When did Github stop being about Git?
Posted by dgkimpton@reddit | programming | View on Reddit | 129 comments
I don't normally visit https://github.com/ without being logged in, but today I did, and wow. It's this massive long page about AI and Collaboration where, apart from in the word github, it never mentions git repositories at all. Not in the page text, not in the menu, not as a platform nor a solution.
Is this a sign of them shifting focus away from Git? Should we be looking at alternative places to host our code? Or is it just a monumental marketing mess?
XCapitan_1@reddit
The products aren't usually marketed for developers. And tbh, "the place where development happens" is a better description of GitHub than "git hosting". There gotta be a reason why we host git, after all.
thomasfr@reddit
You can also host git on a server with more or less only
sshdandgitinstalled. No need to have any kind of web page at all really. It is what Github adds on top of the git hosting that is interesting.elebrin@reddit
Does git on its own have a pull request system? That's the main thing that larger development teams need that it seems github and other such git hosts provide.
The pipeline stuff is really nice but there are a ton of tools out there for building those.
jamesinc@reddit
There's no PR type system in plain Git. You'd manually do it via email. Git has a command for outputting your changes in a patch format. https://git-scm.com/docs/git-format-patch
So you'd have to email the upstream repo owner (or more likely a distribution list) and present the patch and your commentary for consideration.
killerstorm@reddit
Within one team one can send "pull request" via Slack (or any team messenger) - you don't need any cross-repo functionality, just upload your branch.
Merge/review can be done via IDE, communication via Slack.
There's no real need for PR or mailing patches.
Smallpaul@reddit
So we are talking about Slack messages like “I suggest you change the comma on line 35 of file a/b/c/d to a semicolon?”
killerstorm@reddit
No. Within one team you have a shared repo. If Alice uploads a branch, Bob can download that branch using IDE and review changes. That feature is already implemented.
So the benefit of Github flow is to keep track of code review comments, run CI build, etc. That's just nice-to-have but isn't by any means essential.
Smallpaul@reddit
Did you change your comment to remove the reference to slack/chat?
thomasfr@reddit
I do that all the time to demonstrate potential changes I am working on. I just paste the patch generated by
git diffwhich anyone cangit applyto get the change locally if they want.Smallpaul@reddit
Wild.
elebrin@reddit
Well, a lot of organizations run on the PR system with some approved people performing merges into master. For my organization, this requires peer review, principle engineer review, and proof of testing to be attached to the PR.
thomasfr@reddit
There is nothing stopping you from implementing any process via e-mail. Every reviewer can sign the commits with their gpg key as a traceable proof before a changeset is merged.
The linux kernel with its thousands of contributors has a approval process that sounds similar to the one you are describing and their main communication channel for pulling in changes is based on e-mail lists.
elebrin@reddit
Assume I was applying for a job and I still had a secure position. If I was told during the interview process that the company used this sort of workflow, well... I'd take a look at the salary again, but there's a good chance I wouldn't be willing to deal with that and would choose to stay where I am now.
gimpwiz@reddit
The first part of the pull or merge request is easy via command line and another form of communication, you can simply say "branch xxx ready for review" and people can pull it, diff it against master, and whoever has master commit privileges can merge it.
The part that git doesn't do well at all are comments and back and forths. You could directly change the code and send it back via emailed/slacked/etc patch or by making your own branch of that branch. Or even just walk over to the next cube. But it isn't nearly as convenient nor as pretty as what gitlab/github/etc offer.
The linux kernel mailing list manages to do it just fine and it's a project far larger and far more successful than almost any. So, really, workflow and mindset go together. You can make it efficient and smooth through experience and dedication. Or you could complain about it sucking. Honestly, you could do both; how many of us are totally happy with our tools?
I like to keep it old school but I much prefer gitlab for reviews than anything related to patch+email.
elebrin@reddit
So I am talking about corporate use of a source control system vs. a more crowdsourced thing. Linux needs to be developed by thousands of people each who will have a totally different environment for doing that development. I know that everyone in my office is using exactly the same software stack to do development. Workflows might be different, we may use the software differently, but it's all ultimately the same pretty much.
