GitHub

GitHub hosts most of the world's open source and a large share of private code, and its Free plan is the default starting point for developers, students and small teams. Free costs $0 a month with no seat limit.

What the free plan gives you

Unlimited public and private repositories, with unlimited collaborators on public repos. GitHub Actions includes 2,000 CI/CD minutes a month, and GitHub Packages includes 500 MB of storage; both are unlimited for public repositories. Dependabot security and version updates are included, as are issues, projects, discussions and code review. Codespaces is available with a $0 spend limit, which in practice means the personal free hours quota, and Copilot is not included in the plan but has its own free tier.

Where the free plan stops

The Actions minutes are the first thing private-repo users hit: 2,000 minutes on Linux runners is about 65 minutes a day, and macOS and Windows runners consume minutes at multiples of that. Private repos on Free also lack protected branches with required reviewers, code owners and other team controls. The Team plan at $4 per user a month raises Actions to 3,000 minutes and Packages to 2 GB, unlocks those repo controls and lets you raise the Codespaces spend limit. Enterprise starts at $21 per user a month with 50,000 minutes and 50 GB.

Who it suits

Individual developers and open source maintainers can stay on Free forever, because public repos get unlimited Actions and Packages. A small company keeping private code with a light CI load also fits, but once several people need protected branches and review rules, Team at $4 a seat is inexpensive enough that most move.