Game Of Codes: Reasons Why Developers Use Only Three Repositories

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Reading this article, you will have a clear idea regarding the main hosting sites available. Beyond any doubt, they will become your best online assistants in your software development service.

GitHub - a social repository for open source code projects that use Git for source code versions control. This host site is a distributed file version management systems. Linus Torvalds created this project for Linux kernel development control. Such projects like Chromium, jQuery, PHP, MediaWiki etc. use Git. Good news - this free software is released under GNU GPL license version 2!

The mission of GitHub is to make the development process quick and captivating, especially when a few individuals simultaneously are working on the same task. Apart from being a good tool, GitHub is a large educational source. This service includes more than 21 million of code hosts. So let's take a look at GitHub features.

GitHub is gaining the lead, in our opinion. And you should check out it's strong sides to find out why. 

Weak sides

• Only premium users can use all GitHub repositories. The price for using this service is rather high. Nevertheless, the quality of service it provides is worth the candle.

• Restrictions on file size. The repository can host information up to 1 Gb and file size cannot exceed 100 Mb.

Developed on the basis of Git version control system, GitLab is one of the best web platforms for hosting project source codes. Although GitLab is similar to GitHub in terms of functionality, it seems to be a better choice for teamwork than it's famous counterpart and GitLab features may be different somewhat.

GitLab exists in two forms. The first one is SAAS - website with open registration, and the second one is an individual solution GitLab Community Edition. They both can be perfectly customized to any service.

What's interesting can you find on GitLab? 

It's drawbacks

• The interface is rather slow - switching from one page to another takes some time.

• Technical problems with repositories are quite frequent.

BitBucket can be called as a real worthy competitor to GitHub. Why BitBucket? Different operating systems support this platform. You just need to create to register on the official website and then you can create your personal account. In fact, it is based on a source code management mechanism. You can simultaneously use the code with integrated comments, and also make requests, manage and share your Git repositories. It is possible to create a flexible deployment model for any team. Moreover, you can get access to private and public repositories without any difficulties.

And, finally, BitBucket comes into play! 

Disadvantages

• Private repositories are free for a team with 5 members and fewer. If the team is larger, it will be necessary to pay for each additional team member.

• The only way of search is to launch repository and find it locally or use external apps.

• Not so stable as GitHub. Some problems during a work session may slow down the process.

In fact, services are similar to each other since they serve the same goals and implement the same methods. And each of three platforms has a few similar features like:

• Pull request;
• Code review; 
• Integrated editing; 
• Bug tracking; Markdown support; 
• Two-factor authentication; 
• API with extended features; 
• Forks/clones of repositories; 
• Snippets; 
• Integration of the 3rd party developers. 

Which one of them with open source code?

Only GitLab has an open source code version among the three repositories service management. GitLab Community Edition source code is available on their website, corporate version is their property.

GitHub is famous for it's open source software but is not an open source itself. To use it, you will have to pay a specific amount of money and in this case you can get GitHub new features.

BitBucket is not an open source code host, but when you buy an autonomous version, a full source code is submitted with product configuration options.

Import of repositories

When you try to decide what system is better to use, the ability to import and use previous projects is a crucial characteristic. BitBucket stands out of other three competitors because it is the only of source code hosting sites that support different repositories.

Both GitHub and BitBucket provide the import of repositories on the basis of several different VCS. GitLab supports Git platform only. Although the latter one is the most popular VCS, switching to GitLab can be complicated if you use Mercurial or SVN. GitLab repository import feature is focused on other users to help them switch from other platforms.

GitHub supports:

GitLab supports:

BitBucket supports:

We cannot state that any of these services overcome others since they are multipurpose services. Pay attention to the following scenarios.

• Need an open source code solution? Choose GitLab.
• A fan of Atlassian products (Confluence, Jira etc.)? BitBucket is your choice.
• GitHub is the best option for those who work on an open source code project.

As you can see, there is some difference between GitHub and GitLab as well as between BitBucket. Although GitHub is not an open source, it has the largest number of public open source projects. Due to a free public projects hosting, it is a social network for professional developers. Moreover, a captivating active account will help you find a good job since in most cases recruiters prefer candidates with an active profile on GitHub. Besides, our company also has some open source libraries that you may find on GitHub, where Cleveroad is in the top list of IT companies in Ukraine, and we took a 2nd place there! 

We will help you to look deeper into these services, just contact us.
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