Gitea vs Forgejo vs GitLab CE Compared

GitLab's own documentation lists a 4GB RAM minimum just to run a small self-managed instance — more than four times what a Gitea or Forgejo container needs to sit idle. That single number should shape which one you install before you compare a single feature checklist.

If you're moving private repos off a third party and onto your own hardware, you have three realistic self-hosted options: Gitea, its community-governed fork Forgejo, and GitLab Community Edition. They are not interchangeable. Two of them are lightweight Go binaries that fit comfortably on a spare mini PC or a single Proxmox LXC. The third is a full DevOps platform that happens to have a free tier, and it wants a real chunk of RAM before it will run smoothly.

Three forges, one shared ancestor

Gitea and Forgejo are close relatives. Both are written in Go, both ship as a single small binary or container, and both give you repos, issues, pull requests, a wiki, and a package registry without asking for much hardware in return. If you've read a Gitea tutorial from a few years ago, most of it still applies to Forgejo — the UI and workflows are nearly identical.

GitLab CE is a different animal entirely. It's the free, self-managed tier of the same GitLab used by large engineering orgs, and it carries the weight of that ambition: a bundled PostgreSQL database, Redis, background workers, a full CI/CD engine, container registry, security scanning hooks, and issue boards, all running as part of one Omnibus install (or a much heavier set of containers if you run it that way). None of that is bad — it's just built for a different scale than a homelab shelf.

The fork: why Forgejo exists

Forgejo split from Gitea in late 2022 after concerns grew about a for-profit entity forming around the Gitea project and how much control that gave a commercial interest over a community codebase. What started as a soft fork — tracking Gitea closely and merging upstream changes — became a hard fork in 2024, meaning Forgejo now diverges deliberately rather than just trailing behind. It's stewarded by Codeberg e.V., a non-profit, with an explicit focus on staying community-controlled, GPL-licensed, and (unlike Gitea) actively building ActivityPub-based federation so separate Forgejo instances can eventually interact. Gitea, meanwhile, remains backed by a commercial company (Gitea Ltd) that offers a paid enterprise edition alongside the open-source project — which is exactly the dynamic Forgejo's split was a reaction to.

Practically, for a single self-hosted instance with no other forges to federate with, the day-to-day experience of Gitea and Forgejo is still very close. The difference that matters most for most homelabbers is governance and long-term direction, not a missing button.

Resource footprint on real homelab hardware

This is where the SERP usually goes quiet, and it's the number that should actually drive your choice if you're running this on a Raspberry Pi, an old mini PC, or a single LXC carved out of a bigger box.

Gitea and Forgejo are both documented as needing very little — a single CPU core and well under a gigabyte of RAM is enough for a small team's worth of repos, issues, and pull requests sitting mostly idle between pushes. That headroom means you can run one alongside other self-hosted services on the same low-power box without planning a dedicated machine around it, the same way you might size out any other service when you're first learning to build a homelab.

GitLab CE is a different budget line. Its own documentation states a 4GB RAM minimum for small self-managed instances (up to roughly 500 users), with 8GB recommended once you get toward 1,000 users, and a memory-constrained fallback path of around 2 to 2.5GB of RAM plus swap — which GitLab itself warns will degrade functionality and performance rather than run cleanly.

If you're deciding whether that VM should be a Proxmox LXC, a full VM, or a Docker container on top of either, that's the same tradeoff covered in our Proxmox vs Docker guide — GitLab CE in particular benefits from the extra isolation and easier resource capping a VM gives you over a container sharing the host kernel.

The comparison table

Here's how the three stack up on the dimensions that actually change your deployment plan:

Dimension	Gitea	Forgejo	GitLab CE
Idle RAM footprint	Well under 1GB; documented as usable on ~256MB minimum	Same as Gitea (shared codebase) — well under 1GB	4GB minimum documented, 8GB recommended for growth
CPU footprint	1 core comfortable for small teams	1 core comfortable for small teams	Multiple cores recommended; heavier background workers
Built-in CI/CD	Gitea Actions — GitHub-Actions-style YAML, opt-in runners	Forgejo Actions — same lineage as Gitea Actions, GitHub-Actions-style YAML	GitLab CI/CD — mature, first-party, own YAML syntax, built-in SAST/DAST
Container/package registry	Built-in OCI-compatible package registry	Built-in OCI-compatible package registry	Built-in container registry, deeply integrated with CI
Migration from GitHub	Built-in importer for repos, issues, PRs, labels, releases	Built-in importer for repos, issues, PRs, labels, releases	Import-by-URL GitHub importer available
License	MIT (core), separate paid enterprise edition	GPL (community edition), fully open	Open-core; CE is free and open, EE is paid
Governance	Backed by a commercial entity, Gitea Ltd	Community-governed via non-profit Codeberg e.V.	Backed by GitLab Inc., a public company
Best fit	Solo devs and small teams wanting a light, fast forge	Same footprint as Gitea, for those who prioritize community governance	Teams that want full DevOps tooling and have the RAM to spare

The pattern is straightforward: Gitea and Forgejo are near-identical on resource cost and close on features, so the real decision between them is who you want steering the project. GitLab CE trades that lightness for a genuinely more complete platform — if you need built-in security scanning, issue boards, and a deeply integrated CI pipeline out of the box, that weight buys you something real.

