GitHub has announced that GitHub Free now includes unlimited private repositories for projects with up to three collaborators. It has also combined its cloud and self-hosted services into a unified GitHub Enterprise Product.

Since Microsoft acquired GitHub we've been looking out for any major changes and GitHub's new CEO Nat Friedman's announcement New year, new GitHub, on the GitHub blog qualifies is the first significant one we've noticed and it covers updates for both individuals and businesses. 

For the former group, the GitHub Free tier, now includes unlimited access to private repositories. Developers can now use GitHub for private projects with up to three collaborators, for free. 

This is really good news for those of us who have unfinished project or work in progress that the we would prefer not to expose to public scrutiny. Up until now only public projects were free, meaning that anybody who wanted to could not only inspect the code, but also attempt to "assist" with it. Being limited to only three collaborators means that GitHub's generosity isn't likely to impact its revenue from commercial projects.

For its business customers there's a new unified product, GitHub Enterprise which combines Enterprise Cloud ((formerly GitHub Business Cloud) and Enterprise Server, which is the new name of the former GitHub Enterprise. 

Friedman explains:

Organizations that want the flexibility to use GitHub in a cloud or self-hosted configuration can now access both at one per-seat price. And with GitHub Connect, [introduced as we reported alongside GitHub Actions in October 2018] these products can be securely linked, providing a hybrid option so developers can work seamlessly across both environments.

GitHub now has four pricing tiers, two for individuals: 

• Free includes, unlimited public repositories unlimited private repositories with up to 3 collaborators. It also provides issues and bug tracking and project management
• Pro -  $7 per month adds advanced code review tools.

The two for tiers for teams which provides collaboration features are

• Team -  $7 per user/month (starts at $25/month for 5 users and Free for Open Source organizations) adds team access controls and user management and billing.
• Enterprise -  $21 per user/month adds security, compliance and deployment controls for organizations and is now for both self-hosted and cloud hosted deployment. 

So why is Microsoft being so generous to individual developers? The motivation seems to be to capture the market early in order to retain it. As Friedman puts it:

Whether you’re a student about to write your first line of code, an enterprise leader with teams around the world, or an open source maintainer, we want GitHub to be the best place for you to code, collaborate, and connect with the global community of developers.  

More Information

New year, new GitHub

Related Articles

Microsoft GitHub - What's Different

Microsoft Buys GitHub - Get Ready For a Bigger Devil

Microsoft Mass Migration To GitHub 

GitHub Launches Actions

GitHub Introduces New Pricing For Private Projects

GitHub Marketplace Now Accepts Free Apps and Offers Free Trials

The Ever Expanding GitHub Octoverse

To be informed about new articles on I Programmer, sign up for our weekly newsletter, subscribe to the RSS feed and follow us on Twitter, Facebook or Linkedin.

Comments

Make a Comment or View Existing Comments Using Disqus

or email your comment to: comments@i-programmer.info