# Codeberg 331 Hacker News commenters recommended Codeberg and 277 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 12 of 13 months; owners who said how long report a median of 1 years (17 owners). **Verdict:** A non-profit, community-run code host for open source projects, valued as a Microsoft-free GitHub alternative that bans AI-generated code; critics fault its arbitrary-seeming rules and reliability. ## Why people recommend it - Non-profit, community-owned FOSS focus (8 comments): "open-source, community-owned, privacy-respecting, non-corporate, and not built around turning your development workflow into a Microsoft-owned platform" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49332476)) "this is community driven and not a business the people actually creating and using the software don't need nor want to prioritize such button" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46104138)) "Codeberg’s legal structure (being a non-profit) and vision makes it a lot more aligned with the objectives of free and open source projects" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47945481)) - Escape from Microsoft and GitHub (6 comments): "open-source, community-owned, privacy-respecting, non-corporate, and not built around turning your development workflow into a Microsoft-owned platform" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49332476)) "Owned by companies that do not help the US Federal Government illegally spy on their own citizens and murder children overseas" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47488881)) "I moved to Codeberg months ago in response to GitHub's unreliability, poor moderation and random/illegitimate takedowns" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49335390)) - Stance against AI-generated code (3 comments): "Codeberg made a great decision for those who are just tired and over AI coding unnecessarily taking over everything." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49042260)) "If you're a hobbyist, Codeberg is great, has a nice community and automatically shields you from slop contributions." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49379197)) "not allowing LLM code at least signals that codeberg (and forgejo) itself is unlikely to be majority LLM code" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49034681)) - Fast, clean interface without gamification (2 comments): "the transition was worth it just for the ability to navigate the website without a 3-5 second wait every time I click a link" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46065206)) "It's been a breath of fresh air. Its like github without the gamification, ads, copilot, and social features." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47295222)) ## What people warn about - Arbitrary, shifting rules and bans (6 comments): "If their rules read this arbitrary, I wouldn't trust them to host any of my stuff, especially considering that you always have to hope they don't change their rules any further." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49575845)) "Had they limited CI/CD depending on the project "community" (whatever that means), that would be a reasonable take. Instead they ban something tangential to the discussion." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49034264)) "So the ToS says only private repos that support FLOSS, but then backdoors into "small & personal stuff" which is pretty loose and up to Codeberg's discretion" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46100910)) - AI ban unenforceable and poorly defined (3 comments): "I see no definition of what 'mostly using AI' means and refuse to be 'punished' for the choice of tooling I use." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48844937)) "they're implementing a rule that is unenforceable because you can't actually validate whether or not the majority of the project was written by an LLM" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49035365)) "as the rules are you cannot use AI, all the attribution will be removed, but sure enough there still will be a bunch of AI written code there" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49022375)) - Restrictive policies hidden in ToS (3 comments): "I encounter Codeberg as a forge first, then have to dig in to discover that it's a highly opinionated service with a different business model than most similar entities." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49172207)) "So the ToS says only private repos that support FLOSS, but then backdoors into "small & personal stuff" which is pretty loose and up to Codeberg's discretion" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46100910)) "If a service like this has some surprising limitations for a potential user, it should be clear up front and not hidden in the ToS." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49035158)) - Uptime and CI reliability problems (3 comments): "The numbers aren't looking great so far: they're not cracking 3 9s on their primary service, and their CI/CD isn't even cracking 2 9s." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46065458)) "The copyright/Anti-ai angle is likely an excuse and they're running out of money for hosting, hence errors and anti-scraping blocks." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49004550)) "issues with a service that is helpful insofar as they immediately tell you there are probably a lot more issues under the surface" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46103491)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [GitHub](https://hackerapproved.com/p/github.md): 764 recommend - [Forgejo](https://hackerapproved.com/p/forgejo.md): 380 recommend - [GitLab](https://hackerapproved.com/p/gitlab.md): 331 recommend - [Gitea](https://hackerapproved.com/p/gitea.md): 195 recommend - [Tangled](https://hackerapproved.com/p/tangled.md): 127 recommend ## Where to get it - [Visit the official site](https://codeberg.org/) ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "Codeberg", https://hackerapproved.com/p/codeberg/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).