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Ask HN: Why is GitHub favoured over Bitbucket

11 points by hajderr ↗ HN
This question is based on mere perception of where I usually tend to browse source code.

Bitbucket has unlimited private repos. In the case you wish to go public, obviously Github has a larger community, but it's also easy to just uncheck the 'private' box in Bitbucket.

So why has Github been the place to-go for hosting code?

18 comments

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fulafel
Mercurial vs Git.
drKarl
Bitbucket supports both
fulafel
Now, yes, but after git became more popular than hg, github already had a long lead by the time bitbucket added git support. This was the determining factor in who got ahead due to the network effect.
pm24601
i like both. Github is too public sometimes.
godot
Similar to you, I also use both. Github for work (because every startup uses a Github organization for their codebase, so if you work for one, you use it), and for any open source work I contribute to, or create. Bitbucket for personal projects, because not every project is an open source one, for various reasons -- maybe I'm just playing around, write scrappy code, or maybe it's a serious side project with revenue like a business and I don't want the code to be open. Free private repos is nice.
jfaucett
I can think of a couple reasons.

1. Github got First Mover momentum

2. Git preference over mercurial back when Bitbucket burst on the scene.

3. Github has many users which means its easier if you want to reach a large audience with your FOSS project.

4. Due to #3 large companies hosting all their big projects on GH, leads to a self perpetuating cycle.

billconan
Many years ago, I thought bitbucket's unlimited private repos is a generous offer. I decided to put my everything on bitbucket. I hope my opensource projects can help bitbucket attract some traffic. Then I found I received more attention on github.

Maybe it's the network effect.

Nowadays, I like the ui, responsiveness and developer interactions provided by github. I don't like Bitbucket's color scheme and sometimes it's slow.

jklein11
I wonder if the unlimited private repos hurt bitbucket to some extent. With Github you are sharing by default, so there is a lot more content available than on bitbucket, where you can decide.
brudgers
My take is that it comes down to 'Unix philosphy'.[1] Bitbucket became part of Atlassian's product line fairly early in it's life. While it stands alone, it is not Atlassian's primary profit center...hence the unlimited private repositories for free[2] because aggressive pursuit of monetization is not necessary. Github on the other hand, is more of an "only does one thing" company and devotes more resources to the source control UX and features[3].

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_philosophy, not that's objectively better, just that in this case it seems to provide an advantage.

[2]: When I signed up several years ago, I think it was only five private repositories...and Mercurial was favored over Git in the signup process. But free private repositories was why I chose Bitbucket over Github. I was using it for Coursera assignments.

[3]: Github versus Bitbucket may also be explained by Zawinski's Law: The yang to it's Unix philosophy yin. http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/Z/Zawinskis-Law.html

gusmd
Even though you don't mention it, I would bring up Gitlab as well.

We have a hosted instance at work (CE), and I've fallen in love with it. So I decided to put my personal stuff on Gitlab.com. All my new personal projects have been hosted there for the past year or so. Also helps that you can keep them private.

The major advantage of Github that I see is the network effect.

unboxed_type
GitHub feels so much like some social network site. It has too many distraction factors for any thinking person, that's why I hate it. Bitbucket is a real thing. Go get it, stop being a GitHub hipster today!
imauld
I used bitbucket at my last job and it felt like an under-performing Github the whole time. Code reviews were much more painful, the UI was not as intuitive, it's slower and if it has a "search this repo" function I couldn't find in the 2 years I looked.

People don't use it because they are hipsters they use because it works well.

I use gitlab (and to a lesser extent github) at work now and IMO gitlab vs github they are about equal in terms of ease of use and "just working like you expect."

segmondy
I use both. For private stuff I use Bitbucket, for public stuff/experiments, I use Github.
enriquto
in my case, I was using bitbucket, but with the Atlassian merger it became unusable and I was forced to switch to github.