It's nice for open source, no doubt. That is, if you want to use git. But I find them a tid bit expensive (in addition to offering, well... git, which isn't what I want) for anything that is not FOSS.

I mean, for what they ask for the smallest "individual" plan, you can rent a vserver. And for the price of the smallest "organization" plan you can rent a real dedicated server. No restriction to 5 repos on there, no restriction on size (OK, well, limited by the 4TB disk size that you get...), and you have plenty of capacity to host something different for free, too. Only downside being that you have no web interface (pointless... but I think it's even available for free if you absolutely think that you need it). And of course you have to install a Linux image and type something like sudo apt-get install git once, which is a really big hurdle for a programmer.

even before your CV or Degree is your Github repo and your Stackoverflow rep

While I can see the legitimate desire to look at code that you've written (actually this often tells more than a degree), the last point surprises me. Stackoverflow reputation is so totally meaningless and so totally unrelated to knowledge, skill, or being helpful.

While I can see the legitimate desire to look at code that you've written (actually this often tells more than a degree), the last point surprises me. Stackoverflow reputation is so totally meaningless and so totally unrelated to knowledge, skill, or being helpful.

A lot of the startups in London are run by Hipsters. They just think its cool.

The last time I interview at a startup the two interviewers gave their job titles as "User Interface Wizard" and "Chief Digital Nomad".

The last time I interview at a startup the two interviewers gave their job titles as "User Interface Wizard" and "Chief Digital Nomad".

Rightyright, so these are really posh titles, my dear. I'll... call you then. Please don't call me.

Also, FYI, for those unhappy with GitHub, there's GitLab which also gives you free private repos via their online service, and they even distribute their software so you can run it on your own server. The catch is that they paywall some of their features for the version you can run on your own server, things that would be nice for game developers, like nice support for Git-Annex (great for those binary files). Repo size is unlimited too, unlimited number of repos per account -- Cons are that they're playing catch-up to some of GitHub's other features, and of course they don't have the GitHub community.

When I looked into it awhile ago, mainline Git was working to include a solution for big binaries, and GitLab was planning to support that in the free version of their server. I believe their online service has support and its not pay-walled.

[EDIT] Just checked again, the Annex-alternative I was talking about is git-lfs, which is an open-source extension to git. Both GitHub and GitLab support it already, and its in the free GitLab server distribution as well as the online service.

I use bitbucket for all my private repos, and use github for all my open-source repos.

Exactly the same for me. I have been using some kind of revision control for a long time, and git is just what everyone is using. It has its problems, but it is better than subversion. I wish I would have had this when I went to school.

As far as putting something on Github, good software bubbles to the top. The fact that you found five other's with the same idea, but none of the projects seemed to have traction, tells me that you definitely should fix that, so at least there is one out there. Start you own.

Only downside being that you have no web interface (pointless... but I think it's even available for free if you absolutely think that you need it)

If you want that then you could get a cheap windows virtual server and put bonobo on it which is a free Web based git repository manager.

Or, if you have less than 10 devs, pay $10 as a one off fee for atlassian stash and put it on a Linux virtual server.

I've used both and still use stash right now which I love for the convenience of the Web based repository and permissions management and the api integration it provides that let you tie it into other things.

Although I've used github, have an account, and even though reasonably popular open source projects I stated using subversion moved there after I handed over the reigns, I've never been a fan. Not sure why because it works. Perhaps it's because I'm trusting a third party to host the repository and something inside me worries what might happen to them in the future. Will they become money grabbing spyware spreading freeloaders like sourceforge? I just don't know, and perhaps that's what I'm scared of.

But if it works for you, seems good then go for it. It works for many others :)

You can always host your own too.

If you have access to an IIS server, you can run your own git server with Bonobo Git Server, I've been using this on my home Windows Server, and it works great. I haven't tried it on a rented server (which might have more restricted permissions),

Or if you have access to an apache server, you can host that way too.

Also, FYI, for those unhappy with GitHub, there's GitLab which also gives you free private repos via their online service, and they even distribute their software so you can run it on your own server.

I use GitLab for private repos, and github for public repos. GitLab has been pretty nice feature-wise thus far, but I have been experiencing significant performance issues during peak times of day.

It's still a very worthwhile service given the price, but YMMV.

Also, FYI, for those unhappy with GitHub, there's GitLab which also gives you free private repos via their online service, and they even distribute their software so you can run it on your own server.

I use GitLab for private repos, and github for public repos. GitLab has been pretty nice feature-wise thus far, but I have been experiencing significant performance issues during peak times of day.

It's still a very worthwhile service given the price, but YMMV.

I've considered doing that, but been wary since serving to the little guy (whether free or retail) really isn't their business model -- they only make money on enterprise-type customers and if their prediction that they can keep afloat on that income is wrong it'll be the little guy to suffer service changes or worse. I don't doubt their commitment and I think their product compares favorably to GitHub, but quality and commitments don't pay bills at the end of the day.

Now that they have LFS support in the Community edition of their software distribution, I'll probably consider it again knowing that worst-case I can grab their software and host it myself if I have to. A 5-10 $/mo VPS is plenty to host it on, and that's basically what I pay for GitHub now anyways. If I weren't already satisfied with dreamhost as my web hosting service, I'd probably just get a $20/mo VPS and consolidate it all self-hosted.

But definitely GitHub for the community alone if your project is open.

Do you guys realize that you don't need any special software to have a remote git repository? Spin up a server somewhere (at your home, whatever), run sshd, open up port 22, create your user, install git. Pick a location on your server (e.g /opt/myrepo) accessible by that user, run git-init with bare options. Done.

Here's some explanations:

https://www.atlassian.com/git/tutorials/setting-up-a-repository