Yesterday I talked to someone about different git hosting solutions and they complained about the marketing bullshit on one of the homepages of a popular provider (guess who!).

I then looked at one provider I liked using and sure enough, most of them use marketing bullshit, rather then selling what they really do (I am probably not the target demographic for these marketing-pages).

So I started comparing them.

GitHub

Probably the most famous and most used provider, GitHub, owned by Microsoft.

Doesn’t tell me at all that it is a git hosting service. But I can somehow colloborate with developers and agents. At least there’s the word “code” hidden somewhere in the subheading. And of course there’s the AI-button!

• Marketing-bullshit: 9/10
• Information density: 0/10

Gitlab

My favorite provider, Gitlab:

Again, not mention of git or hosting code. I can build software with native AI (native?) at every step. As much as I like the software, this marketing bullshit is even worse than GitHubs.

• Marketing-bullshit: 10/10
• Information density: 0/10

Bitbucket

For folks, where the CTO bought into Atlassian (nobody was ever fired for buying ~IBM~ Atlassian), Atlassian also provides Bitbucket.

BitBucket at least tells me that I can do something on their platform with Code and CI/CD. Thats’s one more feature than GitHub and GitLab mention on their homepage (AI does not count). Sadly I know, what “the Atlassian platform” is.

The subheading is excellent corporate bullshit bingo - “Accelerate software delivery”, “seamless connection”, “beyond code creation” - awesome! I feel so energized.

• Marketing-bullshit: 9/10
• Information density: 2/10

Gogs

Finally a homepage witout any bullshit, gogs:

It tells me what it is in one simple sentence. Thank you very much! Though some more information would have been welcome.

• Marketing-bullshit: 0/10
• Information density: 4/10

Gitea

Gitea started as a fork of gogs (with valid reason) and is now owned/backed/developed by a corparation. You can see this, because the marketing bullshit is several numbers higher compared to gogs.

It does not tell me that it can host git repositories, but rather it is a “DevOps Platform”. So - git + CICD? The subheading at least tells me, that it (what?) can be self-hosted, so I can bring “high-efficiency, but easy operations” to developers. OK, thanks.

The pictures are cute but provide no value.

• Marketing-bullshit: 7/10
• Information density: 4/10

Forgejo

Forgejo is a fork of gitea (which is a fork of gogs), that started when Gitea went corporate. At Forgejo, you don’t code - you forge.

Sadly Forgejo seems to be going the way Gitea went with its marketing lingo. It uses the term “software forge” to tell us, what it does. While I know that some projects prefer “forge” instead of something else, I think it still does not really tell us what it is. At least there’s no AI here.

• Marketing-bullshit: 5/10
• Information density: 5/10

Codeberg

Codeberg is the non-profit behind Forgejo.

I like their homepage! The slogan “Software development, but free!” sounds great in my ears and my free-software heart loves it.

And in the subheading it even tells us that it provides Git hosting services!

• Marketing-bullshit: 3/10
• Information density: 7/10

GitBucket

while I’ve never used or seen anyone use GitBucket, its homepage is nonetheless great!

In the heading! “Git platform”! And look at the subheading! It’s features! Even a simple install-command. My favorite so far.

• Marketing-bullshit: 1/10 (they just had to mention the programming language!)
• Information density: 10/10

Sourcehut

Sourcehut, the hacker’s favorite offers a simple, clean and elegant homepage.

They also tell me right from the start that sourcehut is a git hosting service and list some of its features. No bullshit, no AI. Great stuff.

• Marketing-bullshit: 0/10
• Information density: 9/10

Conclusion

GitBucket and Sourcehut are both great at telling me what they provide. The big ones, GitHub and Gitlab, do not sell to me, the average programmer. They sell to execs, I guess. Nonetheless I use the big ones and even like Gitlab, so I can forgive them their marketing bullshit.