Gitea — Lightweight Self-Hosted Git Service

What it is

Gitea is a self-hosted Git service written in Go that provides a complete software development platform. It covers code hosting, pull requests with inline review, issue tracking, CI/CD through Gitea Actions (GitHub Actions compatible), a built-in package registry, wikis, and organization management. It ships as a single binary with minimal resource requirements.

Gitea suits teams and individuals who want GitHub-like functionality on their own infrastructure. It runs on modest hardware, making it practical for home servers, air-gapped environments, and organizations that need full control over their source code.

How it saves time or tokens

Gitea replaces multiple tools with a single deployment. Code hosting, CI/CD, package registry, and project management all run from one service. The GitHub Actions compatibility layer means existing workflow YAML files work with minimal changes. Docker deployment takes one command, and the Go binary starts in seconds with no external dependencies beyond a database.

How to use

1. Run the Docker container with docker run -d --name gitea -p 3000:3000 -p 2222:22 -v gitea-data:/data gitea/gitea:latest.
2. Open http://localhost:3000 and complete the installation wizard to configure the database and admin account.
3. Create repositories, set up branch protection rules, and configure Gitea Actions for CI/CD pipelines.

Example

# Start Gitea with Docker
docker run -d \
  --name gitea \
  -p 3000:3000 \
  -p 2222:22 \
  -v gitea-data:/data \
  gitea/gitea:latest

# Clone and push
git clone http://localhost:3000/user/repo.git
cd repo
echo '# My Project' > README.md
git add . && git commit -m 'init'
git push origin main

Related on TokRepo

• Self-Hosted AI Tools — More self-hosted development and AI tools
• DevOps Tools — CI/CD and infrastructure automation

Common pitfalls

• Gitea Actions requires a separate runner binary (act_runner). The Gitea server alone does not execute CI/CD jobs.
• SQLite works for small teams but PostgreSQL or MySQL is recommended for anything beyond a few concurrent users.
• Gitea is not POSIX-compatible with GitHub API endpoints. Some third-party GitHub integrations may need adjustments to work with Gitea API paths.