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Free private Github repos for students and edu people
- jck 13y agoIt is only free for one year. if you need free private repositories, you should stick to bitbucket
- bliker 13y agoIdeal for semester project. Works great! Made my day. Thanks Github
- ihuman 13y agoIs it renewable if you're still a student after the year is up?
- aspir 13y agoYes, you'll need to reapply after the two year period, but the turnaround is quick.
- trvz 13y agoTwo years.
- jeremymcanally 13y agoIt's actually free until you graduate. :) You just have to re-up every two years.
- kshahar 13y ago+1 for bitbucket, I keep all of my private projects there.
- JoshGlazebrook 13y ago+1 Bitbucket has unlimited free private repos anyways. Adding your .edu just gives you the ability to have unlimited collaborators.
- suyash 13y ago+1 for Bitbucket, unless you want to deal with the hassle of moving over from github to bitbucket when you no longer qualify as a student.
- tekacs 13y agoOr... you can pay $7/mo, given that as a nom-student you can probably afford that much? :P
- drdaeman 13y agoWhy pay for something that you can get easily for free from a competitor?
- blackhorus 13y agoYeah, seriously.. Why would you pay $7.. do you like wasting your money...
- tripzilch 13y ago> Or... you can pay $7/mo, given that as a nom-student you can probably afford that much? :P What's a "nom student"? Does that mean graduated? Because he didn't say that. Or does it mean "landed a high paying job"? Cause not everybody does or can be certain they will. There is one thing you can be certain of however, and that is that you will be up to your neck in student loan debt. Paying $7/mo is not always a justifiable expense. Sure in many cases your assumption is correct, but you could be a tiny bit less flippant about it.
- scotthtaylor 13y agoUK students with .ac.uk?
- aspir 13y agoYep -- all students are eligible.
- manish_gill 13y agoI tried to get one a few months ago. Still haven't heard from them. :(
- bliker 13y agoI got response in few minutes. And I don't even have .edu student email. weird
- maniacwhat 13y agowow, I just got upgraded in less than 1 minute. I mentioned current university projects which may have helped, and used a uk address.
- jeremymcanally 13y agoTry again! And be sure to follow the request for information pretty closely. We get lots of requests, so sometimes if they don't provide what we need (e.g., don't mention the school they're attending or something) we have to reject it, and since we get so many, it's hard/impossible to provide individual feedback.
- johndbritton 13y agoYou should be all set now.
- manish_gill 13y agoCool, thanks! :-)
- hdra 13y agoI got mine more than a year ago in less than 30 mins. I was pretty surprised, since my student email address hostname uses a country-specific tld instead of .edu.
- Rafert 13y agoSame here (.nl). I guess GitHub has a list of approved domain names for this? Makes sense as .edu seems to be used in the US mostly. In that case it might take a while if you're the first student from your university to register.
- johndbritton 13y agoI work at GitHub on all things related to education. I got a note that this was on HN, so I thought I'd drop by and offer to answer questions and provide some additional details. Details on the discount: * We're happy to provide students with GitHub Micro (5 private repositories) accounts for free. So long as you're a student, you're eligible. You can use the private repositories for anything you want. * We offer organization accounts with private repositories to teachers that are using GitHub in class. * Academic discounts on GitHub and GitHub Enterprise are available for many academic use cases, including: school administration, IT, and research groups. Aside from the education discounts, I spend a lot of my time on university campuses. Feel free to email support@github.com if you're interested in having someone from GitHub come by your campus for a tech talk or to participate in an event.
- nikic 13y ago> You can use the private repositories for anything you want. Does that include using them for purposes that are not directly related to your education?
- johndbritton 13y agoYes.
- Anon84 13y agoWhat if you're faculty and want to use them for research projects (which may/may not eventually get open sourced)?
- johndbritton 13y agoIn most cases, research falls under our standard academic discount which is 25% off. You can apply via the form, due to manual processing turnaround can be a few days.
- matiasb 13y agosweet!
- biolime 13y agoIs this exclusive to College students or are High School students eligible too?
- johndbritton 13y agoHigh school students are eligible as well. Since most high schools don't issue email addresses, the turnaround for approval can be longer.
- biolime 13y agoI have a school issued ID, how would I go about this? Would I simply use the same form but with my personal email?
- johndbritton 13y agoUse the same form and provide some additional context in the comment field.
- biolime 13y agoI just did exactly that! Thanks :)
- DotNetWebForms 13y agojust use bitbucket for private repos.
- codereflection 13y agoYet another reason to love Github. I'm running out of love guys, seriously, knock off all this "do cool stuff" BS. ;) Does this also apply to high school students? My oldest attends a STEM high school here in Seattle, and this would be excellent for them.
