[foundatron]

I re-ask this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47979968

If everyone is vibecoding, and SaaS plays have no moats anymore, and everyone says they are mad at Github's reliability...why aren't there like 10 viable replacements already?

Why are you still using Github?

[johnfn]

- There are already viable GitHub replacements, like Codeberg, Bitbucket, Gitlab, etc. Everyone stays on Github for network effects, not because of the superior product. You can't vibe code network effects.

- And yes, GitHub is a massive product with like 50 different huge features. No reasonable person would say you can trivially vibecode that. Vibecoding would still make it easier. I feel this argument is a bit silly, no? "Ah, you can't vibecode GitHub in a weekend? That proves vibecoding was a mirage!" Surely even the most fervent anti-AI skeptic must admit there must be some middle ground between "a mirage" and "can literally replace millions of man-hours of work".

[SoftTalker]

Why do network effects matter for "in-house" (i.e. corporate/commercial) software work?

Open-source projects, yes I can sort of get it, you want to be where the contributors are (but there are downsides to that also).

[johnfn]

OK, say you're proposing an in-house tool to host your repo to your boss. What do you think will sound better? "Let's use this random vibecoded app I just found"? Or "Let's use GitHub"?

[isbvhodnvemrwvn]

A ton of third-party tools only work with the most popular providers, github, and then gitlab, then nothing, then the rest.

[SoftTalker]

OK, but if using these tools means tolerating ~80% uptime then maybe reconsider.

[foundatron]

First they came for the four nines And I did not speak out Because I was not a power grid

Then they came for the three nines And I did not speak out Because I was not paying for Enterprise

Then they came for the two nines And I did not speak out Because the status page said all systems operational

Then they came for the one nine And I did not speak out Because I was a manager, and outages are just extra standup material

Then they came for the coin flip And there was no one left to merge my PR Because Actions was down And so was Pages And so was Codespaces And the status page said all systems operational

[tardedmeme]

What network effects does GitHub have? Every repository is independent. It's like saying GoDaddy has network effects.

[johnfn]

Everyone already has an account, so there's no friction to opening up issues, adding thumbs up to issues, using the discussion forum, etc. And while I think it's pretty silly, a lot of people take "10k stars on GitHub" to be a positive signal, and you can only get there when you have 10k people willing to star on your platform.

[tardedmeme]

"sign in with github" could easily achieve that

[fragmede]

Turns out, the brand itself is a moat. There's never going to be another Google or Uber or Facebook or Twitter. Good or bad, GitHub is always going to have the name GitHub.

[tomrod]

Forge-jo is super interesting too!

[r24y]

My theory is that vibecoded replacements haven't succeeded for the same reason why GitHub's quality has declined: because vibecoding/AI software development isn't as efficient as believed when measuring real-world outcomes.

[foundatron]

Yes, yes, yes. I think this is perfect natural experiment to see if saas moats really have gotten smaller...or if that was just an AI mirage.

[gpm]

> SaaS plays have no moats anymore

I have yet to see literally anyone say this.

I have yet to even see anyone claim that software can't constitute a moat anymore but I expect that there are people saying that. GitHub has a huge non-software moat in the form of network effects, brand recognition, and good will.

The hardest part isn't making a "forge", it's making money off of making a forge. Getting a sufficiently large number of paying customers.

If GitHub doesn't get their quality issues under control someone probably will manage to breach that moat and take over the market. It's not like there's a lack of competitors (Pre-llm: GitLab, BitBucket, Gitea, Source Hut, etc. Post LLM: Tangled, esrc is promising something any day now. Probably more in both camps that don't come to mind).

[foundatron]

>> SaaS plays have no moats anymore > I have yet to see literally anyone say this.

I've heard a lot of people say this...including myself after a root beers. I think you just have to look to any time an AI feature is announced and some related companies stock price crumbles. Just google something like "stock price tumbles after anthropic announces" or something like that.

[rhdunn]

Locally, I'm using gitolite+cgit. I was previously using Gitea, but that didn't suit my requirements.

I'm using GitHub for my open source projects as:

1. While GitHub Actions has its issues and doesn't work for everyone, I've found it easy to build and test an IntelliJ plugin against multiple IntelliJ versions.

2. I don't have to pay for and manage the hosting of the git repository.

[dspillett]

> Why are you still using Github?

