Ask HN: Due to spam on GitHub, what platforms can I move my projects?

This is evidently not a popular opinion, but git repositories don’t need to be hosted on any platform. Your local repo is a complete copy and can be pulled and pushed from and to. If you really want a backup or “source of truth” copy, you can clone it anywhere you have shell access. We make so many simple things hard unnecessarily.

Related question, is there a web-based self-hosted git replacement that's _light-weight_ (i.e. resilient to scraping)? Should have things like file view, file browser, etc but is not taxing on the server.

Codeberg

Git. Move your platform to git.

See here for a howto: https://mikhailian.mova.org/posts/305-looking-for-a-european...

It depends on what you are looking to get out of the next platform.

For me, I'm not interested in the social aspect of coding anymore, so I have a Synology NAS running a git server accessible via ssh and I push my code there.

I use klaus (https://github.com/jonashaag/klaus) as a read only git web ui. My NAS is connected to my tailscale network so it's easy to view things on the go. It's a simple setup and works great.

Anywhere you accept unvouched pull requests will end up being spammed. You might find some respite at other sites, but whether you stay or go: you’re better off disabling pull requests on your projects for everyone but you, and then using discussions (like ghostty) where people petition to work on a feature; if they can convince you it’s a feature that’s valuable to you, then you can pull from their branch (like Linus) and merge them yourself when ready. That will halt the PRs and give you a much reduced pool of noise, as most fly-by-night sloppers won’t be interested in spending the extra tokens on both code and discussion. (You’ll still get entitled human beings who demand you add and maintain their solution to their needs, but that’s much easier to sift out and discard once people have to discuss their needs in written words rather than code.)

I think one important factor would be still being able to interact with a community of people who care for software and would like to put genuine thoughts. Whether it be for submitting bug reports, issues, PRs or security reports. Of course other platforms are not diverse as GitHub, it would be nice to see which other platforms are attracting such people. This in turn has a higher chance of interacting with such people.

New repository settings for configuring pull request access [feb13-2026]

https://github.blog/changelog/2026-02-13-new-repository-sett...

sourcehut.org would be my choice. Drew is pretty adamant about stuff and his morales. You will dislike somethings (UI and some policies) but will like majority of the things (tech like CI/CD etc). It's OSS and can be self-hosted as well. But I think drew fighting LLM scrappers on our behalf is good for us. It's also cheap and should progressively improve going forward.

It's my long term plan. And the project and company is setup in a way to be here for the long game. So, I am progressively moving my projects (private and in small numbers, but still...) from gitlab to sourcehut over this year or next.

Link - https://sourcehut.org/

Git is pretty simple to host yourself. For literally decades I've used git and gitolite to host git for me and a revolving team of developers.

But if you want it to be public though where anyone can access/fork it then you have to deal with "spam".

Codeberg.org is really great.

Also I recommend self-hosting Gitea for private projects and backing-up public projects

You can disable PRs and Issues on GitHub. Though still good to migrate away for reliability considerations.

For read-only code sharing, I would say use cgit and a VPS.

If you need a forge with all the bells, grab a copy of Forgejo and modify it to your liking.

Either way, consider using a VPS or a machine you own with Tailscale/VPN. It can be as simple as you'd like it to be.

I kind of wish there was some kind of way to be licensed as a professional (or amateur) in a way that could be used to block AI-originating PRs.

Not that it would be perfect, but if I could set the bar to "only licensed software engineers" can open PRs, it at least sets the bar that only accounts controlled by people who know what they're doing can open a PR to my repo, as opposed to letting anyone in the world who knows how to prompt open a PR.

(That being said, I personally haven't encountered AI SPAM on my github repos. Maybe my projects just aren't popular enough?)

Forgejo looks really popular right now. I have also heard good things about codeberg.

https://forgejo.org/

Does anyone has experience with AWS CodeCommit? It might not be what OP is looking for but since we're talking about moving away from GitHub. Personally I already pay for GitHub so I don't mind paying for something else. Just wondering if anyone has experience to share.

https://aws.amazon.com/codecommit/

Codeberg. They ONLY host open source software, it's sponsored by European institutions, Zig moved there too.

In the near future I'm also adding Forgejo to our Kexxu servers. Forgejo is basically Codeberg (but you need to host it). If you want a private repo on Kexxu just ask.

Self hosted forgejo is pretty good for me

Pretty easy to setup a PR block for anybody you dont like. Like every other people. Or new people

Set up a GitHub action to auto-close any pull requests from anyone not on an approved list.

Leave a message in the pull request that if they want to argue their case for a pull request they can send a message through a communication channel of your choice, and say that anyone sending a message with AI generated text, even to help with language and grammar will be banned.

forgejo was already mentioned,but I also found this interesting fork recently https://upd.dev

Not sure how the options suggested in this thread except closing the PRs to collaborators only are going to solve spam problem. Obscurity?

Codefloe

Codeberg.org

Gitlab

Today in: Non-issues

Move it to private GitHub repo. Really weird question if you open to public , pr is what’s expected .