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>Github is just greedy. No, Github is a business. BitBucket is offering free private accounts as a loss leader, not out of the kindness of their hearts. This

by lee 14y ago

>Github is just greedy. No, Github is a business. BitBucket is offering free private accounts as a loss leader, not out of the kindness of their hearts. This is their strategy for competing with GitHub. A $7/month subscription for private github repos is well worth it.

paulgb 14y ago
GitHub's loss leader is providing ad-free hosting for millions lines of open source software. That's not only a good business decision, but one that benefits everyone. I happily pay $12/month for GitHub because nearly all the open-source projects I develop with are on there and I don't want to bother operating two accounts.
LordIllidan 14y ago
7$ a month for 5 private repos is not worth it all. I acknowledge that Github is a business but I am not about to pay a lot of money for hosting all my repositories, when I can do the same on Bitbucket for free. And when the team grows enough that I'd have to pay Bitbucket, I'll do so willingly.
- gfosco 14y ago
  It's worth it to me.... I pay for 10 private repos, and GitHub is one of my favorite tools. I don't like free services.
  - jonknee 14y ago
    You're certainly able to pay for BitBucket, it's just that they don't require you to pay until you reach a team of 6 people. You can pay $10 a month to BitBucket and be able to have a team of 10 if you'd like, even if it's just yourself.
- jd 14y ago
  If you consider $7 (or $12) a month a lot of money for software then you're probably not in the target audience for any (SaaS) software product. A lot of people are willing to pay some money for a SaaS product even when there are free alternatives. I can't think of any piece of software I use regularly that doesn't cross the "worth at least $7 bucks" boundary.
  - LordIllidan 14y ago
    But it's not just $7. We are a small consulting company, with a lot of git repositories. Our total costs would be more in the range of $50 a month. That's what I am getting at. $7 a month is not all that expensive, you're right - but I am only getting 5 private repositories for that $7 a month. It just doesn't make sense to use github for private work when you have a lot of repositories.
    - wilmoore 14y ago
      If you have each client take on the $ burden, then you don't have this problem. You've may have convinced yourself that by absorbing the cost, you are doing your client a great service. In fact, you are putting more burden on yourself for little value. It takes 15 minutes to walk the client through how to pay for and manage a github organization. I do it with all of my clients. It is an opportunity to teach/coach and give them a sense of ownership which is how it should be.
      - LordIllidan 14y ago
        You make a good point in that this could be absorbed as an implicit cost of a client project - but tell me again, why would we do this, when we can simply use BitBucket and create as many repositories as we like, without any problems whatsoever? Our only limit is then the amount of people we hire, which is far more reasonable in my eyes. If we were working on a small number of projects, then it would absolutely not be a problem to work with Github - it's when you have a lot of tiny projects that it becomes prohibitively expensive to work with. Fair enough, that's how Github wants to price their service - I guess its catered more to actual startups (who have a few large core projects) rather than businesses like ours.
- nbaksalyar 14y ago
  How much repositories do you have? I think Github's plans are comparable to Bitbucket - it's just the starting tier is a bit more pricey - and, honestly, $7 or $12/mo doesn't make that much difference.
  - LordIllidan 14y ago
    Over 20, and rapidly increasing - we create a repo for each new project. (consultancy) Sure these projects are not too big, and the team isn't too big either, but if hosted with Github, we'd be looking at soaring costs per month, or join repos together.
    - wilmoore 14y ago
      This shouldn't be a problem...see: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4633886 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4633886
- taligent 14y ago
  Are you mad ? $7 a month is nothing for something that you are going to use countless times whilst developing your product. And no offense but Bitbucket is still a clunky mess that lacks the most critical feature: integration with almost every open source project.
  - eloisant 14y ago
    That's cool if you have ONE product, and that's it. If you work for customers (say as a freelance developer) and need to create a repo each time you win a new project, the $7 plan is useless.
    - LordIllidan 14y ago
      Exactly, this was the point we were trying to make. In our case, we're a small team (<5), and have a lot of such projects - making our monthly cost closer to 30 to 50 a month. Compared to Bitbucket's cost of $0 for our case, it's definitely a no-brainer.
  - krzyk 14y ago
    Could you elaborate on "integration with almost every open source project" ? I don't get it. For me github (and git) is like iPhone, a place for the "cool kids", and bitbucket for the rest of us :) Mostly because some github/git/iPhone/Mac enthusiasts are rather loud and fanboy-like - this destroys git experience for me. I prefer calm mercurial/linux enviroment :)
    - lee 14y ago
      > mercurial/linux environment What? You mean Github (which hosts the Linux kernel repository) and runs git (written by Linus Torvalds) is not linux-like?
pbreit 14y ago
> Github is just greedy. >> No, Github is a business. Both comments are a bit silly. Atlassian (BitBucket's creator) is one of the more successful revenue "startups" while GitHub has hardly acted like a business to date.
- vetler 14y ago
  Atlassian is not Bitbucket's creator, they bought it a couple of years ago.
vijayr 14y ago
$7 is not a problem, just 5 private repos is. One can quickly run out of those

by lee 14y ago

paulgb 14y ago

GitHub's loss leader is providing ad-free hosting for millions lines of open source software. That's not only a good business decision, but one that benefits everyone. I happily pay $12/month for GitHub because nearly all the open-source projects I develop with are on there and I don't want to bother operating two accounts.

