3 ms·

How did the performance of GitHub become so slow in the first place? It didn't used to be this bad years ago.

by Banditoz 5mo ago

Strom 5mo ago
AI. GitHub usage has exploded recently due to the ease at which code can be generated.
- adsteel_ 5mo ago
  Not just due to code generation, but to AI code scraping and inspection.
userbinator 5mo ago
From what I remember, it got much worse the moment they started requiring JS for displaying what would otherwise be mostly static (and thus easily cached) content.
- embedding-shape 5mo ago
  Used to be full page loads when you clicked on links too, performance got a lot worse (for me), both network-wise and client-side-wise when that changed.
ayewo 5mo ago
Some hard numbers [1] as to why GitHub is struggling with stability issues, directly from GitHub's COO: Yup, platform activity is surging. There were 1 billion commits in 2025. Now, it's 275 million per week, on pace for 14 billion this year if growth remains linear (spoiler: it won't.) GitHub Actions has grown from 500M minutes/week in 2023 to 1B minutes/week in 2025, and now 2.1B minutes so far this week. So we're pushing incredibly hard on more CPUs, scaling services, and strengthening GitHub’s core features. 1: https://x.com/kdaigle/status/2040164759836778878 https://x.com/kdaigle/status/2040164759836778878
- jiggawatts 5mo ago
  All of which can be handled with horizontal scaling of identical components. None of which explains poor latency when opening UI elements, which is more likely be explained by overuse of SPA or spaghetti code in microservices. Update: yup, that’s exactly it, just as I guessed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47912867 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47912867
  - dangus 5mo ago
    This whole thread is so embarrassing for GitHub. The idea that you would change your product design in this way as a quick fix to solve a performance problem is insane. This would be like if the battery life on a MacBook Pro was too short so Apple fixed it by removing the screen. Job’s done, boss!
    - jiggawatts 5mo ago
      In a large enterprise if you task a front end team with solving a performance issue that is caused by the back end, invariably they’ll hack together some workaround… in the front end. People only ever solve problems in the areas they have control over, whether that’s where the root cause is or not.

How did the performance of GitHub become so slow in the first place? It didn't used to be this bad years ago.

Strom 5mo ago

AI. GitHub usage has exploded recently due to the ease at which code can be generated.

adsteel_ 5mo ago
Not just due to code generation, but to AI code scraping and inspection.

userbinator 5mo ago

From what I remember, it got much worse the moment they started requiring JS for displaying what would otherwise be mostly static (and thus easily cached) content.

embedding-shape 5mo ago
Used to be full page loads when you clicked on links too, performance got a lot worse (for me), both network-wise and client-side-wise when that changed.

ayewo 5mo ago

Some hard numbers [1] as to why GitHub is struggling with stability issues, directly from GitHub's COO: Yup, platform activity is surging. There were 1 billion commits in 2025. Now, it's 275 million per week, on pace for 14 billion this year if growth remains linear (spoiler: it won't.) GitHub Actions has grown from 500M minutes/week in 2023 to 1B minutes/week in 2025, and now 2.1B minutes so far this week. So we're pushing incredibly hard on more CPUs, scaling services, and strengthening GitHub’s core features. 1: https://x.com/kdaigle/status/2040164759836778878 https://x.com/kdaigle/status/2040164759836778878

jiggawatts 5mo ago
All of which can be handled with horizontal scaling of identical components. None of which explains poor latency when opening UI elements, which is more likely be explained by overuse of SPA or spaghetti code in microservices. Update: yup, that’s exactly it, just as I guessed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47912867 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47912867
- dangus 5mo ago
  This whole thread is so embarrassing for GitHub. The idea that you would change your product design in this way as a quick fix to solve a performance problem is insane. This would be like if the battery life on a MacBook Pro was too short so Apple fixed it by removing the screen. Job’s done, boss!
  - jiggawatts 5mo ago
    In a large enterprise if you task a front end team with solving a performance issue that is caused by the back end, invariably they’ll hack together some workaround… in the front end. People only ever solve problems in the areas they have control over, whether that’s where the root cause is or not.