Gitea (self-hosted) vs GitLab
Run the open-source Gitea (MIT) on a small server or an EU VPS and keep your repositories, issues and CI on infrastructure you control. Compared with GitLab, a US company. Note: Gitea's commercial side is CommitGo, Inc., whose terms are governed by California law — not an EU company; Forgejo, the community fork under the umbrella of Germany's Codeberg e.V., is the EU-governed choice.
A Small Git Server You Run vs a US DevOps Suite
This page compares running the open-source Gitea yourself — on a small server in your office or a VPS at an EU host such as Hetzner, OVHcloud or Scaleway — with GitLab, the DevOps platform sold by GitLab Inc.
An important clarification first. Neither side here is a European company:
- GitLab Inc. is incorporated in Delaware with its business address in San Francisco (SEC filings). GitLab.com and GitLab subscriptions are US services.
- Gitea’s commercial side is CommitGo, Inc., which provides “leadership and commercial support” for the project and sells Gitea Enterprise. Its terms of service are governed by California law with San Francisco courts; it is not an EU company, and we found no Dutch entity, contrary to what an earlier version of this page said.
What makes Gitea a sovereign option is that the software is MIT-licensed and you can run it on hardware you control. Then no vendor holds your code. Everything below concerns that self-hosted setup.
Want EU governance of the project itself? Look at Forgejo, the community fork created in 2022 after Gitea’s domains and trademark moved to a for-profit company. Its domains are held by Codeberg e.V., a non-profit association in Berlin, and it is licensed GPL v3+ since version 9.0. Forgejo also powers Codeberg, if you would rather not host anything yourself.
Jurisdiction Comparison
| Gitea (self-hosted) | GitLab | |
|---|---|---|
| Who holds your code | You — on your own server | GitLab Inc. (on GitLab.com) or you (self-managed) |
| Licence | MIT | MIT (Community Edition) + proprietary Enterprise Edition |
| Commercial company | CommitGo, Inc. (California-law terms; not EU) | GitLab Inc. (Delaware, San Francisco) |
| CLOUD Act exposure | None from the tool when self-hosted | Yes on GitLab.com — US company |
| EU-governed fork | Forgejo (domains held by Codeberg e.V., Berlin) | — |
Feature Comparison
| Feature | Gitea (self-hosted, open source) | GitLab |
|---|---|---|
| Git hosting, pull/merge requests, issues | ✅ | ✅ |
| CI/CD | ✅ Gitea Actions (GitHub Actions syntax) | ✅ GitLab CI/CD (mature) |
| Package & container registry | ✅ Built-in | ✅ Built-in |
| SAML, audit logs, dependency scanning | ❌ Gitea Enterprise only | ⚠️ Paid tiers |
| DAST, epics/roadmaps | ❌ | ⚠️ Ultimate |
| Resource needs (small team) | ✅ 2 cores / 1 GB RAM typical | ❌ 8 vCPU / 16 GB baseline |
| Installation | ✅ Single binary | ⚠️ Linux package or Helm chart |
Pricing (as of October 2026)
- Gitea open source: free, MIT, unlimited users and repositories
- Gitea Enterprise (CommitGo, Inc.): $9.5–$19/user/month with a one-year commitment
- GitLab Free: GitLab.com with 10 GiB storage, 5 users per top-level group and 400 compute minutes/month; self-managed Free has no licence fee
- GitLab Premium: $29/user/month, billed annually
- GitLab Ultimate: contact sales
For a self-hosted team, Gitea costs whatever a small EU server costs, plus admin time. A 50-person team on GitLab Premium pays $17,400 per year in licences alone.
What Self-Hosting Really Costs
- Operations: upgrades, backups, TLS and monitoring are your responsibility — although a single binary makes this much simpler than with GitLab.
- CI runners: Gitea Actions needs runners you host.
- Feature gaps: SAML, audit logs, dependency scanning, IP allowlisting, enforced 2FA and branch-protection inheritance are Gitea Enterprise features, sold by CommitGo.
- Governance: Gitea’s direction is set with a commercial company in the lead. If that matters to you, Forgejo is the non-profit alternative and offers migration from Gitea.
Who Should Switch?
Self-hosted Gitea (or Forgejo) is ideal for:
- Small and mid-sized development teams that want fast, simple Git hosting without a heavy DevOps suite
- Organisations that must keep source code in-house on EU infrastructure
- Cost-conscious teams that want no per-seat licences
- Home labs and small offices running on modest hardware
GitLab may suit you better if you need its integrated DevSecOps tooling, compliance frameworks or epics — bearing in mind that those features require a licence from a US company.
The Bottom Line
Gitea is not a European company product: its commercial steward is CommitGo, Inc. But the MIT-licensed software is lightweight, capable and easy to run on your own EU server, where no vendor holds your data. That makes self-hosted Gitea a practical, low-cost way to leave GitLab.com or GitHub.
If you also want the project itself to be governed by a non-profit with EU roots, choose Forgejo — the same lightweight approach, with its domains held by Codeberg e.V. in Berlin.
Looking for more European developer tools? See also: Codeberg vs GitHub, Self-hosted GitLab CE vs GitHub and JetBrains vs VS Code.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Gitea a European company?
No. Gitea is an MIT-licensed open-source project. Its website states that it has 'leadership and commercial support from CommitGo', and the site is copyrighted by CommitGo, Inc., which also sells Gitea Enterprise; its terms of service are governed by California law, with San Francisco courts. We found no EU entity behind it. Earlier versions of this page wrongly said Gitea was run by a Dutch company. Self-hosting the open-source code on your own EU servers is still sovereign — no vendor holds your data — but buying Gitea Enterprise means contracting with CommitGo.
What is Forgejo and why does it matter?
Forgejo is a community fork of Gitea created in October 2022, after Gitea's domains and trademark were transferred to a for-profit company without the community's approval, according to the Forgejo project. Its domains are held by Codeberg e.V., a non-profit association based in Berlin, Germany, although Forgejo's own governance remains independent. It became a hard fork in early 2024 and is licensed GPL v3+ since version 9.0. Codeberg.org runs on Forgejo. If you want a lightweight forge whose stewardship is non-profit and EU-based, Forgejo is the natural choice.
How does Gitea compare to GitLab in resource usage?
Gitea's docs say 2 CPU cores and 1 GB RAM is typically sufficient for small teams, and that a Raspberry Pi 3 can run it for small workloads. GitLab's installation docs give 8 vCPU and 16 GB RAM as the baseline for a single-node install. For small teams, this translates into much cheaper hosting and simpler maintenance.
Does Gitea have CI/CD?
Yes. Gitea Actions provides built-in CI/CD that uses GitHub Actions-compatible workflow syntax, with runners you host yourself. It is younger and less comprehensive than GitLab CI/CD.
Is GitLab an EU alternative?
No. GitLab Inc. is incorporated in Delaware with its business address in San Francisco, according to its SEC filings. GitLab.com and GitLab subscriptions are US services. The open-source GitLab Community Edition can be self-hosted — see our self-hosted GitLab CE vs GitHub page.
Can I migrate from GitLab to Gitea?
Yes. Gitea's built-in migration tool imports repositories, issues, pull/merge requests, labels, milestones and releases from GitLab, GitHub, Bitbucket and others. Large organisations can script bulk migrations via Gitea's REST API.
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