03 // MANIFESTO DOING OUR OWN THING

Why not just use GitHub?

Fair question. Here is the unfiltered answer.

100% Microsoft-Free Zone
01 BAIT & SWITCH

GitHub is greedy

GitHub gave students cool stuff, then slowly removes them and moves features into more expensive plans. I am tired of depending on free perks that can disappear whenever they feel like it — Copilot Education/Pro for students had every good model stripped out, making it practically worthless. Fuck GitHub.

02 CORPORATE LOCK-IN

It is owned by Microsoft

GitHub is owned by Microsoft. That alone is enough for me to hate it. I do not want all of open source software sitting in the hands of a giant company that makes closed-source software and loves locking people into its ecosystem. I also despise Windows, but that is irrelevant.

03 NO BLOAT

AI slop everywhere

GitHub keeps pushing Copilot and AI into every corner. I do not want my code host to constantly shove AI in my face. I just want somewhere to put my repositories without feeling like everything is being turned into training data or another Microsoft product.

04 ZERO TELEMETRY

Privacy

This server is run by me, a random student, so you do not have to blindly trust me either. But at least I am not a massive company trying to track you, sell AI tools, or measure everything you do for profit. If that is not enough, GitLab or Codeberg are still better than the alternative.

05 ANTI-MONOPOLY

GitHub is a monopoly

Everyone puts everything on GitHub now: code, issues, releases, docs, packages, websites, actions, discussions, everything. That is way too much power for one website owned by one company — especially when that company is Microsoft.

06 OWN YOUR IRON

Self-hosting is better

This place exists because I wanted my own git host. No giant platform, no corporate branding, no pretending this is the future of software. Just my own little forge on my own domain, because running your own stuff is cool. Want your own? Look up Forgejo — it is great.

REALITY CHECK // PLATFORM COMPARISON Why independent forges matter in 2026
Capability GitDXD (Forgejo) GitHub (Microsoft) GitLab SaaS
Ownership & Governance ✓ Independent & GPLv3 Libre ✕ Proprietary Microsoft subsidiary ~ Open-core corporate SaaS
AI Popups & Upsells in UI ✓ Zero — pure code & git ✕ Injected into every button & PR ~ Duo upsells on enterprise tiers
Telemetry & Behavioral Tracking ✓ None (self-hosted box) ✕ Extensive analytics & profiling ~ SaaS analytics & tier limits
Resource Footprint ✓ Single Go binary, snappy UI ✕ Heavy hydrated React bundles ✕ Heavy multi-gigabyte stack