Because everyone wants the fake internet points (sorry, stars) to mention on their CV.

Because there are already a number of viable alternatives, them not being chosen has nothing to do with AI coding but other factors like market momentum & network effects and familiarity. They are used, just much less so. If there are already good alternatives, why would anyone vibe code a new one any more than they would write a new one manually? Forges are not sexy stuff, and the existence of numerous decent free ones means that you aren't going to be able to sell a new one in any way (paid accounts, stalking/advertising, …) at least not until it has a significant following and that is unlikely to happen because of the reasons above.

People not wanting to use github (or one of the common alternatives that already exist) are more likely to just use git as-is, and other tolls as needed for issue tracking, CI, etc, than to create a new forge.

[pbronez]

This video suggests OpenAI is actively developing an alternative to GitHub

https://youtu.be/f3u57jkwBFE?si=FJuxZfmc-i7EkPlx

[Brian_K_White]

That's not what they mean. That would still be a moat, just for OpenAI instead of Microsoft. They mean anyone who wants a github (eventually) can just tell their own ai to make them a github on the spot.

[QuantumNomad_]

I run my own Forgejo instance.

I still have a GitHub account I actively use.

GitHub outages and stuff don’t really affect me, so I have no great reason to leave. But I have good reason to stay, because that’s where everyone else is already.

[1970-01-01]

It's a great question. I'm assuming it is due to devs being too lazy to fight the momentum. Go ahead an switch services if five-nines uptime is critical to your codebase. The daily HN complaint isn't going to move mountains for you... oh, maybe next outage then, if you're not too busy? Right..

[deepdarkforest]

compute??

Github is struggling because of compute, which comes from everyone vibecoding and triggering actions 10x more.

I can vibecode an alternative, but once i have users, who is going to secure this amount of compute? Compute+talent to manage it(devops isnt vibecoded *yet) is a moat

[bulte-rs]

Why care about making a commercial alternative? I just want a “forge” for my team that looks like a combination of GitHub and tangled (stacked PRs and JJ).

So I’m working on waza.sh. I have NO intent on making it commercial, nor open-source (unless someone wants to collab on it).

Will it need compute? Yes! For my team only. So a dedicated box at OVH/Hetzner for 30eu is more than sufficient.

[deepdarkforest]

lol do you not have actual stuff to prioritize for your team rather than re inventing forges? there are quite a few open source alternatives if you want something quick. Fork them. No need to re invent the wheel

[bulte-rs]

$COMPANY is on Github now, thinking of moving to Codeberg/Forgejo.

This is a personal pet project, just to see what it might look like, how it would work, to satisfy personal curiosity. If it comes to the point that it actually becomes usable for the team (read: actually add value), then it's up to $TEAM to decide whether to use it or not.

I would hate my team to waste company time on such an endeavour. ;-)

[eightysixfour]

Claude Code web won't let me use my gitea instance.

[foundatron]

What do you mean? like it doesn't doesn't know how to perform a actions on it like it does with the gh cli? fwiw in a different comment i cited gh cli X claude code as one of the reasons I still github.

[eightysixfour]

Claude Code in the CLI works fine. I mean if you want to use the Claude Code web interface (https://claude.ai/code), the literal first step is connect to github.

[smallerfish]

> Why are you still using Github?

Show me the VCs who are willing to fund the marketing effort that would be needed to conquer the network-effects moat, and I'm in.

[graemep]

Inertia, because 'every one uses it', network effects, integrations

[fridder]

Because my corporate overlord does

[foundatron]

i have a lot of sway over what git+cicd system my corporate overlord uses. As I am very Github alternative curious right now, if anyone is pushing alternative git+cicd stack, I want to hear it.

[foundatron]

One (small, stupid) reason for me is claude code works really well the gh cli.

[foundatron]

Another reason is Github Actions. For all of it's problems ( supply chain, reliability issues...to name a few ), it's tight integration with Github (not git) events is pretty great (when it works).

[CharlesW]

> Why are you still using Github?

Stars. Grifters have discovered vibe-coding and the ability to buy GitHub stars, followers, etc.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=buy+GitHub+stars&ia=web

[tardedmeme]

Why do stars and followers matter? Who is looking at them?

[hootz]

Venture capital.