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Ask HN: good place to store code online?

23 points by schtog ↗ HN
what is the best place to store code online? i want to have a backup of my files somewhere in case something happens and an emailadress is just annoying for this kind of thing.

i could use google doc to save the soource code but i just want to be able to store it as a .py-file or .scm-file and download directly later.

mozy seem to cost even for the smallest storage? xdrive has 5GB free though.

any tips? should obv support any fileformat.

45 comments

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izak30
getdropbox.com works like a charm.
borski
+1 for dropbox
schtog
tried to signup for dropbox but it is just an invite-only beta.

looks very good though, exactly what i want. fast simple and free(?).

rw
Do you require privacy/crypto?
schtog
yes
xenoterracide
github. has varible size cheap pay for accounts. if it's open source the account is free, but if you can't make your code public you have to pay for it.
sant0sk1
http://github.com
bbgm
Another vote for github.com if you want a proper code repository. It's well designed and easy to use. If you just want to archive/backup your code, you could also take a look at jungledisk, which provides you a layer on top of Amazon S3, and depending on how much you have to store, might be economical for you.
mosburger
For all of my projects, I have an assembla account (http://www.assembla.com) with SVN access. I don't know the privacy/crypto details, so if you're storing private/sensitive data I can't help you with any details there - I'm doing open source stuff and couldn't care less who sees my code. Your situation might be different!
wenbert
assembla.com for me too
rapind
assembla here too, and very happy. you can set it up for git too if you go into Admin >> Tools
ComputerGuru
We have both public and private accounts with assembla - they're great.

We used to use their entire package (bug reporting, trac, etc.) but now we're only using them for SVN and use locally-deployed software to manage the rest of the toolchain (mostly Atlassian software such as Jira, Confluence, Crucible, and Fisheye)

markbao
+1 for Assembla. Excellent and free. Can't get better than that.
biosoup
+1 for assembla, I got there 3 projects

and 500MB of free space is great too!

mark-t
Until a few months ago, we hosted our svn repository on berlios.de . It went down every few weeks, so I don't recommend them. We started using them when sourceforge only had cvs. Nowadays sf.net supports svn, so you might look into that.

Somewhat recently, we switched to git and started hosting ourselves, but you might look into code.google.com .

If you don't actually want your code to be public, just get some free online storage. Do you really need more than 5GB?

njoubert
My suggestion is to get Dreamhost (500GB, 5TB transfer) and buy this for a 2-year time. Enter the promo code "5050" to get $50 bucks off, making this a $150 for 2 years hosting plan that runs svn and you'll never run out of diskspace.
ra
DON'T use Dreamhost.

I once had my SVN with them; you have no control over availability - and availability wasn't good, in my experience.

spydez
Also, if it's not "website relate" (as in, the website you're using Dreamhost to host), Dreamhost wants to charge you 20 cents/gig per month extra.
whalesalad
+1 for NO to Dreamhost. Hands down the worst web host out there. Go for a cheap VPS like Slicehost and roll your own. You have control over everything, and they have rock solid uptime.
ra
+1 for slicehost - rock solid
chriskelley
Yep, horrible downtime. Stay away from Dreamhost. We use Beanstalkapp.com, no complaints so far.
njoubert
ah, i did not know that. If you want the cheapest of the cheap they're your friend but it would appear that there's a good reason for that! I've been using vpslink.com to run my own VPS with SVN and all the rest. I've heard lots of great things about slicehost too.
ra
I run a VPS with SVN and Trac. Does everything I need.

My backup job runs from home using a scheduled script (cron, tar, scp).

You could just as easily send your tar files to Amazon S3

anonym
I use http://duplicity.nongnu.org/ to backup to Amazon S3 (it has support for various other backends). It encrypts with GnuPG. S3 charges a few cents per GB of transfer and a few cents per GB of storage per month.
ra
I've been looking at duplicity - do you do full system backups?
anonym
No, I backup my home directory and some web directories.
Husafan
My start-up has had an absolutely terrific experience so far with cvsdude.com. If you want a subversion/trac/bugzilla package, the pricing is reasonable and their customer service has been great. Also, if you want to host an open source project, they have free options.

I highly recommend it.

JoelSutherland
I can second this. Their uptime has been perfect in my experience and they do hourly off-site backups. They are also really cheap.
tlrobinson
I'd recommend a cheap VPS, which you can then use for any number of things, including running svn, git, whatever.

You get root access, so you can do whatever you want with it. They're great for prototyping web apps.

I like Slicehost (as low as $20/month) http://www.slicehost.com/

smanek
I got a VPS with vpslink.com

I paid for 2 years upfront and got a 50% discount - total price was ~$12/month for a Xen instance (debian) with 256MB Ram

I have SVN/trac on it ... although, I've been thinking of migrating to git.

I also use it to host a lot of other stuff too.

natch
S3. I have a script that takes one argument, a directory name.

It encrypts the directory name and adds a timestamp, to make a filename that reveals nothing about the contents of the file except for the time it was created. It stores the original directory name along with the encrypted directory name in a local log file, so I can tell what's what later.

Then it zips the directory and its contents into a file, names it with the encrypted filename, and does a GPG encryption of the file.

Then it uploads it to Amazon S3 and cleans up after itself.

All of this is completely automated once I type in the command. I do it for my project directory, which contains all my projects for the calendar year, periodically. After the year closes out, I start a new year and the old files (from previous years) stay safe and unchanged on S3.

Over the course of a year, if a few backups for the same year pile up, I usually delete the old ones. I haven't automated that part.

This scheme is OK for backing up a few important directories, if they aren't large, like for source code, just what you asked about -- a few hundred megabytes will cost just pennies a month on Amazon.

It's not a SVN or GIT solution, but it gives you total privacy, rather than relying on a third party to do the encryption for you.

ardit33
codespaces.com subversion account, and it is free for the basic one.
rms
Is github really the only one that sells hosted git accounts? How come no one is competing with them?
pjhyett
I'd like to think it's because potential competitors take one look at our site and give up :-)

Seriously, though, thanks to everyone recommending GitHub. We're constantly trying to improve our service to remain the best (even if we're the only one) Git host.

gcv
Another vote for github.com. If you're interested in a more generic storage and backup service, try rsync.net. You'll have to write your own rsync scripts to do backups, but rsync.net's uptime and support have been fantastic for me.
jmagar
I can't help but think that there are better ways to backup your code. Once you give it to an online service, you give up total control over how that data is handled.

Your code is everything. You should take care of it properly.

On the other hand, if you are working on OSS, then of course your need for privacy is trumped.