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Ask HN:Why Github and not Bitbucket

2 points by retrofit_brain ↗ HN
We use bitbucket and it has been awesome for a small startup. I am surprised that Github charges close to $12 a month for DVCS. what do you guys think Github offers which justifies the price? I am pretty happy withn my bitbucket free plan which allow 5 collaborators and private repos.

6 comments

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phlyingpenguin
If you like Mercurial better and Bitbucket does the job, I'd stick with it. I was right there and decided the Git hype is just that. I'm not sure if I like one DVCS better than the other, but Bitbucket offered me (basically) unlimited service for my personal school repositories, and hg happens to be what my research group uses anyway. I'll stick to what I know and like already.
stonemetal
The reasoning as far as I can tell goes something like this:

1. Git, because of its source and momentum, is the more popular of the two. So when you are looking for code hosting that supports your tool bit bucket doesn't.

2. GitHub was first and seems to be better. Bit bucket has a reputation for being a cheap knock off of Git Hub for some reason.

3. I don't think you will find to many startup founders who really see a difference between the two price points, 10 bucks a month just isn't enough to worry about when bigger things like hardware costs and employee salaries dominate the list of costs.

retrofit_brain
agreed that there are more costlier things to worry, but spending the money should be justified. Just the buzz is not a good enough reason, there has to be better reasons. I have personally not experienced downtimes which might justify a better price for one.
jespern
> 2. Bitbucket has a reputation for being a cheap knock off of GitHub for some reason.

The reason for this is very simple: We launched within months of each other, and we look very much alike (how many ways can you skin a DVCS hosting cat?) And then of course there was the whole pointing fingers/attempt to drag through the mud article, that was since removed.

stonemetal
I never followed it that closely, I just remember that there was an article or two posted here that made the claim. To me both look like as straight a translation of the command line to the web UI as was possible.
runjake
I think it's git vs. mercurial and git is a lot more popular at the moment.

Some people seem to like Gitorious.org which is apparently cheaper (free?)

Clickable: http://gitorious.org/