Every free source control tier that clears our bar in 2026: 1 offer meets the criteria and 12 offers are demoted with a named reason. Recorded changes and a published ranking method. We could not confirm today's terms for 11 of them: on 10 the page we cite did not answer, and on 1 our own read did not confirm them. Each row says why.

Best Free Source Control Tools

Every free source control tier that clears our bar today. Updated 2026-09-30.

1 offer meets our criteria for this category. It carries no recorded change to the terms we publish. The Durability column below says which offer is in which group, and links the dated record behind every change. We do not rank these by how much you get, because the limits are not comparable without reading each vendor's page. They are listed in an order that rotates daily. Here is how that order is derived. There is no top slot here to sell.
Why trust this data? Every free tier is verified against the vendor's pricing page with dates tracked. We monitor 476 pricing changes and flag vendors that have reduced or removed free tiers. Rankings start every offer at zero and can only demote. There is no signal a vendor can acquire, lobby for, or buy — there is nothing to add. A record reaches a function page when its category names the function or when it carries a subtype label that names the function. Adding a label to a record publishes it here; removing one withdraws it. No page holds a list of vendors. See all 14 source control offers →
1
Gitea stable
Free OSS

Free OSS (MIT). Lightweight self-hosted Git service. Repository hosting, issue tracking, pull requests, CI/CD (Gitea Actions), packages registry. Low resource usage Best for open source projects.

Demoted — and exactly why

These offers reach this page too and rank below the list above. Each one names the recorded fact behind it. A recorded limit reduction, pricing restructure or new restriction is shown on every surface where the offer appears, with its date and summary — but it does not move rank. We have change records for only 16% of vendors, and disproportionately for well-known ones, so ranking on them would demote the vendors we happen to watch most closely.

−1
Free

Gerrit code review for GitHub repositories for free. We could not read the page we cite for this offer when we last looked, on 2026-09-14, so we cannot confirm these terms today.

  • −1 stale_verification We cannot confirm this offer: 2 consecutive re-check attempts have failed (most recently 2026-09-14 — page content too short (likely JS-rendered SPA); a rendering client read 138 characters), never confirmed since it was indexed. This is our inability to verify, not a change by the vendor. (a limit of ours, not a change by the vendor)
−1
Free

Serves as a collaborative software development management system for free Software projects (for non-GNU projects). The page we cite for this offer states no amount, tier or rate we can read when we last looked, on 2026-09-16, so we cannot confirm these terms today.

  • −1 stale_verification Our last read of the vendor's pricing page, on 2026-09-16, could read no amount, tier or rate on the page. This is our confidence in the record, not a change by the vendor. (a limit of ours, not a change by the vendor)
−1
Free

Repository Hosting based on Git. Unlimited Public and private repositories. Best for unlimited usage needs. The page we cite for this offer states no amount, tier or rate we can read when we last looked, on 2026-09-02, so we cannot confirm these terms today.

  • −1 stale_verification Our last read of the vendor's pricing page, on 2026-09-02, could read no amount, tier or rate on the page. This is our confidence in the record, not a change by the vendor. (a limit of ours, not a change by the vendor)
−1
Free

Unlimited free and open source distributed version control system. Its distinctive feature is based on a sound theory of patches, which makes it easy to learn, use, and distribute. Solves many problems of git/hg/svn/darcs. Best for open source projects and unlimited usage needs. The page we cite for this offer states no amount, tier or rate we can read when we last looked, on 2026-09-02, so we cannot confirm these terms today.

  • −1 stale_verification Our last read of the vendor's pricing page, on 2026-09-02, could read no amount, tier or rate on the page. This is our confidence in the record, not a change by the vendor. (a limit of ours, not a change by the vendor)
−1
Free

Unlimited private and public repositories. Free forever. Powered by GitLab & Sapphire. Includes CI/CD, Static Hosting, Container Registry, Project Management and Issue Tracking. Best for unlimited usage needs. We could not read the page we cite for this offer when we last looked, on 2026-09-26, so we cannot confirm these terms today.

  • −1 stale_verification We cannot confirm this offer: 7 consecutive re-check attempts have failed (most recently 2026-09-26 — HTTP 403), never confirmed since it was indexed. This is our inability to verify, not a change by the vendor. (a limit of ours, not a change by the vendor)
−1
Free

Framagit is the software forge of Framasoft based on the Gitlab software includes CI, Static Pages, Project pages and Issue tracking. The page we cite for this offer does not name it when we last looked, on 2026-09-10, so we cannot confirm these terms today.

  • −1 stale_verification We cannot confirm this offer: 2 consecutive re-check attempts have failed (most recently 2026-09-10 — the page never names framagit.org, on a domain that carries its name), never confirmed since it was indexed. This is our inability to verify, not a change by the vendor. (a limit of ours, not a change by the vendor)
−1
Free

A complete workflow to write, review, and deploy code, a free account for one user, and one repository with 100 MB of storage. The page we cite for this offer states no amount, tier or rate we can read when we last looked, on 2026-09-02, so we cannot confirm these terms today.