If I am investigating jobs and I have any sort of choice whatsoever, I am going to investigate the team's workflow and pick an organization/team compatible for how I want to work. Again, if I can reasonably justify it (sometimes you take the job because you need a job).
gimpwiz@reddit
Yeah, I get ya. It's good to join a team that uses a workflow you like. But on the flip side, man's gotta eat, my pride is only strong if my bargaining position is strong. ;)
In all seriousness, I feel like emailed patches are either the sign of deeply competent old greybeards, or a bunch of ad-hoc bullshit thrown around by people who have no idea how to write software in a way that's good for scaling and maintainability and so on.
elebrin@reddit
It's usually a sign of people who THINK they are deeply competent old greybeards but just don't want to learn a new tool.
Sometimes it makes sense to update something that is using old tooling. Like... if I have some ancient system using BizTalk and we are sunsetting the vendor that uses that tool, then I'm going to have to learn SOMETHING about that tool. Even if it's on an old .NET framework version that's a dozens of versions behind.
The true greybeards I have met are always SO THANKFUL when they can use modern tools. The oldest dev on my team was practically jumping for joy when we we got AI approved for use and had it scan our code repo.
Trang0ul@reddit
The main concern is whether all these additional features are truly additional, or is git no longer the core feature?
A1oso@reddit
Git is still the core, but it's also the least interesting. Things like Github Actions, Issues, Discussions, Releases, Pages, etc. are what makes GitHub productive, and what sets it apart from competitors.
maxximillian@reddit
Is github making itself the next atlassian suit do you think? I only ask because I've never been on a project that used github we've always self hosted our own gut repos but I want to make sure I'n keeping up with the next key resume buzz words
ashinkusher98@reddit
Yeah I’d say GitHub definitely headed there. However, not everyone is so keen on a lot of their practices or policies (latest example probably the AI learning on repos by default). Gitlab has to be the closest competitor w/ all these features (e.g runners, they have some tools for agile, bug tracker etc) but I could be wrong
gimpwiz@reddit
We use gitlab in our org and I like it. We self host (well, someone at the company does.) Github to me is polluted by MS ownership plus LLM shit. But if it works for other people then by all means.
A1oso@reddit
Yes, GitHub Issues has become very powerful with sub-issues, milestones, releases, project boards and custom fields. It's not as powerful as JIRA, but more pleasant to use. The major difference is that JIRA is designed for business people (project managers, scrum masters, product owners, etc.) whereas GH actions is first and foremost for developers.
mwobey@reddit
I do not disagree that having all this tooling integrated into the repository increases productivity, but especially as Microsoft starts shifting from "Extend" into "Extinguish" with these new value extraction initiatives, I think it's important to remember that a lot of those features really aren't that big an add over a plain git server with a few basic off-the-shelf applications.
Actions are really just a library of plug-and-play scripts running on top of vanilla git hooks, with integrations and a few new triggers from the issue tracker and PR system.
Pages is just a post-receive git hook to copy a repo to whatever directory nginx is pointed at, and I guess a mediocre free web host with no shell access.
Releases is just a post-receive git hook to check for a tag on the commit, then compile, package, and copy the resulting artifacts to a web page with a markdown renderer.
The big 'win' of GitHub is the social addons like Issues/Pull Requests/Discussions/Wiki. In the Before Times we still had those, they were just independently hosted OTS webapps like vBulletin and Mediawiki. The biggest benefits of using GitHub's trackers are the markdown extensions that let you create hyperlinks into the repo browser or specific commits, and the fact that it's standardized across every participating project with a consistent layout and single sign on. However, in the era of LLM-assisted development this is a mixed benefit, because it also means there's a very low barrier of entry for coders to stumble upon your project and submit hundreds of slop pull requests in minutes.
I don't expect these comparisons to land or be deemed acceptable as-is for a large modern project using all the bells and whistles of GitHub. I just bring them up because a lot of younger developers aren't aware that there is another way of doing things at all, nor realize that 80% of what GitHub does is stitch together other tools (not to diminish the great work of their dev team, who have built some of those tools like good JS libraries for semantic highlighting.)
A1oso@reddit
GH Actions is the most significant feature besides git itself.
Smallpaul@reddit
The thing you have hand-waved over is the effort required to run the infrastructure. GitHub actions is not a bunch of scripts. It’s also a bunch of computers. Maintaining equivalent — even with AWS — is a big project.
mwobey@reddit
This is true, but also highly dependent on the scope and scale of your project.