LordIllidan 14y ago

7$ a month for 5 private repos is not worth it all. I acknowledge that Github is a business but I am not about to pay a lot of money for hosting all my repositories, when I can do the same on Bitbucket for free. And when the team grows enough that I'd have to pay Bitbucket, I'll do so willingly.

gfosco 14y ago
It's worth it to me.... I pay for 10 private repos, and GitHub is one of my favorite tools. I don't like free services.
- jonknee 14y ago
  You're certainly able to pay for BitBucket, it's just that they don't require you to pay until you reach a team of 6 people. You can pay $10 a month to BitBucket and be able to have a team of 10 if you'd like, even if it's just yourself.
jd 14y ago
If you consider $7 (or $12) a month a lot of money for software then you're probably not in the target audience for any (SaaS) software product. A lot of people are willing to pay some money for a SaaS product even when there are free alternatives. I can't think of any piece of software I use regularly that doesn't cross the "worth at least $7 bucks" boundary.
- LordIllidan 14y ago
  But it's not just $7. We are a small consulting company, with a lot of git repositories. Our total costs would be more in the range of $50 a month. That's what I am getting at. $7 a month is not all that expensive, you're right - but I am only getting 5 private repositories for that $7 a month. It just doesn't make sense to use github for private work when you have a lot of repositories.
  - wilmoore 14y ago
    If you have each client take on the $ burden, then you don't have this problem. You've may have convinced yourself that by absorbing the cost, you are doing your client a great service. In fact, you are putting more burden on yourself for little value. It takes 15 minutes to walk the client through how to pay for and manage a github organization. I do it with all of my clients. It is an opportunity to teach/coach and give them a sense of ownership which is how it should be.
    - LordIllidan 14y ago
      You make a good point in that this could be absorbed as an implicit cost of a client project - but tell me again, why would we do this, when we can simply use BitBucket and create as many repositories as we like, without any problems whatsoever? Our only limit is then the amount of people we hire, which is far more reasonable in my eyes. If we were working on a small number of projects, then it would absolutely not be a problem to work with Github - it's when you have a lot of tiny projects that it becomes prohibitively expensive to work with. Fair enough, that's how Github wants to price their service - I guess its catered more to actual startups (who have a few large core projects) rather than businesses like ours.
nbaksalyar 14y ago
How much repositories do you have? I think Github's plans are comparable to Bitbucket - it's just the starting tier is a bit more pricey - and, honestly, $7 or $12/mo doesn't make that much difference.
- LordIllidan 14y ago
  Over 20, and rapidly increasing - we create a repo for each new project. (consultancy) Sure these projects are not too big, and the team isn't too big either, but if hosted with Github, we'd be looking at soaring costs per month, or join repos together.
  - wilmoore 14y ago
    This shouldn't be a problem...see: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4633886 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4633886
taligent 14y ago
Are you mad ? $7 a month is nothing for something that you are going to use countless times whilst developing your product. And no offense but Bitbucket is still a clunky mess that lacks the most critical feature: integration with almost every open source project.
- eloisant 14y ago
  That's cool if you have ONE product, and that's it. If you work for customers (say as a freelance developer) and need to create a repo each time you win a new project, the $7 plan is useless.
  - LordIllidan 14y ago
    Exactly, this was the point we were trying to make. In our case, we're a small team (<5), and have a lot of such projects - making our monthly cost closer to 30 to 50 a month. Compared to Bitbucket's cost of $0 for our case, it's definitely a no-brainer.
- krzyk 14y ago
  Could you elaborate on "integration with almost every open source project" ? I don't get it. For me github (and git) is like iPhone, a place for the "cool kids", and bitbucket for the rest of us :) Mostly because some github/git/iPhone/Mac enthusiasts are rather loud and fanboy-like - this destroys git experience for me. I prefer calm mercurial/linux enviroment :)
  - lee 14y ago
    > mercurial/linux environment What? You mean Github (which hosts the Linux kernel repository) and runs git (written by Linus Torvalds) is not linux-like?

pbreit 14y ago

> Github is just greedy. >> No, Github is a business. Both comments are a bit silly. Atlassian (BitBucket's creator) is one of the more successful revenue "startups" while GitHub has hardly acted like a business to date.

vetler 14y ago
Atlassian is not Bitbucket's creator, they bought it a couple of years ago.

vijayr 14y ago

$7 is not a problem, just 5 private repos is. One can quickly run out of those