[Alupis]

It gives you a credit of $1,000 monthly for 2 years, but there's no real indication anywhere on Github of exactly what that pays for?

So it's not really free.

How does this compare with Gitlab and Bitbucket offerings for small teams?

I know Bitbucket has a one-time payment option for their self-hosted version of $10 for 10 users. Pretty hard to beat that, unless you're adamant you need it hosted for you.

[gruez]

>It gives you a credit of $1,000 monthly for 2 years, but there's no real indication anywhere on Github of exactly what that pays for?

Random screenshot I was able to find on their help page. Seems to be that the pricing for github enterprise is around $21/month/user.

https://help.github.com/assets/images/help/organizations/sta...

[thefreeman]

So basically up 47 free users for 2 years. Not bad.

[Alupis]

Is 47 users really a "startup"? If you have anywhere near 47 actual users, affording $1k a month is going to be trivial.

Would be nice if you could have, say, 5 users and extend the 2 years by not using all $1k monthly credits, adding users as you grow.

[TAForObvReasons]

It's targeted towards funded startups that are just picking up:

> Designed for: "Funded: Product Market Fit"

> The qualified offer is designed to help companies that are focused on growth, so it’s less applicable for consultancies and small businesses.

It's not designed for smaller bootstrapped businesses and other scenarios that would involve 5 users for extended periods of time

https://startups.microsoft.com/en-us/benefits/

[aroch]

You might also pay for stuff like LFS and packages.

But if I had to guess, $1000 is probably in the 95th+ percentile of spending for teams <20 (or any sufficiently small group) -> thus this is letting startups spend on Github resources without worrying about running out of credits for two years

[cortesoft]

If you are that size, why not just use regular github?

[toomuchtodo]

If you can't afford to start paying after 2 years, it's time to give up or pivot. This is very generous of MS/GH to offer until you've got traction.

[Alupis]

> If you can't afford to start paying after 2 years, it's time to give up or pivot

That's kind of extremist, isn't it?

Plenty of startups are bootstrapped, one or two people, and can survive just fine using basic tooling. The free offerings from Gitlab and Bitbucket (which include private repos) are just fine for a lot of startups.

Not all startups are your VC backed unicorns.

> This is very generous of MS/GH to offer

Is it? It's really just an attempt to lock you into a proprietary system that you cannot export your data out of nor easily move off of down the road.

[toomuchtodo]

No, I don’t believe it’s extremist to start paying for a commercial offering after a 2 year trial period. If you can make due with a free competing product, go for it.

If you’re not making enough in 2 years to pay for basic biz expenses, you’re a hobby and you shouldn’t expect enterprise features (SSO for example) for free in perpetuity.

[cortesoft]

If you are two people, regular github will serve you fine.

[eyelidlessness]

> It's really just an attempt to lock you into a proprietary system that you cannot export your data out of nor easily move off of down the road.

The GH API covers a lot of what `git` doesn't. GH's strategy has never been lock-in. They provide a good service that's constantly improving. (I'm sure other services have advantages and I'm in no way going to claim that GH is the best in class, but I am continually happy with GH and with its continued improvement.)

[sascha_sl]

i wouldn't be able to tell you, github enterprise invoices are really weird and hard to read, we had to ask for a correction once too because it would've never gotten past bookkeeping

the entire enterprise feature set seems uncharacteristically less polished in some places, the UX is confusing throughout and things you'd think you could do in the enterprise dashboard being elsewhere in the organization settings

[j4yav]

GitLab's similar program can be found at https://about.gitlab.com/solutions/startups/

[dtrailin]

> Members of the current or two most recent YCombinator batches (currently s2019, w2018, and s2018)

That requirement is a pretty substantial difference.

(disclosure: I work for MS)

[detaro]

(and GP for Gitlab)

[eberkund]

I assume it can also be used towards their hosted CI (GitHub actions)

[caseyf7]

Has anyone had success with Microsoft for Startups? Do they actually bring deals or just pressure to run azure?

[nimbius]

why not a gitea or gitlab instance running on a few pi's or something? Why pay anything at all?

[FactolSarin]

Because if you're a startup, you probably don't want to deal with something like that. You want something that "just works."

[Alupis]

Depends how "real" of a startup you are.

VC backed? Ya, you'd probably just pay someone else to handle it - it's not your money after all...

Bootstrapping with a friend as a side gig until you have something viable... you're probably going to go with the free/cheapest option possible - scaling up as necessary and not a second before.

[gtirloni]

If you're bootstrapping, you use the online hosted solution.

[alkonaut]

The program offers github enterprise for free. The credits are in addition to that and can be used to e.g buy cloud CI/CD time.

Running your own infrastructure doesn’t cost nothing.

[Alupis]

> The program offers github enterprise for free. The credits are in addition to that and can be used to e.g buy cloud CI/CD time.

That's not what the Github page says.

[alkonaut]

What does it say? The article itself seems pretty clear that it’s included in the free program

> [..] we’re announcing that GitHub Enterprise is now included in Microsoft for Startups, a free program [..]

Am I reading in the wrong place? Or just reading it wrong?

[Alupis]

> Participants receive $1,000 of monthly credit for up to two years of GitHub Enterprise Cloud.

They're giving select startups $1,000 monthly in free credits used to pay for GitHub Enterprise. That $1,000 isn't in addition to GH Enterprise being free.

It's unknown, but seems implied, if you can apply unused credits to their CI/CD and other offerings.

[alkonaut]

I see. So by ”now included” what they mean is “now included in the set if things you can use the credits for”? That’s an interesting use of the word...