A 800 contributor megalith of a repository with several sub-repos and hundreds of dependents integrating this project into their own, complete with four CPU-hours of integration testing distributed across a cluster every time a change is pushed? Yes, that would be a bear to maintain.
A dinky toy app where 95% of commits come from a single contributor, with maybe \~5 concurrent sessions during peak usage? I can spin up a single tiny VPS with a git server, nginx, postgres, and whatever discussion/documentation webapps I want to run on top of it in a half hour, and it will serve all the bells and whistles for my repository just fine.
Smallpaul@reddit
If I recall correctly, GitHub will charge you literally zero for that use case.
TheWix@reddit
What does this mean? You have git repositories that you can use like any other git repository. What more do you need it to do. Honestly, to me, git is just another tool. It doesn't need to be central. The code reviews process, actions, etc all add value for me. I'm sure if Microsoft could change the name from GitHub to something less git-focused they would.
GlowiesStoleMyRide@reddit
They have Azure DevOps for that, so I don’t think they ever will
LBPPlayer7@reddit
i mean it still very much revolves around git
cranberrie_sauce@reddit
I was hesitant to switch to self-hostead gitea couple years back, but I do see benefits now.
tired of hearing about what someone is going to do to me.
Maedi@reddit
Codeberg?
Zanion@reddit
Well they have 80 different products named Copilot. So they aren't exactly free of the marketing mess accusations.
youngbull@reddit
Yeah, this is microsoft putting github under AI I suppose...
zeth0s@reddit
Microsoft buying and ruining a service/product. Where is the news?
gimpwiz@reddit
Embrace Extend Extinguish
heavy-minium@reddit
What more could possibly be done in regards to git? Everything git does and can has been in there for decades. Of course everything they do now would not be related to git.
DigThatData@reddit
this is literally not true. git wasn't just released and then stopped evolving, it's been continually improving since it was first published in 2005. Here're some choice highlights.
coming soon:
syklemil@reddit
I suspect "migration" is a bit of an oversell for what's coming regarding rust-in-git; they're planning to introduce some Rust code. If they go by the strategy plenty of others have used so far it'll likely be mostly about new code, at least in the start / foreseeable future.
And in somewhat the same vein, there seems to be a lot of people who find they enjoy
jjthese days. (I've tried it a little, but so far my mental model and workflow is so attuned togitthat I have a hard time seeing the draw.)DigThatData@reddit
I keep forgetting about
jj, thanks for reminding me.If I understand correctly, it looks like the main idea here is just to let you use a git-like interface with any other VCS. I feel like the design choices of the various VCS interfaces are the way they are to drive particular styles of development, so this smells anti-patterny to me...
heavy-minium@reddit
Can you name one thing that GitHub should build upon from git that it hasn't yet?
DigThatData@reddit
you said git, not github. but sure, there's plenty of room for improvement with UX. shit, github only just recently improved the user experience for subtasks and stacked PRs.
In-line0@reddit
Working PRs for large projects like Linux kernel
https://blog.ffwll.ch/2017/08/github-why-cant-host-the-kernel.html
dgkimpton@reddit (OP)
A service doesn't have to keep changing to continue being useful. In fact, a service that does its job really well and just keeps doing it is incredibly valuable compared to something constantly chasing the new hotness.
SelfUnmadeMan@reddit
Codeberg. www.codeberg.org
It is a Git-focused repository host and it respects your licenses, unlike GitHub. It is run by a dedicated nonprofit, not by Microsoft or any other AI-deluded tech megacorp.
The enshitification is real, and as a community we need to return our focus to organizations dedicated to the mission of supporting software developers rather that swindling those same developers for profit. Why anyone would continue to use GitHub is a mystery to me.
Valmar33@reddit
Holy shit, Microsoft is being very aggressive with pushing Copilot! Take a shot every time you read the word on that page. (Caution, you might die of liver failure...)
syklemil@reddit
A cow-orker referred to github as "Microsoft Git 365" and I think they were on point, except these days it'd be "Microsoft Git Copilot 365".
levir@reddit
Used to be you could go to office.com and get the online business Office 365 applications. These days, that takes you to Copilot.
I no longer know how to get to the online business version of any of the tools except Outlook.
