GitHub has alternatives, but no replacement | Hacker News

A Hacker News discussion said GitLab, Forgejo, and Radicle can replace GitHub for code hosting.

But many noted that GitHub’s stars, feeds, fork network, issue tracking, and discoverability are still hard to match.

Some said they mainly use GitHub for hosting and CI, while free GitHub Actions and ecosystem convenience keep migration costs high.

The thread showed why many developers stay on GitHub: its social graph and free tooling create strong lock-in.