Github offers some pretty good version control stuff that git alone doesn't. There are alternatives (bitbucket offers private repos with similar functionality),

Github offers some pretty good version control stuff that git alone doesn't. There are alternatives (bitbucket offers private repos with similar functionality), but if you like the functionality of github and don't want to pay to keep your project private, then it's really your only option. Fortunately there's so much on github it's probably quite unlikely that anyone's even going to look at your code unless you're already known for doing another project.