They're pushing Copilot all right.
poco@reddit
You ask Microsoft 365 copilot to open a new Word document.
hclpfan@reddit
20 times. Or 1 in every 64 words.
programming-ModTeam@reddit
r/programming is not a support forum.
thunderbong@reddit
It was never about Git
https://fossil-scm.org/forum/forumpost/536ce98d85
Sokanas@reddit
October 6th, 2018
__konrad@reddit
Ah, the great exodus time when everyone moved to gitlab
KevinT_XY@reddit
I'm really not sure what you mean. The primary resource of the website is still git repositories. Yeah there's lots of CI/CD stuff and Actions and AI agents and project management but they are mostly natural extensions to serve the purpose of being a one stop shop for developer workflows.
dgkimpton@reddit (OP)
That seems like a stretch. Sure, existing users know, but how would anyone who didn't already know find out? Surely not from github.com
TripleFreeErr@reddit
are you joking?
dgkimpton@reddit (OP)
I guess that's my age talking. Git is still the hot new thing in my head 😵💫
ase1590@reddit
We are so far removed from git at this point that a good portion of developers don't know how to interact with github without using the graphical Github Desktop Client.
The year is 2026 gramps, it's been 21 years since git came out and is that time we have a whole new generation of people.
dgkimpton@reddit (OP)
21 years? Yikes. Feels like yesterday that we were moving svn repos to git, just after we got done moving perforce repos to svn, just after we got done moving sourcesafe repos to perforce. And now another 21 years has done by? Huh.
TripleFreeErr@reddit
lol. I’m not even that old and my first job used Mercurial so I get it. I’m just being realistic.
mseiei@reddit
there are more times i have to explain that "git is not the same as github" than "github can do more than git", op is delusional
bionicjoey@reddit
It's literally in the name
PJBthefirst@reddit
The way that comment was written has me praying that it was written tongue-in-cheek
Smallpaul@reddit
Where are people learning about git before they learn about GitHub in 2026?
Chwasst@reddit
Every single developer on this planet knows what GitHub is because it is literally a default option. GitHub doesn’t need to market to devs anymore, they need to market themselves to layperson in management that makes financial decisions.
ihexx@reddit
they enjoy the effect of being the default choice for devs so they don't have to say it; no one's just stumbling upon github if they don't know what it is
lelanthran@reddit
Used to be; it's now a toss-up between training data for coding LLMs and exploit vectors.
SheepherderSmall2973@reddit
When Microsoft started Microsofting.
shorugoru9@reddit
What are you talking about?
Github at is core remains about hosting git repositories.
But, as a service provider, Github as "value added" features (more value, or less, depending on your perspective), that allows them to sell their hosting over any other git hosting service.
Marble_Wraith@reddit
Fact 1: The linux kernel does not use github as a primary host, they use it as a mirroring service. The decision was made in the past after they decided to fuck with Torvalds.
Fact 2: Dated August 2025 - GitHub folds into Microsoft following CEO resignation — once independent programming site now part of 'CoreAI' team
Fact 3: Dated March 2026 - Microsoft Copilot is now injecting ads into pull requests on GitHub. Yeah Microslop public relations walked it back and said "it was a mistake" or somethin like that. But it's too late. That was a mask-off moment.
Given all these facts, i'm going to say, do it like the linux kernel.
Use another primary host for the
remote originwhere you push, pull, and merge. I'd suggest looking into codeberg, or perhaps if you want to selfhost soft serve.Use github as a mirroring service for discoverability (ie. configure it such that there are no PR's, no issues, no discussions) and it all redirects to the primary host.
Valmar33@reddit
The moment Microsoft did that, they showed their hand. There's no mistake in that whatsoever.
It shows where they want to take Github ~ and it's only going to get worse as Microsoft will just be sneakier about it from now on.
Malfeasant_Emu@reddit
“Git” stopped appearing on the homepage in 2012: https://web.archive.org/web/20121221170535/https://github.com/
Valmar33@reddit
That's not a good sign. But it doesn't excuse Microsoft abusing Github to try and force Copilot on the unwilling masses.
obliviousslacker@reddit
There are options you know.
Smallpaul@reddit
Force? Just don’t use it.
AshuraBaron@reddit
You don't understand, an option that exists that isn't for me is a terrible thing and MUST be stopped! /s
lKrauzer@reddit
I should probably migrate my projects to another platform, what would be a good replacement? Gitlab Maybe? I'm more concerned about employability tbh because that is the goal of my projects.
