SourceHut
Open-source software forge offering Git and Mercurial hosting, mailing lists, CI, and issue tracking.
Liked for CI you can SSH into to debug jobs,123 an email-based patch workflow that needs no account to contribute,456 and a minimal, JavaScript-free interface that suits private and personal repos.78910 The most common complaint is controversial policy decisions by its maintainer, which led several users to cancel or migrate away;1112131415 others find the email-patch workflow and UI off-putting.161718
Why people recommend it
SSH-able CI · 3
Commenters praise the CI, especially being able to SSH into the build VM to debug failing jobs.
“Sourcehut is fantastic because you can also SSH into the CI machine.”
“Sourcehut's ci/cd can. It is trivial do debug failing state there since you can ssh into the job's vm.”
Show 1 more
“my favourites are sourcehut (that has excellent ci, and does not try to be a github clone)”
Email workflow · 3
The mailing-list patch workflow is seen as close to Git's origins and lets people contribute without an account.
“It uses a mailing list-based workflow so contributing code or bug reports is relatively effortless”
“sourcehut has very good mailing list support, that is mostly equivalent to github pull requests”
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“Source Hut has been around for 6-7-ish years (https://sr.ht). A rather different approach to Git, closer to its original intentions.”
Private repos · 3
Several commenters recommend or use it specifically for private repositories.
“I recommend SourceHut for private repos”
“I'm a happy paying customer of both, have been for a while. I use SourceHut for private repos”
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“I'm on the $2 tier and damn is it good.”
Minimal, no-JS · 3
Its deliberately low-tech web frontend works with JavaScript disabled.
“I use it as my main forge and could not be happier.”
“Do prefer sourcehut or others which are not web apps”
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“I'm quite partial to SourceHut as well”
Personal projects · 2
Users like it for personal projects because it stays out of the way.
“I liked using Sourcehut for my personal projects because it just got out of my way”
“I'm also contributing a little bit to Sourcehut and keep my personal projects there.”
Cheap tier · 1
One user calls the $2 tier very good value.
“I'm on the $2 tier and damn is it good.”
Caveats and dissent
Maintainer controversy · 3
Policy decisions by the project's leader drove some paying users and FOSS maintainers to cancel or leave.
“Sourcehut is a rare case of a BDFL-led project making horrible missteps.”
“I pay for services, not performance artistry.”
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“I migrated to it from SourceHut because of similar rules introduced there.”
Email patches · 3
The email-patch workflow instead of pull requests is a deal breaker for some and may scare off contributors.
“Does sourcehut still require patches via email instead of "pull requests"? That was the deal breaker for me last time I looked at it.”
“Not a drop-in replacement for GitHub admittedly.”
Show 1 more
“I'm quite partial to SourceHut as well”
Difficult UI · 2
Some commenters find the interface hard or painful to work with.
“the UI (for me) is just difficult to work with”
“Using Gitlab or Sourcehut is painful.”
Too minimalist · 1
One former GitHub user feels it went too far toward minimalism.
“SourceHut moved too far in the other extreme by embracing "minimalism" not only of their service but also of their users.”
Perpetual alpha · 1
It is described as being in perpetual alpha.
“SourceHut is renowned for being in perpetual alpha.”
CI secrets · 1
CI secrets management can catch you out if you skip the docs.
“I'm quite partial to SourceHut as well”
Often compared with
1 moved from GitHub to SourceHutCodeberg12 comments mention both
1 moved from SourceHut to Codeberg
1 moved from Bitbucket to SourceHut
Who recommends it in their own words
From the makers not counted in the ranking
“Since you'll want receipts, here they are:”
“you have full control over when you enter or exit raw mode, so your TUI can support opening an external editor.”
“lib/ holds the Ruby source code of the library, which I heavily designed and reviewed.”
“I've been using AI to make https://git.sr.ht/~kerrick/ratatui_ruby at a really rapid pace.”
Threads where it came up
- Ask HN: Alternatives to GitHub 9 mentions
- Changes to Sourcehut's terms of service regarding LLMs 5 mentions
- Roku developer repositories moved from GitHub to GitLab 1 mention
- Sourcehut account takeover via build logs (XSS in ansi2html) 1 mention
- Forges Shouldn't Have Opinions About Your Code 1 mention
- The August 17 outage, and the work ahead 1 mention
Also written as Sourcehut, sourcehut, ratatui_ruby, RatatuiRuby. Data: sourcehut.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 34
“SourceHut is renowned for being in perpetual alpha.”
“I love sourcehut, and I can't really think anything to replace it.”
“I migrated to Sourcehut because BitBucket decided to drop Mercurial support”
“SourceHut moved too far in the other extreme by embracing "minimalism" not only of their service but also of their users.”
“I liked using Sourcehut for my personal projects because it just got out of my way”
“I pay for services, not performance artistry.”
“I am not paying money to read these insanities about tools I use.”
“I'm also contributing a little bit to Sourcehut and keep my personal projects there.”
“I love the idea of email-based workflow”
“the UI (for me) is just difficult to work with”
https://sr.ht
“Sourcehut is a rare case of a BDFL-led project making horrible missteps.”
“https://sourcehut.org/”
“I'm a happy paying customer of both, have been for a while. I use SourceHut for private repos”
“I'm on the $2 tier and damn is it good.”
“Sourcehut is fantastic because you can also SSH into the CI machine.”
“I'm quite partial to SourceHut as well”
“sourcehut has very good mailing list support, that is mostly equivalent to github pull requests”
“Does sourcehut still require patches via email instead of "pull requests"? That was the deal breaker for me last time I looked at it.”
“my favourites are sourcehut (that has excellent ci, and does not try to be a github clone)”
“Not a drop-in replacement for GitHub admittedly.”
“I migrated to it from SourceHut because of similar rules introduced there.”
“I use it as my main forge and could not be happier.”
“Source Hut has been around for 6-7-ish years (https://sr.ht). A rather different approach to Git, closer to its original intentions.”
“I recommend SourceHut for private repos”
“I recommend SourceHut for private repos”
“maybe I could move my private repos to SourceHut? Idk.”
“SourceHut if you believe in paying for products instead of being the product”
“Do prefer sourcehut or others which are not web apps”
“Sourcehut's ci/cd can. It is trivial do debug failing state there since you can ssh into the job's vm.”
“Using Gitlab or Sourcehut is painful.”
“May I recommend SourceHut (https://sr.ht/)”
“It uses a mailing list-based workflow so contributing code or bug reports is relatively effortless”
“Honestly, either would have been great choices.”