Git In-House: Gitea and Forgejo

The agent writes code — but where does it live? GitHub and GitLab are powerful, but they are SaaS. Gitea and Forgejo are the open-source alternatives that run on your own server and bring everything a team needs.

Gitea vs. Forgejo: The Small Difference

Gitea is the established self-hosted Git service — a single binary, a Docker container, a PostgreSQL database. Forgejo is a Gitea fork that emerged in 2022 due to governance concerns; since the hard fork in 2024, it has been under a strict copyleft license with its own profile: The focus lies on community governance and federation (ActivityPub-based networking of instances).

Both can:

Host Git repositories with a web UI, branches, and tags
Handle pull requests with code review
Manage issues with labels, milestones, and boards
Run Actions/CI runners (Gitea Actions are GitHub Actions-compatible)
Provide a package registry (Docker, NPM, Maven)

In practice, the difference plays hardly any role for SMBs today. Both run stably, both have a web interface reminiscent of GitHub. Those who value pure community governance choose Forgejo; those seeking greater commercial backing opt for Gitea.

Setup: One Container

docker run -d --name gitea \
  -p 3000:3000 -p 2222:22 \
  -v gitea-data:/data \
  gitea/gitea:latest

Setup: Create an admin account, set the domain, and it's running. The reverse proxy (Caddy) handles HTTPS in front, Keycloak takes care of SSO. The /data volume belongs in the backup chain — it contains repositories, the database, and configuration.

Why On-Premises?

The source code is the company's intellectual property — including configurations, scripts, prompts, and MCP server code. Hosting it on GitHub or GitLab is convenient, but:

NIS2: Code repositories fall under the assets to be protected
Data sovereignty: Confidential configurations, secrets, customer projects
Fault tolerance: Your own Git server runs in your own cluster, not in AWS us-east-1 during an outage

CI/CD with Gitea Actions

Gitea Actions are GitHub Actions-compatible. A runner (a container) listens for jobs, executes them, and reports back. Build, test, deploy — everything within your own network.

For blog deployment: Push to Gitea, action builds the Next.js image, deploys to the senn-next container. No external CI, no external runner with access to internal servers.

Conclusion

Gitea or Forgejo represent the shortest path from "no Git server" to "full-fledged code management in-house". One afternoon of setup, then years of peace — and every agent writing code checks it in there.

FAQ

Is the effort of an own Git server worth it versus GitHub?+

For companies with their own code, internal configurations, and customer projects, yes. Source code including secrets, prompts, and MCP server code falls under the NIS2-protected assets, and an own Git server in your own cluster does not drop out during a cloud outage. Gitea or Forgejo are set up in an afternoon as a single Docker container and bring pull requests, issues, and CI — no recurring SaaS contract that gives away sovereignty over your code.

For whom is Forgejo the right choice over Gitea?+

For teams that value pure community governance and federation via ActivityPub. Forgejo is a Gitea fork born from governance concerns, under a strict copyleft license since 2024 with a focus on independent steering and networking of instances. In practice the difference barely matters for SMBs today — both run stably with a GitHub-like interface. Those seeking greater commercial backing stay with Gitea.

Can you really run CI/CD fully in-house?+

Yes. Gitea Actions are GitHub-Actions-compatible: a runner container listens for jobs, runs build, test, and deploy, and reports back — all within your own network with no external runner that has access to internal servers. For deployment you push to Gitea, an action builds the image and deploys. That creates a closed pipeline without dependence on foreign CI infrastructure.