Ask HN: Do teams really need to use GitHub?

Enterprises can self-host, sure. Open source projects uses it for the the network effects of GitHub. But why does a small software team need to use GitHub?

I understand the ecosystem argument. Once you've got your repos, CI/CD, PRs, code reviews, packages, integrations, etc. all wired into GitHub, moving everything is a pain. But Git itself is distributed, and GitHub has a pretty open plugin/integration system. There are also perfectly capable alternatives like GitLab, Bitbucket, Forgejo, Gitea, SourceHut, etc.

So what is the actual thing that makes a 10–20 person software company stick with GitHub? Is it mostly switching costs? The ecosystem? Developer familiarity? Something else? And if you were to start a project today, would you still go with GitHub?

And a slightly more personal question.

I've had a rough idea for what a new GitHub could look like if it were built specifically for software that is increasingly being written by AI agents, and specifically for companies rather than open-source projects. The idea isn't really "another GitHub clone". More of a forge designed around how software teams might work when agents are doing a significant part of the coding, reviewing, testing and deployment work, etc.

I've been sitting on the idea for a while because, well, GitHub exists. But after the recent outages, I've started wondering whether this is actually worth pursuing. In fact, I see a future where there are multiple alternatives to GitHub with their own take on the interface and UI/UX. Interested to hear your thoughts.

5 points | by avinoth 11 hours ago

4 comments

  • mattbrewsbytes 10 hours ago
    The reason why small and large companies use github (or any other SaaS) is simple: building and maintaining that service is not something that will help that company move forward. Spending the amount of time to build it, integrate everything, maintain all those integrations is time they could have spent building whatever software their company actually sells.

    With the advent of AI, people are probably thinking its easy to clone services like this and many others. Sure a 1.0 might be easy to stand up but you've got to now patch it, maintain it, extend it, integrate more tools into it, and keep it running better than github. People may joke/sneer at uptime metrics but when internal tools at a software company are down or worse, buggy and causing issues with delivery, its more painful than checking a status page to see when its back.

    [-]
    • Chnmy 8 hours ago
      If AI Factories somehow make Day 2 ops of managing such services in house with a fixed cost on the balance sheet we might have a different future.
      [-]
      • mattbrewsbytes 5 hours ago
        If its a fixed cost on a balance sheet you might as well just use github (substitute whatever SaaS you're going to have AI clone), thats what that is without having responsibility for it.
  • JasonYellow 1 hour ago
    It's not "readdly need", but a universal, stable, and low-cost solution can save a lot of time and money.
  • leros 6 hours ago
    Companies like to reduce risk and unknowns. Paying $500/mo for Git that is run by somebody else is predictable. Having your self hosted Git potentially go down and block releases, block hot fixes, block that big marketing launch, etc is not a risk you want looming over your head because it's not predictable.