Forgejo vs GitLab

Forgejo and GitLab are both forges you can self-host, at opposite sizes. Forgejo is a lightweight forge licensed GPL v3 or later, created in 2022 as a fork of Gitea, with Codeberg e.V. holding its domains. GitLab Inc., listed on Nasdaq since 2021, sells a DevSecOps platform as SaaS, self-managed or single-tenant Dedicated, with Free, Premium and Ultimate tiers.

Editor Sebastiaan Smits

Published Last reviewed How we review

Choose Forgejo if

you want a light forge that runs on small machines such as a Raspberry Pi, with built-in Forgejo Actions CI, contributor-defined governance, and only free software throughout its development.

Read the Forgejo review

Choose GitLab if

you need planning, advanced CI/CD, application security testing and compliance in one product, want someone else to host it, or need single-tenant hosting with data residency in a chosen AWS region.

Read the GitLab review

Forgejo and GitLab side by side

 ForgejoGitLab
Company Forgejo (under Codeberg e.V.) GitLab
Headquarters Berlin, Germany Rotterdam, Netherlands
Jurisdiction Self-hosted; domains held by Codeberg e.V., governance by contributors EU (Netherlands)
Where the data sits Wherever you deploy it Self-hosted anywhere, or SaaS with EU data residency options
Pricing Free (self-hosted) Free tier / Premium $29 per user per month billed annually / Ultimate custom pricing
Entry-level list price (vendor site, checked 30 September 2026) Free (GPL v3+ free software, self-hosted) Premium: $29 per user/month, billed annually (Free tier $0 per user/month)
Free tier or trial Free Free tier: 5 users per top-level group, 10 GiB storage
Certifications and checks GDPR GDPR
Source code Open source (GPL v3+ (since v9.0)) Open source (Community Edition open source)
Usually replaces GitHub, GitLab, Gitea GitHub, Bitbucket
Position in our Developer Tools guide #4 of 15 #1 of 15

Both are listed in our European Developer Tools guide. The table is built from the same directory data as those entries, except the list price, which is quoted from each vendor's own pricing page (see Sources below); how we check it is described in the editorial process.

Where Forgejo and GitLab differ

Across the five points below, Forgejo has the edge on 2 points, GitLab on 2 points and one is a tie. A count like that is a summary, not a verdict: the point that matters to you may be the one the other product wins.

Scope of the platform

GitLab's tiers run from source code management, CI/CD and static application security testing on Free, through advanced CI/CD and team project management on Premium, to application security testing, supply chain security, vulnerability and portfolio management on Ultimate. Forgejo offers git hosting, issue tracking and Forgejo Actions, and its own comparison marks advanced CI and project-management requirements as not yet covered.

Edge: GitLab

Weight of self-hosting

GitLab's installation requirements give 8 vCPU and 16 GB of memory as the baseline for a single-node install. Forgejo describes itself as easy to install and low maintenance, needing an order of magnitude fewer resources than other forges, and its comparison names tiny machines such as a Raspberry Pi as a fit. For a small team running its own server, Forgejo asks far less.

Edge: Forgejo

Governance and licence

Forgejo's governance is defined by its contributors in public repositories; Codeberg e.V., a Berlin non-profit, holds its domains while the project's governance stays independent. Releases from 9.0 are GPL v3 or later, earlier ones MIT. GitLab is developed by GitLab Inc.; code outside its enterprise directory is MIT. For projects that want no commercial owner over their forge, Forgejo is the clearer fit.

Edge: Forgejo

Hosting options and support

GitLab offers GitLab.com, self-managed installs and GitLab Dedicated, a fully managed single-tenant service with data residency in any AWS region; Premium includes priority support. Forgejo is software to install yourself or use on public instances such as Codeberg, and for paid help it points to a professional-services repository where independent providers and requests meet. Teams wanting the vendor to operate the forge need GitLab.

Edge: GitLab

What you pay

Forgejo is free software with no licence fee; your cost is the server and the time to run it. GitLab Free costs $0 for up to 5 users per top-level group on GitLab.com, with 400 compute minutes a month and 10 GiB of storage. Premium is $29 per user a month billed annually with 10,000 minutes, and Ultimate is priced on request.

No clear winner on this point.

When neither Forgejo nor GitLab fits

If you want a community-run forge without running a server, Codeberg hosts free and open-source projects on Forgejo, run by a Berlin non-profit. If you want a lightweight self-hosted forge with a company offering hosting and SLA support, Gitea sells Gitea Cloud and Gitea Enterprise.

Forgejo vs GitLab: questions

No. Forgejo was created in October 2022 as a fork of Gitea, after a for-profit company took over the Gitea project, and Codeberg now describes it as a hard fork. GitLab is a separate code base whose first commit dates from 2011, developed by GitLab Inc., publicly traded on Nasdaq since 2021.

Yes. Forgejo Actions is built in, with workflows kept in the repository and run on runners you provide. GitLab includes 400 compute minutes a month on Free, 10,000 on Premium and 50,000 on Ultimate, with most security testing in Ultimate. Forgejo's own comparison says advanced CI requirements are not yet covered.

With Forgejo, on whatever server you install it. GitLab can be self-managed on your own infrastructure, used on GitLab.com, or taken as GitLab Dedicated with data residency in any AWS region you choose. GitLab's privacy statement names GitLab B.V. and GitLab Inc. as the entities handling personal data.

Not any more. Forgejo versions 9.0 and later are distributed under the GPL v3 or later; versions up to 8.0 were MIT. A move to the AGPL or EUPL was proposed but not agreed. GitLab's repository is MIT outside its enterprise directory, which has a separate licence.

Sources

Facts, prices and plan details on this page were checked on the vendors' own websites on . Prices and plans change; the vendor's current page is authoritative.

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