Gitea vs GitLab

Gitea — strengths

• Extremely light — runs happily on a Raspberry Pi or a 512 MB VPS
• Single Go binary that's trivial to install, back up, and upgrade
• Fast UI with a familiar GitHub-like workflow — repos, issues, pull requests, releases
• Gitea Actions provides GitHub-Actions-compatible CI without a heavy separate stack
• Built-in package and container registries covering many ecosystems

Gitea — weaknesses

• Lighter on advanced DevOps features (security scanning, advanced project management)
• CI (Gitea Actions) is less mature than GitLab CI
• Smaller feature surface for large-org compliance and governance needs

GitLab — strengths

• Complete DevOps platform: repos, industry-leading CI/CD, registries, security scanning, and project management in one app
• GitLab CI/CD is a de-facto industry standard with a vast ecosystem and documentation
• Advanced project management — boards, milestones, epics, and roadmaps
• Merge requests with approval rules, code suggestions, and CI gating
• Scales from a single self-hosted instance to a very large organisation

GitLab — weaknesses

• Heavy resource footprint; overkill for just a few repositories
• More involved upgrades and ongoing maintenance
• Best features are often behind paid tiers

When Gitea fits

• Solo developer or small team that wants a private GitHub for a handful of repositories on cheap hardware: Gitea does this comfortably on a Raspberry Pi with resources to spare, where GitLab would need a dedicated box.
• Homelab that wants version control plus lightweight CI without dedicating 8 GB of RAM to a forge: Gitea plus Gitea Actions covers build-test-deploy for typical projects at a fraction of the footprint.

When GitLab fits

• Engineering team that wants source, CI/CD, a container registry, and review gates in one self-hosted tool with mature pipelines: GitLab CE covers the whole loop without stitching separate services together.
• Organisation that needs approval workflows, protected branches, and compliance-style controls: GitLab's merge-request approval rules and permissions model are far ahead of Gitea's.

Gitea gotchas

• Gitea Actions is newer and less battle-tested than GitLab CI — very complex pipelines may hit rough edges
• No built-in security scanning (SAST/DAST/dependency scanning) — you assemble it yourself via Actions
• Project-management features (boards, milestones) are basic compared to GitLab's epics and roadmaps
• Governance split: the community-run Forgejo hard fork exists — decide which project you want to follow before committing

GitLab gotchas

• Resource-hungry — plan for 4 GB RAM minimum and realistically 8 GB; it won't run comfortably on a Pi
• Omnibus upgrades sometimes require stepping through specific versions and running background migrations, so read the upgrade path before bumping
• Many headline features (advanced security, some compliance) are gated behind paid Enterprise tiers, not in free CE
• Backups of a busy instance are large and slow; the built-in backup tool needs disk space and planning

Choose Gitea when

Pick Gitea if you want a fast, private GitHub for a person or small team, you're running on modest hardware, and you value simple installs, backups, and upgrades over a full DevOps suite.

Choose GitLab when

Pick GitLab if you need mature, integrated CI/CD, advanced code review and project management, and a platform that scales to a whole engineering organisation — and you have the RAM to run it.

Migration

Migrating from GitLab to Gitea (the common direction when downsizing) is well-supported: Gitea's migration tool imports repositories including issues, pull/merge requests, labels, and milestones directly from a GitLab instance. CI pipelines do not translate — GitLab CI `.gitlab-ci.yml` files must be rewritten as Gitea Actions workflows. Going the other way (Gitea → GitLab), you import repositories via GitLab's importer and rebuild issues and labels as needed. In both directions, users and access tokens are recreated rather than transferred, and webhooks/integrations must be reconfigured. Run both side by side, mirror a few repositories first to validate history and issue import, then cut over once CI is rebuilt on the new platform.

Frequently asked questions

Is GitLab free to self-host?

Yes — GitLab Community Edition (CE) is free and MIT-licensed. Some advanced features (certain security scans, compliance, and portfolio management) are only available in the paid Enterprise Edition tiers.

Why is Gitea so much lighter than GitLab?

Gitea is a single Go binary with a small footprint, while GitLab bundles Rails, Sidekiq, PostgreSQL, Redis, Gitaly, and more. That completeness is why GitLab needs several GB of RAM and Gitea can run on a Pi.

Does Gitea have CI/CD?

Yes — Gitea Actions, which is largely compatible with GitHub Actions workflows. It's newer than GitLab CI and fine for typical build/test/deploy pipelines, though very complex pipelines may still prefer GitLab CI's maturity.

What is Forgejo and how does it relate to Gitea?

Forgejo is a community-run hard fork of Gitea created over governance concerns. It remains very close to Gitea today and is a drop-in alternative for many users; if project governance matters to you, evaluate both before committing.

How much RAM does GitLab need?

Plan for 4 GB minimum and 8 GB for a comfortable single-instance experience; busy instances want more. Gitea, by contrast, is happy in a few hundred MB.

Can I migrate my GitLab repos to Gitea?

Yes — Gitea's built-in migration imports repositories with their issues, pull requests, labels, and milestones from GitLab. CI pipelines are the exception and must be rewritten as Gitea Actions workflows.

Which should a small team choose?

For a handful of developers who mainly need repos, code review, and light CI, Gitea is usually the better fit — less to run and maintain. Choose GitLab when integrated, mature CI/CD and advanced review across many projects justify the heavier footprint.