GitHub: Free for Open Source
Lately people have been asking about our pricing plan. While we’re not ready to reveal it quite yet, we are ready to talk about one aspect of it: GitHub will…
Lately people have been asking about our pricing plan. While we’re not ready to reveal it quite yet, we are ready to talk about one aspect of it: GitHub will host open source projects for free.
There will, of course, be a reasonable size limit. To give some context, a fresh checkout of the 100k+ LOC Rails project is only 2.2 megs. Furthermore, only 3 of GitHub’s 2000 existing users are using more than 50 megabytes on public projects. Git is very space efficient.
What about forks? Well, let’s say you’re hosting a 40 megabyte open source project and I fork it. Because Git is so awesome at handling space, my forked repo uses less than 1 megabyte initially.
Big open source projects needing more than the limit should contact us. We’d love to sponsor your development.
GitHub is most definitely the best way to do open source. Sign up for a beta invite (if you haven’t already) and see for yourself.
Written by
Related posts
GitHub Availability Report: August 2025
In August, we experienced three incidents that resulted in degraded performance across GitHub services.
Your guide to GitHub Universe 2025: The schedule just launched!
Create your own agenda of favorites, sign up for one-on-on mentoring sessions, and register if you haven’t already. We’ll see you there!
Explore the best of GitHub Universe: 9 spaces built to spark creativity, connection, and joy
See what’s happening at Universe 2025, from experimental dev tools and career coaching to community-powered spaces. Save $400 on your pass with Early Bird pricing.