- jeremymcanally 13y agoYup, it's for high schoolers, too. It's just not as automatic, so turnaround might take a bit more time.
- johndbritton 13y ago> High school students are eligible as well. > Since most high schools don't issue email addresses, the turnaround for approval can be longer. We're also huge fans of FIRST and love to support those groups. http://octodex.github.com/FIRSTocat/ http://octodex.github.com/FIRSTocat/
- Kaivo 13y agoI used that during my last semester and it was awesome. I set it so that my README.md would have my schedules, books to read, homework assignment, etc. I'd update it as the term would go on. I was able to keep track of all my projects at a single place even though they were unrelated, and I also took notes during the lectures. With how they display .md files, it's really easy and quick to take notes and still have something decent to read afterward.
- QuantumGuy 13y agoSounds very useful, mind if I take a look?
- Kaivo 13y agoI removed them from Github to leave place for the next semester, since we are limited in private repos and I didn't made them public since they also have answers to some homework.
- QuantumGuy 13y agoemail me about how you did it then wesleympennock@gmail.com
- Kaivo 13y agoThis is what it looked like, with more accurate and interesting information: https://github.com/KaivoAnastetiks/University-Demo https://github.com/KaivoAnastetiks/University-Demo
- BruceIV 13y agoGithub as private wiki, interesting.
- Kaivo 13y agoNot only wiki since I also had a lot of source code throughout this. Also, since they added the feature to create files from Github, I used that a lot when I had downtime at my job so that I could work on school from Github. It could also be used in group projects I believe (unless we can't share those but I didn't notice if it's the case).
- BruceIV 13y agoI'm a student, so I get to take advantage of this, but if you aren't, a bare git repo in a Dropbox folder makes an okay poor-man's private repo. You need to be careful to let Dropbox sync before you shut down your computer, and, though collaboration is possible with shared folders, you're likely in for a world pain from syncronization issues.
- _lex 13y agoThis is a bad idea b/c of sync issues. Just use bitbucket, which is a poor man's github.
- Achshar 13y agoHow do you classify Bitbucket as poor man's github? It has almost all the same features, supports git and mercurial and unlimited private repos.
- reledi 13y ago> supports git and mercurial If you're implying that you're stuck with git if you use GitHub, you can use SVN with GitHub if you really want to. https://github.com/blog/1178-collaborating-on-github-with-subversion https://github.com/blog/1178-collaborating-on-github-with-su...
- merijnv 13y ago> you can use SVN with GitHub if you really want to. How is that remotely relevant? Mercurial is a great DVCS with a user experience that is (in my opinion) far superior to git. SVN on the other hand is...I don't think I need to rehash this tired old DVCS vs SVN argument. I would love hg support on github, but until that time will use bitbucket for my own projects, perhaps occasionally syncing to GitHub using hg-git.
- reledi 13y agoI'm not arguing one (D)VCS over another, I'm just mentioning that you have some limited flexibility just like you do with BitBucket. Your emphasis was on the "and", so I assumed you were counting the option of choosing your DVCS as a benefit, not the specific DVCS that were offered.
- cjc1083 13y agoI think the 7$ dollars a month is reasonable for a great service, I'm a student (while working) but will continue to pay for my repos. I hope others do the same. I think a significant percentage of GitHub's user base are in school for something and could potentially qualify for this, but probably shouldn't if they can afford to pay. That said I use the student discount for Amazon Prime, so I am a hypocrite.
- _lex 13y agoIt's in github's best interest that students get this for free - they want you to share it with your friends. Free things typically have a higher viral factor, and github is actually quite social. Your $7/month isn't really doing them any favors. They'd prefer if you'd convert your friends.
- suyash 13y agoGithub is a startup that took VC money. Use the free service they are offering you, if you feel so inclined to donate your money, they are several non-profit startups/organizations that need money badly so consider them first.
- fixxer 13y agoI think this is likely to be a better strategy for getting new users than losing existing ones. I've been using the free tier for a couple years now as a student. Because of this free micro offer, I'm now queued up to convert into a paying customer upon completion of my PhD. In two years, I'll be a lot more personally invested in the service.
- coley 13y agoI'm a student of the Internet. I learn on it every day of my life. I'm guessing I don't count though because I'm not affiliated with a corporation that cares more about charging my bank account than making sure I learn anything.
- suyash 13y agoPhilosohical arguments like these don't make much sense on HN. By the same token, we all are students for life, either of Internet or of School of Hard Knocks. They also say .edu address so that should make it more clearer for you.
