4 ms·

This, in a nutshell, is why Github is the way it is and there's a lack of good alternatives. I'm not knocking you in particular because we're all pretty much in

by jm4 1mo ago

This, in a nutshell, is why Github is the way it is and there's a lack of good alternatives. I'm not knocking you in particular because we're all pretty much in the same boat here. "I am willing to pay ~$5-10/mo for a reliable host... Need a repo with PRs and issues, where people can register free account and contribute or raise issues, GH actions CI, and pages host to deploy static sites." Who wants to build something to acquire that $5-10/mo business? A VPS powerful enough to host a small repository costs more than that these days. There's no opportunity here for someone to build a Github alternative and make any money. The best parts of Github that make it worth using in the first place all come down to the size of the network and that would be extremely difficult to replicate. It comes down to wanting to develop a SCM hosting service and hitting a $5-10/mo price point. To put that in perspective, people pay more than $5 for a latte and COGS on that is about $1.50 or less. A good customer will come in weekly or more often. I'd rather sell coffee than SaaS SCM.

roflmaostc 1mo ago
You can get decent ones for $6 from Contabo VPS https://contabo.com/en-us/vps/ https://contabo.com/en-us/vps/
Gigachad 1mo ago
It becomes worth it with scale. A VPS costs more than $5 but you can host a very large number of repos, a dormant repo takes no resources but disk space to host, its only activity that consumes resources, which is less than $5-$10 worth
- jm4 1mo ago
  Maybe. You would either have to buy and colocate physical servers and pack the hell of them or develop something on AWS or GCP that aggressively scales down to zero. Anyway, how are you going to pay engineer salaries and 24/7 support staff on a $5-10/mo product? Not to mention, you'd be hosting someone's critical infrastructure so they will have a meltdown when you inevitably make a mistake. How long are you willing to burn money before you've reached a scale where it's profitable? It's paradoxical how all the money in tech goes to the most useless things that are a net drain on society (social media, ad tech, etc.) and we're willing to pay less for the most important things than we would for a cup of coffee. At the prices people are willing to pay for SCM, it really has to be a complement to some other product you're offering or part of an integrated suite. It's most likely a dead end on its own. I guess you could do it... but why? There are a thousand ways to make more money with fewer headaches. I wouldn't get into this business myself and I wouldn't fund someone else either.
  - Gigachad 1mo ago
    All of the git hosting providers offer repo hosting for literally free. $10/month is easily enough to host a repo.
    - jm4 1mo ago
      I can assure you that they are not hosting for free because the cost is zero and goodwill pays the bills. Read the TOS and privacy policy. If they’re not monetizing the data in their custody then it’s just more overhead that has to be covered by paying customers, which makes the business even more difficult. Yes, you can host a repository for less than $10, but that’s not the question, is it? Can you host it cheaply enough that a customer paying $10 is a viable and worthwhile business? Can you do it for $5 all in with infrastructure, staff, and general and administrative costs? You won’t have much for a marketing budget so you’ll have to offer those free accounts with some features for viral network growth. Oh, and you’ll have to offer better uptime than GitHub. Still sound like a good idea?
- waterTanuki 1mo ago
  Anyone can re-create the hosting part of GitHub. This is not the difficult nor the expensive part. It's the actions. The compute to run them isn't cheap at scale nor is the amount of auditing you need to do for security and compliance if you want enterprise/government customers.
  - Gigachad 1mo ago
    I don't think people asking for github alternatives are expecting unlimited actions for $5/month. It would be acceptable if they charged credits on top or let you host the runner on your own machine.
    - defaultman 29d ago
      [dead]
jubilanti 1mo ago
Good points. I guess I keep just wanting 'you are the product' / enshitification / free tier capture to not be the dominant business model of our time. You're right that a YC VC would likely not funds this. There are many alternative business models though. (edit: https://sourcehut.org https://sourcehut.org seems promising if very barebones and oldschool) > The best parts of Github that make it worth using in the first place all come down to the size of the network Not intrinsically, only as a side-effect of economies of scale. At least for me. The 'social' features make it more compelling and explain its widespread adoption and thus economies of scale, but not what made github worth using for me at least. It Just Worked (TM) to unite all the work we used to do in the good ol' days via repos, patches, tickets, mailing lists, IRC, build servers, and host servers. I don't need my own VPS running 24/7, I said maybe 100 mins of CI a month, even if I'm pushing and building while others are commenting and PRing multiple times a day, it's going to still take a fraction of that VPS capacity.
- jm4 1mo ago
  Same. Currently, I'm spending $10/mo on a VPS from OVH to host Forgejo. I have hourly backups to an rsync.net account I was already paying for. It's not the most efficient way to do things, but Forgejo is actually pretty nice and I have data sovereignty.
chillfox 1mo ago
You can absolutely build a solution that works for that range, you just have to pick your tech stack for efficiency and not rapid development. CI will be the tricky one, but I am pretty sure it can work if you keep the limits low, or price it based on usage.
- jm4 1mo ago
  Why not do it then? Seems you would have plenty of customers judging by this thread and the others today asking about alternatives.
  - chillfox 1mo ago
    Because I don't have the money to start it. I can't do it in my spare time, because then the company I work for will own it. And I can't just not be employed, because I have bills to pay. I would love to run a small software company making products individuals can afford.

