© 2025 Fx Professional Services. All Rights Reserved.
FORGEJO VS GITHUB
You could save up to
$25,000/year on Git hosting
FORGEJO · SELF-HOSTED
$0
Unlimited developer seats
Free & open source
GITHUB ENTERPRISE • PER SEAT
$21
/user/mo
$2,100/mo at 100 developers
THE REAL PRICE TAG
GitHub doesn't cost $21/seat. It costs $89.
The $21/seat headline only covers the base Enterprise plan. Most
teams also need Copilot, secret scanning, and code
security — each billed separately, per user, every month.
GITHUB ENTERPRISE (FULLY LOADED)
Code Security
$30
Secret Protection
$19
Copilot Business
$19
Enterprise base
$21
$89 /user/mo
FORGEJO (SELF-HOSTED)
Everything included
$0 /user/mo
Your source code belongs on
servers you own.
Cost & Value
Forgejo is free, open-source software that can be self-hosted; infrastructure and administration still cost money. GitHub offers free and paid hosted plans, while Enterprise and optional products are billed separately.
Source: Forgejo: installation · Forgejo: license · GitHub: pricing · GitHub: enterprise billing
98 40
Data sovereignty
A self-hosted Forgejo deployment lets the operator choose where repositories and metadata reside. GitHub Cloud stores and processes customer data as described in GitHub's privacy and data-protection documentation; GitHub states that private repository content is not used to train its models without permission.
Source: Forgejo: database · Github: privacy statement · GitHub Copilot: data use
100 20
Self-hosting
Forgejo is designed for self-hosting and supports binary, package, and container installation. GitHub Enterprise Server is GitHub's self-hosted product, so the original “GitHub has no self-hosting” implication was incorrect.
Source: Forgejo: installation · Github Enterprise Server: system requirements
100 15
Resource efficiency
Forgejo documents comparatively lightweight deployment options. GitHub Enterprise Server publishes substantially larger minimum CPU, memory, and storage recommendations that vary by user count; avoid claiming a universal Forgejo RAM figure because workload and database choices matter.
Source: Forgejo: recommendations · GitHub Enterprise Server: hardware considerations
95 30
Vendor lock-in risk
Both products host standard Git repositories. Forgejo exposes migration and API tooling, while GitHub documents exports and migrations; workflows, issues, pull requests, projects, and app-specific metadata may need separate migration work on either platform.
Source: Forgejo: migrations · GitHub: repository migrations · GitHub: Actions import/export limitations
95 25
CI/CD ecosystem
Forgejo Actions deliberately follows much of the GitHub Actions workflow syntax but warns that compatibility is not absolute. GitHub Marketplace offers a much larger catalog of reusable actions and apps.
Source: Forgejo Actions: comparison with GitHub Actions · GitHub Marketplace: Actions
70 95
Integrations & marketplace
GitHub provides a large app marketplace. Forgejo provides webhooks and REST APIs for custom integration but fewer packaged integrations.
Source: GitHub Marketplace · Forgejo: webhooks · Forgejo: API usage
30 95
Community & discoverability
GitHub publicly reports a very large developer community and provides Explore, Sponsors, and social discovery. Forgejo is federated across independently operated instances, so no equivalent platform-wide audience is guaranteed.
Source: GitHub: company facts · GitHub: Explore · Forgejo: federation
35 98
Why you might stay with GitHub
Meet earns its price for plenty of teams. Here's where it genuinely leads.
The marketplace & ecosystem
Thousands of integrations, apps, and Actions are a single click
away.
Enterprise-ready governance
Granular permissions, audit logs, SAML SSO, and policy controls
built for larger organizations.
away.
Copilot is deeply integrated
AI-assisted coding, reviews, and automation are embedded
directly into the platform.
away.
Tiered priority support
Escalate from standard to 24/7 priority on Enterprise, with a
contractual SLA behind every incident.
away.
Why switch to Forgejo
Some things are priceless
The No per-seat tax
Add your 10th or 1,000th developer at $0.
Headcount stops being a billing event — the
server price never moves.
Your code never leaves
Repositories, issues, and PR history live on
infrastructure you control, in the region you
choose. No third-party copy.
Community-governed fork
A soft-fork of Gitea, built to stay 100% open
source and community-led — immune to a
future owner's commercialization.
GitHub Actions-compatible CI/CD
Forgejo Actions runs your existing workflow
files. Pipelines migrate instead of being
rewritten from scratch.
Reshape it to your brand
Modify the source, CSS, and templates. It's
your forge to
theme and extend, not a
rented tenant with locked defaults.
Compliance by architecture
Keep code off third-party cloud for Defense,
FinTech, and Healthcare mandates where
residency is non-negotiable.
Your 100th
developer
should cost
$0
more
in Git
hosting.
GitHub Enterprise bills per user every month, so
every hire quietly increases the invoice. Forgejo
doesn’t charge by seat — you run it on your
own infrastructure. Headcount stops being a
software line item the moment you switch.
GitHub $4,200/mo at 200 seats
$6,000
$4,500
$3,000
$1,500
$0
10 seats
GitHub — $210/mo
Forgejo — $0/mo
25 seats
GitHub — $525/mo
Forgejo — $0/mo
50 seats
GitHub — $1,050/mo
Forgejo — $0/mo
100 seats
GitHub — $2,100/mo
Forgejo — $0/mo
150 seats
GitHub — $3,150/mo
Forgejo — $0/mo
200 seats
GitHub — $4,200/mo
Forgejo — $0/mo
10
25
50
100
150
200
developer seats
Ready to own your source code?
Open source. Zero per-seat fees.
Option 1
Try Forgejo
Run Forgejo yourself. Full source,
community forums, and docs —
no license cost, ever.
Option 2
Self-host with Docker
Deploy Forgejo on your own
infrastructure. Prebuilt
containers, documentation, and
community support, full control
without building everything from scratch.
RECOMMENDED
Option 3
Lower your SaaS spend
Tell us what your business needs.
Our team will recommend the right solution and help you get
started.