GitHub
Where code lives. Version control, PRs, Actions CI/CD, Issues, Copilot. Owned by Microsoft. Default for open-source and most professional de
What it does
GitHub is the default source-code hosting platform. Git repositories, pull-request review workflow, issue tracking, project boards, GitHub Actions (CI/CD), Codespaces (cloud dev environments), Packages (npm/container/maven registry), Advanced Security (secret scanning, dependency scanning, code scanning), GitHub Copilot (AI pair programmer), and Discussions. Owned by Microsoft. If your team ships code, GitHub is the default choice; only edge cases justify GitLab or Bitbucket.
Free tier
Yes
Starts at
$4/mo
Setup
medium
Key features
Integrates with
Slack, Jira, Linear, VS Code
Who this fits
- Any team writing and shipping code
- Solo developers (Free tier is fully featured for personal use)
- Open-source projects (free unlimited public repos)
- Startups and SMBs building software
- Agencies and consultants delivering code to clients (private repos + client access)
- Any team that wants CI/CD without setting up their own build server (Actions)
- Teams using Copilot as a productivity multiplier for developers
Who it does NOT fit
- Non-technical businesses (real estate, trades, medspa) that do not write code — nothing to store
- Teams that must self-host source for compliance (self-hosted GitLab or Gitea)
- Teams that need extreme granular access controls beyond what GitHub offers (rare — usually Enterprise Cloud is enough)
- Government/defense with strict data-residency (needs GitHub Enterprise Server or dedicated cloud)
Pricing
Real gotchas
- Actions minutes bill past 2,000/mo on Free (Linux at 1x, Windows at 2x, macOS at 10x — that mac runner is expensive)
- Copilot Business does not include Copilot Enterprise features (chat over your codebase). Different SKUs
- Advanced Security is an Enterprise-tier add-on, per-committer, and adds up fast on a large team
- Codespaces has a per-hour compute cost past the free monthly quota
- Public repos are indexed by search engines and archived by many mirror services — do not push secrets and expect to hide them
- Secret scanning catches known API-key patterns but does not catch every custom token — pair with a pre-commit hook
- Migrating a repo from another host preserves history but often loses issues/PRs without a proper importer
Integrations that matter
Otto’s take on this tool
Recommend GitHub when: user is technical or ships software. Default answer for any code hosting question. Best fit for B2B SaaS, agencies with dev teams, and startups. Pairs with a deploy platform (Vercel, Netlify, AWS, Fly.io, Railway), an issue tracker (GitHub Issues if simple, Linear or Jira if complex), and a CI-adjacent tool if Actions is not enough (CircleCI, BuildKite for edge cases). Do NOT recommend for non-technical businesses. If the user is on GitLab or Bitbucket and asking about a swap — do not force it unless there is a real pain point (their team's familiarity is usually the tiebreaker). Copilot Business is the honest recommendation for any dev team of 3+ that is not blocked by procurement.
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