- coley 13y agoI see it more of an argument of definition. Students - People who pay to have information presented to them in a nice and comprehensible manner. Not Students - People who scour the internet and books in search of information that aligns with their interests. It seems a bit backwards to me. Yes, the actual definition requires a 'student' be in attendance of a 'school' or 'college'. What about Wikipedia, KhanAcademy, Google etc...? Aren't these new schools that I can 'attend' and don't have to hop through a bunch of red tape, apply, or send them money?
- alanctgardner2 13y agoSo, in this scenario 'student' is a proxy for broke and young and impressionable. These guys want to give a discount to impressionable youngsters who will learn their tool and take it with them into their careers. It has nothing to do with actually learning things in school, and everything to do with where you are in your lifespan. I'm sure you feel very good about being self-taught, but the fact of the matter is that if you didn't pay tens of thousands of dollars for a prolonged adolescence with some vaguely educational overtones, you're in the minority. You can hardly expect them to have a 'idealist' package for people who are 'particularly nifty' or ambitious. 'Student' is a convenient way to filter out a demographic.
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- eertami 13y agoOur student radio station applied for an edu organisation account and within a week had our org upgraded, we weren't sure if we would classify but figured as we were fully student run and non-profit that it was worth asking. Just wanted to add my thanks! :)
- AndyKelley 13y agoI did this when I was a student, and I recently had to move over the private repos to bitbucket when it expired. Just stick to bitbucket for private repos.
- rdegges 13y agoGitHub is a pretty great service (IMO). Totally worth paying for. If cost is your number one driving force, then sure -- go with Bitbucket -- but I think GitHub provides a way better experience (for users and developers).
- thejosh 13y agoGithub is great for everyone but agencies who have a high number of repositories. Bitbucket is great for us as it's per user pricing instead of per repository pricing that Github has. Github is fantastic for opensource projects or people with a low number of repositories - It's handy if you only plan on having a couple of repositories (if you are a SaaS etc).
- rbsn 13y ago"Github is great for everyone but agencies who have a high number of repositories." This is the single reason we cannot use GitHub, it would cost £1000s.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- lazerwalker 13y agoAs far as I'm concerned, one of the best features of git is how easy it is to create new repos. Setting up a new repo for a new weekend side project, or splitting out a large codebase that's gotten unwieldy into a few separate repos, should be a no-brainer. BitBucket lets me have as many private repos as I want, since they make their money when you want to add collaborators; GitHub's payment structure forces me to consciously think about how many repositories I have. I prefer GitHub to BitBucket in terms of their web UI/UX, but I really don't like that psychological shift.
- rusbra 13y agoBitbucket.com anyone?????
- kjell 13y agoThey also let (501c3) nonprofit organizations in for free at the bronze tier. Thanks! https://github.com/nonprofit https://github.com/nonprofit
- tar 13y agoWhy not just use Bitbucket? I switched over all my private repos to Bitbucket some time ago and it is working pretty well.
- m0shen 13y agoAnd to note, with BitBucket and an .edu email you get an unlimited account.
- nikhilarundesai 13y agoA friend of mine, upon seeing this page, noted that he applied for this a year ago and still hasn't gotten a response. What sort of turnaround these applications have?
- johndbritton 13y agoFor students with school-issued email addresses the turnaround time is very quick. Without a school issued email address the turnaround should be a few days. Perhaps the message was caught in a spam filter somewhere. I started working at GitHub in August and have improved the application process quite a bit from what it used to be. Tell your friend to reapply.
- x3sphere 13y agoIt was instant for me. I used a .edu email.
- JosephRedfern 13y agoI made a private repo for our Group Coursework, so that we could develop without the risk of plagiarism by other groups. Once our coursework was marked, we just made the repo public (https://github.com/JosephRedfern/CM2301-9 https://github.com/JosephRedfern/CM2301-9) - really handy. I can see how this works out well for GitHub, too - 6 of our team-members didn't have GitHub accounts when we started out. They now all do. Thanks GitHub!
- rdl 13y agoJust out of curiosity, what happened to SourceForge? They were essentially the GitHub of the dotcom boom, and pretty awesome at the time, but really seem to have fallen off.
- treahauet 13y agoI remember using SourceForge back in the day. Not so much for hosting my own code, but for downloading projects. I don't know for sure and I'm venturing a guess, but I feel like they kind of fell behind and spun their wheels for a bit.
- reledi 13y agoThey're still around and active, just not in the spotlight as much. They're mostly used as a distributing system now. They're worth consideration if your projects host and distribute large binary files in addition to source archives.
- dominicgs 13y agoThat's exactly why we use SourceForge for Ubertooth, it gives us a good way to host released versions and some binary firmware images. I mirror Ubertooth to Github because I was tired of having to answer the question "what's the Github URL?" from people wishing to browse the code.
- wambotron 13y agoI don't understand the fascination with github. Bitbucket gives you unlimited private repos for free, no special requirements. It has wikis, issue tracking, and contributors.
