GitHub hosts your code, tracks changes and lets you and collaborators review each other's work. It's for any founder building software, or working with a developer who is. The free plan gives unlimited public and private repositories and 2,000 CI/CD minutes a month for automated tests and deployments, plus 500MB of Packages storage. Both are free without limits on public repositories.
What it can do for you
Keep your code safe and versioned, so a bad change can be undone. Use pull requests to review a freelancer's work before it goes live, issues to track bugs, and GitHub Actions to run tests or deploy automatically when you push. Almost every developer you'll hire already knows it, and most hosting and deployment tools connect to it directly.
What people like
It's the standard. Being free for unlimited private repositories means there's no reason to keep code on a laptop or in a shared folder, and the ecosystem of integrations is unmatched.
The honest downsides
- Actions minutes run out on private repos. GitHub's docs say private-repository usage beyond the monthly quota is billed, and heavy test suites can burn through 2,000 minutes.
- Storage is small. 500MB of Packages storage won't go far if you publish container images.
- Team features cost money. Team is $4 per user a month, and you'll want it for things like required reviews on private repositories.
- Usage can be blocked. GitHub's docs note that paid usage can stop if no payment method is on file, so check before a deadline.
Skip it if
- you don't write or commission code (it's not a file-sharing tool)
Alternatives
There's nothing we list that's better for code hosting; GitHub is the standard choice.
- GitHub Copilot adds a free AI coding assistant in your editor.
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