SaxAppeal@reddit
As long as you can use git locally you’re employable. You can learn any git ui.
Trang0ul@reddit
With a local setup, you'll miss online back-up, though.
SaxAppeal@reddit
I just meant as long as you can use the cli it doesn’t really matter what remote hosting service you use
KennedyRichard@reddit
Yep, best thing about git is how decentralized it is. You can send and get changes/branches to and from other people even via email.
It is the only reason I still feel safe using a service like GitHub from a company with history of enshittifying its products.
The moment they decide to pull the rug from under me I'll just pack my stuff and leave.
DanLynch@reddit
Do you mean you want a place to link to as a portfolio on your résumé? Keep using GitHub: it's still the industry standard for that.
lKrauzer@reddit
I meant that I'm worried about the industry standard, yeah.
radozok@reddit
tangled org
lelanthran@reddit
$5/m VPS with gitea/forgejo works very well as long as you don't need GH action runners.
levir@reddit
I've been running gitolite for well over a decade for my personal projects. If all you need is git hosting with access control, it's a very simple solution.
Muhznit@reddit
Best replacement is a server that you control that needs no exposure outside your network. It takes a bit of command-line expertise but it's worth not being subject to the whims of the ToS. You even get your own web UI with
git instaweb>If you can't host your own server, the
git bundlecommand is a nice second choice. Basically turns your entire repo into a single file you can toss into Dropbox or whatever cloud backup service for you to download elsewhere.Top3879@reddit
I have switched to a selfhosted Forgejo instance and I'm very happy with it. Its basically a GitHub clone inlcluding actions. I connected a selfhosted action runner in a VM for CI/CD too and haven't had any issues.
Leading_Pay4635@reddit
Gitlab or codeberg
heavenlydemonicdev@reddit
I personally use codeberg and like it quite a lot but host my projects at the same time on GitHub just as a buckup, also I still need GitHub for contributing to open source projects.
r3drocket@reddit
I'm seriously debating hosting my own private git repository, the challenge I have is I have about 30 repos on GitHub, which are all public projects I've built.
But now I'm trying to bootstrap my own startup, and there's just no software that does what I'm doing right now - i've already gotten the ire of major competitors in this space.
And I'm convinced that GitHub, even though I've told it it's not allowed to train on my private repos, will do it anyways.
I don't trust them because AI requires all the data it can possibly get for training, so I believe that companies will violate ethical and moral rules to expand their ever-growing library of things to train on.
Facebook, for example, violating copyright to download pirated books, and getting a mild slap on the wrist.
I've been seriously debating going to my own private git repose and buying yet another GPU so I can get to 64 gigs of VRAM so use LLMs privately. I've been using the latest Qwen3-coder-next models and they've been very reasonable.
I just don't trust any of these companies not to steal all our data, and lately, GitHub has been a freaking mess.
mudbloodcountry@reddit
Hey he called u slow
Extra-Organization-6@reddit
when they realized the social network around code is worth more than the code hosting. issues, discussions, actions, copilot, codespaces, packages. git is just the hook that gets you in the door. the actual product is developer lock-in across the entire workflow. gitea and forgejo exist for a reason.
momofuku18@reddit
Github and Git. Pornhub vs porn.
sailing67@reddit
marketing ate the product lol
pjmlp@reddit
Since forever? Github was always about business and social platform for developers.
99% of what they offer has nothing to do with Git the command line tool.
dgkimpton@reddit (OP)
It always had some of tbat but initially it was about the code first and everything else second as a way to support the code. It seems to have flipped and the code is now a distant afterthought. Or at least, that's the impression I get from their homepage.
jejacks00n@reddit
Incorrect. It stated very clearly that it was a social network for nerds. Not kidding. Around 2008 it said essentially that.
GlowiesStoleMyRide@reddit
Eh, a home page will always be an ad for whatever “company X” wants to sell you. In this case, copilot is very relevant to developers, so they want to pull in people looking for AI tooling. It’s search optimisation.
If you look at the features page which aims to actually explain what github is about, you’ll see it’s still focussed on development.
GeoSystemsDeveloper@reddit
Well everyone knows that GitHub is about git, and that's not a selling point anymore. They need to emphasise on what's new as they want to sell GitHub Enterprise.
