for hosting”
“in an era where Microsoft is killing Github reliability”
“we should go to support much more democratic Github”
“To me it looked absurd.”
“bootstrap my way into github where the full config is saved”
“TF at least gave a nice folder view on the branches screen, which we've lost now we've moved to GitHub”
“Reliability got worse and worse, steadily.”
“their site stopped functioning without a JITed JavaScript engine”
“they still seem to be more … mentally stable”
“I have used Github for years, pushing many thousands of commits on personal, private projects.”
“We're paying for a broken product that stops our work.”
“One less bullshit service sucking all of the oxygen out.”
“it's the worst out of all the systems I use regularly”
“It Just Worked (TM) to unite all the work we used to do”
“Using Github at work is painful in comparison.”
“GitHub's unreliability, poor moderation and random/illegitimate takedowns, and overuse of AI”
“I use GitHub for free, and I'm incredibly grateful for the amount of stuff they provide.”
“the regular outages were getting ridiculous”