CI/CD: Gitea Actions, Forgejo Actions, and GitLab CI

All three forges can run your automated builds, tests, and deploys without a separate CI tool bolted on — but they get there differently.

Gitea Actions and Forgejo Actions both use YAML workflow syntax modeled on GitHub Actions, and Forgejo Actions is built on the same underlying architecture Gitea Actions introduced, since Forgejo forked the feature alongside the rest of the codebase. In practice, a lot of existing GitHub Actions workflow files run with little or no editing once you point them at a compatible runner. That said, neither project claims full drop-in compatibility — some actions from the GitHub Marketplace won't be available, and edge-case syntax may need small tweaks, so budget an afternoon of testing rather than assuming a zero-touch migration.

GitLab CI/CD is a separate, older, and more mature system with its own .gitlab-ci.yml syntax rather than GitHub Actions compatibility. It's a genuine strength if you're starting fresh rather than migrating: built-in security scanning (SAST, dependency scanning), tighter integration with GitLab's container registry, and a CI engine that's had years to mature. The cost is the same one you pay everywhere else with GitLab CE — more RAM, more moving parts, and a steeper learning curve if all you actually needed was "run my tests on push."

Moving off GitHub: the real migration friction

Whichever forge you land on, none of the three make you rebuild your history by hand. Gitea and Forgejo both ship a built-in "migrate from GitHub" importer that pulls in the repo itself along with issues, pull requests, labels, milestones, and releases. GitLab CE offers an import-by-URL GitHub importer that does similar work.

What doesn't come along automatically is anything GitHub-specific: GitHub Actions steps that rely on Marketplace actions unavailable elsewhere, GitHub Pages, Dependabot alerts, and any third-party app integrations wired to GitHub's webhook and API surface. Those need to be rebuilt on whichever platform you land on, not just re-pointed.

If you're weighing whether the forge itself should live in a container or a full VM once you've decided which one to run, the same considerations apply as any other self-hosted service — see our Docker vs VM breakdown for how to think about isolation versus overhead for something holding your private code.

What I actually run, and why

My setup is a Forgejo instance in an LXC on my Proxmox box, sitting next to a handful of other self-hosted services on hardware that isn't trying to be a data center — the kind of modest mini PC or repurposed box covered in our home server hardware picks. I picked Forgejo over Gitea mostly on governance: I wanted the project steering private repos of mine to be accountable to a non-profit and its community rather than a company that could change direction under commercial pressure, which is the exact scenario Forgejo split off to avoid. The day-to-day experience feels almost identical to Gitea, because it is — same interface muscle memory, same low resource draw, same Actions setup.

I looked at GitLab CE and ruled it out for this box specifically because of the RAM line in the table above, not because it's a worse product. If I were running a small team that wanted built-in security scanning and issue boards and had a dedicated VM to spare, GitLab CE would be a reasonable call. For a homelab that just needs private, reliable Git hosting plus lightweight CI, it was more platform than the job needed.

Which one fits your setup

Pick Gitea if you want the lightweight option and don't have a strong opinion on project governance — it's fast, well documented, and has the largest community of the two lightweight forges.

Pick Forgejo if that same lightweight footprint appeals to you but you'd rather your Git forge answer to a community non-profit than a commercial entity, or you're interested in where its federation work is headed.

Pick GitLab CE if you need a genuinely complete DevOps platform — built-in security scanning, issue boards, mature CI/CD — and you have a dedicated machine with real RAM to give it, rather than a shared low-power box.

Frequently asked questions

Is Forgejo better than Gitea?

Neither is strictly better — they're close to feature-equivalent day to day since they share a codebase. The meaningful difference is governance: Forgejo is community-run through the non-profit Codeberg e.V., while Gitea is backed by a commercial company. Pick based on which governance model you'd rather trust with your code hosting.

How much RAM does GitLab CE need to self-host?

GitLab's own documentation lists a 4GB RAM minimum for a small self-managed instance, with 8GB recommended as you approach 1,000 users. There's a memory-constrained fallback of roughly 2 to 2.5GB plus swap, but GitLab itself warns that configuration can degrade performance and functionality.

Can Forgejo Actions run GitHub Actions workflows?

Largely, yes — Forgejo Actions uses GitHub-Actions-style YAML and many workflows run with little to no editing. It isn't designed as a guaranteed drop-in replacement, though, so test your actual workflows before relying on it, since some GitHub Marketplace actions and edge-case syntax may need adjustment.

Is Gitea good enough to replace GitHub for private repos?

For personal projects, small teams, and homelab use, yes — Gitea covers repos, issues, pull requests, a wiki, a package registry, and CI through Gitea Actions, all on a fraction of the hardware GitHub-adjacent alternatives like GitLab CE require. What it won't replicate is GitHub's public discovery, Marketplace ecosystem, and social features.

Does GitLab CE have a container registry?

Yes — GitLab CE ships with a built-in container registry integrated with its CI/CD pipeline. Gitea and Forgejo also both include a built-in OCI-compatible package registry, so this is no longer a clear differentiator between the lightweight forges and GitLab CE the way it once was.