Forgejo
this post was submitted on 16 Sep 2025
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Forgejo my beloved 🥰🥰
X 100
The really simple setup for a single user is just a SSH server with access to storage and the git command. Assuming your laptop and desktop have SSH access to server, you can just:
ssh server git init --bare somerepo
cd somerepo
git remote add server server:somerepo
git push --set-upstream somerepo master #(or main)
and then git clone server:somerepo.
For something slightly higher-tech, I recommend going with Forgejo (the fork of Gitea). It is really easy to set up and low maintainance.
Avoid GitLab for small setups, it is fairly resource hungry.
This is the correct answer
For something more than bare got and lower than forgejo I can recommend soft-serve
I use forgejo on a raspberry pi.
Second Forgejo. Easiest deploy I've ever done.
I have a private instance of Forgejo in docker on my server. took me all of 5 minutes to set up. I did this only because I wanted a web based GUI for some stuff.
SSH is all you need. You can clone directly from one .git directory to another.
e.g
git remote add desktop git@desktop:project/.git
git push desktop main --set-upstream
Many excellent replies. Just want to add https://github.com/charmbracelet/soft-serve as an option
Do you have any experience with it? I am curious about it and wonder how is the usability in its current state. I have not seen any independent review or feedback about it yet.
I use it for my personal projects and its perfectly usuable. If you want people to contribute you'll just have to do it the old fashioned email patch way. You can use RSA keys but it requires a little fiddling. I've used them but needed to massage something. Now I just use ed keys. The SSH ui is perfectly fine. Your repos are stored as bare repos on the server in the configured directory. So they are easily backed up as regular files. It also supporta LFS.
Let me knownif you have any other questions
git init --bare
And then just ssh to the server to push/pull. It can’t be any simpler
Check out Gitea. It was pretty easy to set up with docker and they have pretty decent docs.
gitea has been replaced by forgejo
You are correct, and I am still a bit sad about it, because gitea was a cuter name and logo TBH. But Forgejo is pursuing a technically superior design and socially better path at this point.
I think Forgejo is a community-driven fork of Gitea. Gitea development is still active.
Look at the number of commits
Churn != Improvement
Not necessarily
Notice Forgejo is being hosted on Forgejo. The community behind it is much stronger while Gitea is some startup that is desperately trying to be relevant.