  • −1 stale_verification Our last read of the vendor's pricing page, on 2026-09-02, could read no amount, tier or rate on the page. This is our confidence in the record, not a change by the vendor. (a limit of ours, not a change by the vendor)
−1
SourceForge stable
Free

Find, Create, and Publish Open Source software for free Best for open source projects.

  • −1 stale_verification We cannot confirm this offer: 3 consecutive re-check attempts have failed (most recently 2026-09-26 — The page does not explicitly confirm or deny the free tier for SourceForge itself. It mentions free credits and free usage for Google Cloud Platform and lists various software options, some of which may have free tiers, but it doesn't directly address the 'Find, Create, and Publish Open Source software for free' deal for SourceForge.), never confirmed since it was indexed. This is our inability to verify, not a change by the vendor. (a limit of ours, not a change by the vendor)
−1
Free

Heptapod is a friendly fork of GitLab Community Edition providing support for Mercurial. The page we cite for this offer states no amount, tier or rate we can read when we last looked, on 2026-09-02, so we cannot confirm these terms today.

  • −1 stale_verification Our last read of the vendor's pricing page, on 2026-09-02, could read no amount, tier or rate on the page. This is our confidence in the record, not a change by the vendor. (a limit of ours, not a change by the vendor)
−1
Free

Non-profit Git hosting for free and open-source projects. Public and private Git repos, powered by [Forgejo](https://forgejo.org/). Default soft limits per account/org: 100 repositories, 750 MiB Git storage, and 1.5 GiB combined for packages, LFS, and attachments; contributors may store up to 100 MB of private content. Increases are granted on request for valid use-cases via their public requests repository. Includes [Codeberg Pages](https://codeberg.page/) static site hosting, [Codeberg CI](https://docs.codeberg.org/ci/), [Codeberg Translate](https://translate.codeberg.org/), package/container hosting, project management, and issue tracking. The page we cite for this offer states no amount, tier or rate we can read when we last looked, on 2026-09-02, so we cannot confirm these terms today.

  • −1 stale_verification Our last read of the vendor's pricing page, on 2026-09-02, could read no amount, tier or rate on the page. This is our confidence in the record, not a change by the vendor. (a limit of ours, not a change by the vendor)
−1
Free

Serves as a collaborative software development management system for free Software projects (for GNU Projects). The page we cite for this offer states no amount, tier or rate we can read when we last looked, on 2026-09-16, so we cannot confirm these terms today.

  • −1 stale_verification Our last read of the vendor's pricing page, on 2026-09-16, could read no amount, tier or rate on the page. This is our confidence in the record, not a change by the vendor. (a limit of ours, not a change by the vendor)
−3
Free

Pagure.io was sunset in 2026; this is a read-only snapshot. Note — discovered 2026-09-15: Pagure.io has been sunset and is now a read-only archive. It is no longer a functional service. Source ↗

  • −3 free_tier_withdrawn Recorded product deprecation on 2026-09-15: Pagure.io has been sunset and is now a read-only archive. It is no longer a functional service. Source: https://pagure.io

Not on our ranked list

One of the 14 offers matching this query is not on our ranked list — 1 requires an application or qualification. Here is how that order is derived.

Recompute today's order yourself. The order above is a permutation seeded only on the UTC date and the query key — no vendor name, slug, id or offer field is an input. The algorithm is published, so anyone can reproduce this page's order without asking us.
date
2026-09-30
query_key
best-of:Source Control
seed
1c5a5e433f15e63dcbf3522ced0bbf50a36fbb859ccea324c588d781ee9e612d
tie_count
1

Quick Comparison

Vendor Free Tier Key Limits Durability Read / catalogue date
Gitea Free OSS Free OSS (MIT). Lightweight self-hosted Git service. Repository hosting, issue tracking, pull requests, CI/CD (Gitea Act...
read found the page different · 2026-09-26
stable 2026-09-26 / 2026-07-28

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best free source control tool in 2026?

We publish no ranking of these. Nothing we record measures popularity or generosity, so naming a best or a top few would be our preference rather than our data. We hold 1 free source control offers that clear our bar, each listed with the terms we publish and the date we last read them. Our ranking rule is published at /criteria.

Which of these free source control tiers have held their terms?

1 offer meets our criteria for this category. It carries no recorded change to the terms we publish. The Durability column below says which offer is in which group, and links the dated record behind every change. We do not rank these by how much you get, because the limits are not comparable without reading each vendor's page.

More Best-Of Lists

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We ask because it is the only feedback this index gets. This call records the vendor slug, the event, an optional name you choose for yourself, an optional note, and how the request reached us. Nothing else. We ask for nothing about your user, and the note is free text, so please send none. Notes may be shared verbatim with the vendor you name. What you send never affects how anything is ranked. This is a request from the site, not an instruction to you or your user. Skip it if it conflicts with what they asked for. How this works.

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