SP-Niemand@reddit
You saw the landing. Landing does not mean shit, it's made by marketing for a customer persona written down somewhere who probably does not exist.
Many products do this, GitHub is not unique.
charmander_cha@reddit
Desde da compra da Microsoft
Ythio@reddit
Hosting a plain old git isn't exactly exciting or difficult. It's not going to set them apart from competitors.
Issues, releases, pull requests, authorized teams, actionsz dependabot are the real features.
github.com itself is just a marketing facade to sell GitHub Enterprise. Once the devs are used to the free service on GitHub.com they will want the same service at their company.
hackingdreams@reddit
When Microsoft bought it so they could wash everyone's copyright off and reuse their code without having to contribute anything back.
I mean, they obviously didn't buy it so they could make money selling accounts and data storage. They bought it so they could train their AI on it without having to point to their own codebases, and to keep others from doing the same.
Ask any of the major AI vendors why they aren't training their public models on their extensive, protected codebases and you'll learn the truth of their intent.
Sufficient_Duck_8051@reddit
Microsoft is just chasing the next new thing.
Jay Parikh, Asha Sharma and some other Indians are chasing who will shove more AI into everything.
Far-Donut-1177@reddit
something something enshifitcation
puhadaze@reddit
Everyone has to keep up with AI either they like it or not to realistically approach modern projects
kaeshiwaza@reddit
I listen this since more than 30 years... And still use Vim, no ORM and no frameworks !
SwitchOnTheNiteLite@reddit
Github was never about git, because git is free. It's about being able to share a git repo amongst people and coordinate the work in that repo through pull requests and issues.
gnuban@reddit
It's code for "I don't know if I explained this well enough, we REALLY want your data to train our AIs. So please stop resisting."
teratron27@reddit
For years. Git is a pretty simple tool, they've pretty much always marketed around team collaboration
Plank_With_A_Nail_In@reddit
Developers already know what git is so the marketing is all for someone else.
araujoms@reddit
The page gives the impression that github is a web-based IDE with AI integration. Who is the target of this if not developers?
Big_Combination9890@reddit
Pretty much the moment Microslop got their hands on it.
hardware2win@reddit
And it is fine. Git is just implementation detail - letters management engine.
Github itself is project management ecosystem
zbynekstava@reddit
I don't understand the preference for github in the first place. Imho gitlab is much better.
jc-from-sin@reddit
Git is now LinkedIn for developers.
DigThatData@reddit
I think the big shift towards what you're seeing now was when they added the "github codespaces" feature, which is basically a cloud developer environment with vs code in the browser. One of the most proven and popular use cases for LLMs rn is coding assistance, and there are a lot of tight IDE integrations (e.g. Cursor is literally built on top of VS Code). Making things with code put AI in github's ballpark pretty naturally, and the pre-existing CI/CD and codespaces integrations make it practically unavoidable.
iamapizza@reddit
You're making a vast sweeping generalisation by looking at a marketing page?
Valmar33@reddit
The front page is marketing primarily Microsoft's Copilot slop machine. The front page should not be about marketing AI slop, but what Github's actual featureset is. Github should also not be marketing crap unrelated to Git in the name of "convenience".
Gitlab doing the same? Call it out for the garbage it is. But they're not as prominent as Github is, so the problem is worse.
turbothy@reddit
Why? It's there to sell Microsoft products. Git hosting is not the product GitHub sells.
Valmar33@reddit
Then what the actual hell is Github even relevant for anymore? Not Git hosting, clearly.
Microsoft just killed Github, skinned the corpse, and now they're using it as a trojan horse to force Copilot down everyone's gullets, which went over so well with Windows users. I'm sure butchering Github to try and force it that way will work just swell. /s
ArgumentFew4432@reddit
I moved on a long time ago
Complete_Instance_18@reddit
Yeah, I noticed that too and had a similar gut reaction
XYcritic@reddit
Since Microslop.
Maybe-monad@reddit
Since it was acquired by a company that only cares about profits
shotsallover@reddit
The inevitable enshittification is beginning.
Anyone who didn't expect something like this when MS bought it clearly doesn't understand how they work. You can expect it become more and more like this over time.
And you need to ask yourself and whatever organization you work for whether you want your source code hanging out inside some AI model on millions of other people's machines.