by jm4 1mo ago

roflmaostc 1mo ago

You can get decent ones for $6 from Contabo VPS https://contabo.com/en-us/vps/ https://contabo.com/en-us/vps/

Gigachad 1mo ago

It becomes worth it with scale. A VPS costs more than $5 but you can host a very large number of repos, a dormant repo takes no resources but disk space to host, its only activity that consumes resources, which is less than $5-$10 worth

jm4 1mo ago
Maybe. You would either have to buy and colocate physical servers and pack the hell of them or develop something on AWS or GCP that aggressively scales down to zero. Anyway, how are you going to pay engineer salaries and 24/7 support staff on a $5-10/mo product? Not to mention, you'd be hosting someone's critical infrastructure so they will have a meltdown when you inevitably make a mistake. How long are you willing to burn money before you've reached a scale where it's profitable? It's paradoxical how all the money in tech goes to the most useless things that are a net drain on society (social media, ad tech, etc.) and we're willing to pay less for the most important things than we would for a cup of coffee. At the prices people are willing to pay for SCM, it really has to be a complement to some other product you're offering or part of an integrated suite. It's most likely a dead end on its own. I guess you could do it... but why? There are a thousand ways to make more money with fewer headaches. I wouldn't get into this business myself and I wouldn't fund someone else either.
- Gigachad 1mo ago
  All of the git hosting providers offer repo hosting for literally free. $10/month is easily enough to host a repo.
  - jm4 1mo ago
    I can assure you that they are not hosting for free because the cost is zero and goodwill pays the bills. Read the TOS and privacy policy. If they’re not monetizing the data in their custody then it’s just more overhead that has to be covered by paying customers, which makes the business even more difficult. Yes, you can host a repository for less than $10, but that’s not the question, is it? Can you host it cheaply enough that a customer paying $10 is a viable and worthwhile business? Can you do it for $5 all in with infrastructure, staff, and general and administrative costs? You won’t have much for a marketing budget so you’ll have to offer those free accounts with some features for viral network growth. Oh, and you’ll have to offer better uptime than GitHub. Still sound like a good idea?
waterTanuki 1mo ago
Anyone can re-create the hosting part of GitHub. This is not the difficult nor the expensive part. It's the actions. The compute to run them isn't cheap at scale nor is the amount of auditing you need to do for security and compliance if you want enterprise/government customers.
- Gigachad 1mo ago
  I don't think people asking for github alternatives are expecting unlimited actions for $5/month. It would be acceptable if they charged credits on top or let you host the runner on your own machine.
  - defaultman 29d ago
    [dead]

jubilanti 1mo ago

Good points. I guess I keep just wanting 'you are the product' / enshitification / free tier capture to not be the dominant business model of our time. You're right that a YC VC would likely not funds this. There are many alternative business models though. (edit: https://sourcehut.org https://sourcehut.org seems promising if very barebones and oldschool) > The best parts of Github that make it worth using in the first place all come down to the size of the network Not intrinsically, only as a side-effect of economies of scale. At least for me. The 'social' features make it more compelling and explain its widespread adoption and thus economies of scale, but not what made github worth using for me at least. It Just Worked (TM) to unite all the work we used to do in the good ol' days via repos, patches, tickets, mailing lists, IRC, build servers, and host servers. I don't need my own VPS running 24/7, I said maybe 100 mins of CI a month, even if I'm pushing and building while others are commenting and PRing multiple times a day, it's going to still take a fraction of that VPS capacity.

jm4 1mo ago
Same. Currently, I'm spending $10/mo on a VPS from OVH to host Forgejo. I have hourly backups to an rsync.net account I was already paying for. It's not the most efficient way to do things, but Forgejo is actually pretty nice and I have data sovereignty.

chillfox 1mo ago

You can absolutely build a solution that works for that range, you just have to pick your tech stack for efficiency and not rapid development. CI will be the tricky one, but I am pretty sure it can work if you keep the limits low, or price it based on usage.

jm4 1mo ago
Why not do it then? Seems you would have plenty of customers judging by this thread and the others today asking about alternatives.
- chillfox 1mo ago
  Because I don't have the money to start it. I can't do it in my spare time, because then the company I work for will own it. And I can't just not be employed, because I have bills to pay. I would love to run a small software company making products individuals can afford.