- ianstormtaylor 13y agoDoes it have the projects? Once a platform is big enough it's not only about features.
- bendecoste 13y agoWhy would public repos on github effect my private repo on bitbucket?
- icelancer 13y agoExactly. Roll your private repos on bitbucket and public repos on GitHub for the exposure.
- drdaeman 13y agoWhat's the difference between publicity of repos on Bitbucket and Github? To me, if the task is to see the code, they seem essentially the same — a storages one can checkout from, with a nice-looking web interface to preview the contents. As for collaboration, DVCS are distributed by their very definition. Sure, clicking on "fork" button on web is easier that "pull; remote add; push" series of commands, but I believe this is completely negligible threshold as compared to actual work.
- icelancer 13y agoGitHub is more likely to pass the "dumb HR" test. "Oh a GitHub profile. I have heard of that."
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- latj 13y agohttps://bitbucket.org https://bitbucket.org
- mikeg8 13y agoI respect the effort and love that education and students receive but I would love to see companies offer these sorts of deals for other important industries like HEALTHCARE. It's "cool" when companies announce these deals but the reality is, more college students care about getting loaded than building software. Healthcare is arguably more important than education and the companies fighting to improve it have more financial challenges than most students. NOTE: I'm a 24 yr old college dropout and co-founder of a health startup.
- treahauet 13y agoI sincerely wish that more educators would teach about Git. Obviously I'm going on personal experience, but how many people are coming out of college with CS or BIS degrees and they've not even setup a Git repo before? From my experience that number is too high. Hopefully offerings like this will help solve that issue.
- buzzkillr2 13y agoWow Github you just lost out on a new subscriber! I was eyeing the micro accounts and then found this HN link. Thanks for being awesome!!!
- qhoc 13y agoI really like this idea. I had Bitbucket before but it doesn't have a sense of community. Plus Github's Wiki & ticketing system is kinda neat. Does anyone know how long it takes to get approval after adding .edu email account & verified?
- avreal 13y agoIt was instantaneous for me.
- nreece 13y agoAs an aside, both Bitbucket and Assembla provide free private repos.
- elithrar 13y agoI recently pushed a group into using GitHub for configuration files and documentation for a project that delivered an OpenStack compute cluster. The main driver was not my own experience/preference for GitHub, but that they have Windows & Mac GUI clients. I had no expectation that the other group members were going to learn Git (most are Windows users with no understanding of VCS), and therefore getting them using these clients made things a lot simpler. I did, however, recommend that the University look at using Atlassian's JIRA + Bitbucket together for future semesters, mostly because JIRA has educational licensing and integrates nicely with Bitbucket. As an aside: the more software-orientated projects struggled (and have struggled in previous years) with organising & distributing workload. Students aren't formally introduced to (D)VCS systems nor any project management software, and alongside figuring out their project scope & getting something working, things tend to fall apart in a bad way. Some good web-based PM software and a DVCS could hopefully go a long way into structuring their projects, and would also give their project supervisor better auditing capability to keep tabs on any "dead wood" members.
- jeremymcanally 13y agoJust FYI, we have incredibly good educational prices on GitHub Enterprise and offer pretty decent discounts for the .com product for universities. Glad you found our native clients useful! :)
- dannyp32 13y agoBitbucket offers free private repos to everyone as well. And there's no need to fill out a special form. That's what I've been using for school projects.
- mcintyre1994 13y agoIf you add your student Email address to the account they'll give you unlimited collaborators too if you ever need that.
- markprovan 13y agoBrilliant, I use Github to contribute to open source, but have had my private repos on Bitbucket. It's great to move over to the one platform :) Thanks Github!
- ymendel 13y agoFor all the people wondering about what constitutes a "school-issued email address" (.edu, .net, .ch, .ac.il, &c), we use the swot gem (https://github.com/leereilly/swot https://github.com/leereilly/swot) to automatically identify domains belonging to academic institutions. You can see for yourself what's allowed, even send Pull Requests to include your school if it's missing. Anything that's not automatically accepted still goes through a manual review process. And as others (johndbritton, jbarnette, jeremymcanally) have pointed out, you can contact us at support@github.com if you're having any trouble.
- _kushagra 13y agoI applied two times and both times my application got rejected. My college doesn't provide any .edu or other email ids to its students so I guess this isn't for me.
- johndbritton 13y agoSend an email to support@github.com and I'll take care of it.
- _kushagra 13y agoI just applied third time with scanned photos of my college ID. I'll send the email if it gets rejected too. Thanks Edit: They accepted it this time! Thanks :D
- baby 13y agoThis is great. I never learned GIT because I didn't want to pay to get a private repo. My next project will be on GIT thanks to this!