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Community-owned, self-hosted Git forge under the Codeberg e.V. nonprofit
Forgejo is a self-hosted, lightweight software forge for Git repository hosting, issue tracking, code review, and CI/CD. Developed under the umbrella of Codeberg e.V., a registered nonprofit in Berlin, it forked from Gitea in 2022 to ensure community governance and exclusively free software licensing under GPL v3+.
Headquarters
Berlin, Germany
Founded
2022
Pricing
EU Data Hosting
Yes
Employees
1-10
Open Source
Yes
Free
Billing: free
The story of Forgejo begins with a governance dispute. In October 2022, a group of Gitea contributors grew concerned that the project's direction was shifting toward commercial interests after the formation of a for-profit company. Rather than accept that trajectory, they forked the codebase and placed it under the stewardship of Codeberg e.V., a registered nonprofit association in Berlin with over 1,200 members and democratic governance.
That origin story matters because it defines what Forgejo is: a self-hosted Git forge built on the principle that developer tools should remain community-owned. The platform provides repository hosting, issue tracking, pull requests with code review, CI/CD through Forgejo Actions, a built-in package registry, project boards, wikis, and time tracking. All of it ships as a single binary that runs on hardware as modest as a Raspberry Pi.
Forgejo v14.0, released in January 2026, improved issue search with inline filters, refreshed the web editor, and introduced stateless CSRF protection. Development moves at a steady pace, driven by a combination of volunteer contributions, donations, and two part-time employees funded by Codeberg e.V. The project has earned trust from developers who want their code hosting to be governed by a nonprofit rather than a venture-backed company.
Forgejo handles the fundamentals well: repository creation, branch management, protected branches, merge strategies, and a clean web interface for browsing code, commits, and diffs. Repository mirroring supports pulling from or pushing to external Git hosts, which simplifies migration from GitHub or GitLab. The interface is fast and uncluttered, loading significantly quicker than GitLab's resource-heavy UI.
Forgejo Actions is the platform's integrated CI/CD system, and its most strategically important feature. Workflows use YAML syntax compatible with GitHub Actions, meaning existing .github/workflows/ files often work with minimal modification. This dramatically lowers the migration barrier for teams leaving GitHub. Runners are self-hosted, giving full control over build environments and secrets. The system handles builds, tests, deployments, and artifact publishing.
Built into every Forgejo instance, the package registry supports container images (OCI), npm, PyPI, Maven, Cargo, NuGet, Composer, and more. Hosting packages alongside source code eliminates the need for separate registries like GitHub Packages or Artifactory. For small to mid-size teams, this consolidation reduces infrastructure complexity.
Issues support labels, milestones, assignees, due dates, and dependencies. Kanban-style project boards provide lightweight project management without requiring external tools like Jira or Linear. Time tracking is built in per issue, useful for consultancies and agencies that bill by the hour. The combination covers 80% of what most development teams need for project coordination.
Forgejo compiles to a single binary with optional SQLite support, meaning a functional instance runs without PostgreSQL, MySQL, or Redis. Memory usage on idle instances hovers around 100-200MB. This makes it viable for personal use, small teams, and edge deployments where resources are constrained. Larger teams benefit from PostgreSQL for better concurrent performance, but the SQLite path makes evaluation and small-scale use trivially easy.
Forgejo is free. There is no paid tier, no "enterprise edition" with gated features, no premium support upsell from the project itself. The GPL v3+ licence ensures that every feature is available to every user, and the licence's copyleft requirement means that any modifications to the codebase must also be released as free software.
The cost of running Forgejo is purely infrastructure: a VPS from Hetzner at EUR 4.50/month can host a capable instance for a small team. Larger organisations deploying for hundreds of developers will spend more on compute and storage, but the software licence cost remains zero.
Third-party companies offer hosted Forgejo instances and commercial support, though the project itself does not endorse specific providers. Codeberg.org, run by the same Codeberg e.V. nonprofit, provides free hosting for open-source projects using Forgejo as its backend.
Forgejo's compliance posture is a direct consequence of its architecture: self-hosted software that sends no telemetry, makes no external API calls, and stores all data on infrastructure you control. For GDPR purposes, the data controller and data processor are the same entity: your organisation.
Codeberg e.V. is registered in Berlin (Amtsgericht Charlottenburg VR36929), providing clear EU legal jurisdiction for the project's governance. The GPL v3+ licence guarantees source code access for security audits. No proprietary components exist anywhere in the stack.
For organisations that need to demonstrate data residency compliance, self-hosted Forgejo on EU infrastructure provides the simplest possible story: the code is open, the data stays on your servers, and no third-party service touches any of it.
Development teams leaving GitHub over sovereignty, cost, or governance concerns. Forgejo Actions' compatibility with GitHub Actions workflows makes migration practical rather than theoretical.
Small teams and solo developers who want a full-featured forge without paying for GitLab or GitHub Enterprise. A EUR 5/month VPS runs a complete instance.
Organisations with strict data residency requirements that cannot use US-hosted code platforms. Self-hosted Forgejo on EU infrastructure satisfies the most demanding compliance policies.
Open-source projects seeking a community-governed home for their code. Codeberg.org offers free Forgejo hosting for public repositories, backed by the same nonprofit that governs Forgejo itself.
Forgejo proves that a community-governed, nonprofit-backed code forge can deliver a genuinely competitive developer experience. Git hosting, CI/CD, package registries, and project management all work well within a single, lightweight binary. The GitHub Actions compatibility is a masterstroke for adoption. The limitations are real: no managed hosting from the project, a small paid development team, and missing enterprise features like dependency scanning. But for teams that value software freedom and data sovereignty above enterprise polish, Forgejo is the most principled choice available.
Forgejo is self-hosted software with no telemetry or external data transfers. GDPR compliance depends on your deployment choices, but the software creates no compliance obstacles. Hosted on EU infrastructure, it provides full data sovereignty.
Yes. Forgejo includes built-in migration that imports repositories, issues, pull requests, labels, and milestones from GitHub. Forgejo Actions is compatible with GitHub Actions workflow syntax, reducing CI/CD migration effort.
Forgejo forked from Gitea in 2022 and is now developed independently under Codeberg e.V. governance. It shares a common ancestry but has diverged in licensing (GPL v3+ vs MIT), governance model, and feature priorities like federation support.
Forgejo runs as a single binary and works on hardware as small as a Raspberry Pi with 512MB RAM using SQLite. Production instances for teams of 10-50 developers run comfortably on a 2 vCPU, 4GB RAM VPS with PostgreSQL.
Yes. Forgejo Actions is a built-in CI/CD system using YAML workflow files compatible with GitHub Actions syntax. Runners are self-hosted, giving full control over build environments, secrets, and resource allocation.