Codeberg
Platform · this deep dive is built from the official pages of the platform itself and of the tools that support it.
Overview
Codeberg is a Git repository host run by a non-profit organization. Its documentation defines it this way: "Codeberg is a democratic community-driven, non-profit software development platform operated by Codeberg e.V. and centered around Codeberg.org, a Forgejo-based software forge". Codeberg e.V. is a registered non-profit association based in Berlin, Germany.
The engine is Forgejo, which the documentation describes as self-hosted free software for Git-based development; Forgejo is a hard fork of Gitea. The interface is therefore close to GitHub: repositories, issues, pull requests, wikis, organizations.
The key difference from commercial platforms is a restriction on the type of content. Codeberg is not a general-purpose host: public repositories here must be free. A proprietary project, a marketing landing page or a product showcase will not fit — not because it is "not done", but because the rules forbid it. The second difference is where the money comes from: the platform has neither advertising nor paid plans, and lives on membership fees and donations.
Who's here
Codeberg does not publish audience figures in the usual form. The most specific quantitative claim we found is in a budget post dated 15 May 2026: the organization is supported by 1,691 paying members plus additional donations. That is the number of members of the association, not the number of users of the platform: the documentation states outright that membership in the association is not required to use Codeberg.org.
The second measurable number is the result of a members' vote on large language models held on 23 July 2026: 358 votes in favour, 144 against, 14 abstentions, with turnout of about 50%. It gives a sense of the size of the active core, but not of the site's audience.
The interface language in the front page markup is en-US. Judging by the make-up of the rules (German law, a ban on Nazi symbols, priority for free licences), the core of the community is European and ideologically defined.
Getting started
Registration is ordinary — an account on codeberg.org. The guide to your first repository describes creation through a form where only the owner and the repository name are required, while the description, template, issue labels,.gitignore, licence and README are optional; the owner can be a personal account or an organization, and visibility can be public or private.
There is no separate "business account" with document checks, and there cannot be one: a commercial showcase is prohibited here (see the next section). An organization in Forgejo plays the role of a shared owner of repositories.
Membership in the association is a separate thing from an account. The joining page names the prices: for individuals a minimum of €24 a year, and €12 a year on request for those with limited means; for legal entities a minimum of €100 a year. On the same page: active members vote on proposals, changes to the privacy policy, financial plans and board elections; legal entities can only be supporting members, and the minimum SEPA payment is €10 per debit. Fees and donations are what, according to the platform, pay for servers, project storage and the development of new features.
What you can publish
The licence requirement is the main one. The terms of use require public repositories to carry a licence granting the right to use the content for any purpose, commercial and non-commercial alike, to modify it and to distribute it. Proprietary public projects are not allowed: only free software, free hardware and free cultural works qualify.
New in 2026 is the rule on machine-generated code. Following a members' vote, the terms were changed so as to discourage "vibe-coded" projects: projects generated autonomously by LLMs, software maintained predominantly by LLMs, and projects that consume disproportionate resources relative to the human contribution. In a second decision the association committed not to use the code and data of projects and users for training LLMs.
Quotas were announced in a post dated 14 May 2025: Git repository storage — 750 MiB; plus 1.5 GiB for LFS, packages, releases and attachments. The same post says that usage is visible in user or organization settings, and that an exception can be requested through a form in Codeberg-e.V./requests if you are approaching the limit or migrating a large project.
How to grow
Here it has to be said plainly: marketing growth on Codeberg is impossible by the platform's own charter. The terms of use contain an unambiguous formulation: "Accounts created for the sole purpose of advertisement (excessive promotion of a product, service or company) are removed immediately" — accounts created solely for advertising are deleted immediately.
There is no advertising dashboard. There is no paid promotion. There is no recommendation feed. There are no sponsored placements — the platform stresses the absence of a major sponsor and venture funding as a principle, not as a temporary state.
What remains is the project itself. A free licence, a living repository, replies in issues and pull requests, a mirror or a main home for a project whose audience cares about independence from American platforms. A project site can be put up on Codeberg Pages: it publishes static sites at {username}.codeberg.page or on your own domain and, per the documentation, is free.
No built-in reach statistics (views, referral sources) are described on the documentation pages we verified.
Path to monetization
Codeberg does not pay authors. Neither revenue sharing, nor donations through the platform, nor paid subscriptions to a repository are described in the documentation — the money moves in exactly the opposite direction: users support the platform with fees from €24 a year and donations.
The indirect benefit is economic: hosting, Pages and CI are free, and there are no paid plans at all. For a small free project this means zero infrastructure costs, provided you stay within the quotas of 750 MiB and 1.5 GiB.
Earning money from the code itself stays outside the platform: the licence must permit commercial use among other things, so selling access to a public repository is not allowed under the terms of use.
Tools and automation
The API is Forgejo's. The Forgejo documentation describes the base path /api/v1 and three authentication methods: HTTP basic, the Authorization: Bearer... header and the historical Authorization: token.... A token is created through the web interface or through the /users/:name/tokens endpoint. Compatibility is promised within a major version.
The Forgejo documentation names no numeric rate limits; the only numeric parameters there are pagination settings — max_response_items defaulting to 50 and default_paging_num defaulting to 30, available through /api/v1/settings/api. Those are not request limits.
Continuous integration exists, but not for everyone at once. The documentation states that Codeberg runs a Woodpecker CI instance at ci.codeberg.org, and that access is granted on request: you fill in a form, a Codeberg volunteer reviews the request and grants access if the use case is appropriate. The caveats are on the same page: "CI access is provided as-is and might break at any time", resource consumption must be reasonable, and only the linux/amd64 architecture is supported.
Third-party scheduling and social media analytics services do not apply to Codeberg: there is nothing to publish here except code.
Limits and rules
- Licence. A public repository must be under a free licence; proprietary projects are not allowed.
- Advertising. Accounts created solely for advertising are deleted immediately.
- Cryptocurrencies. Cryptocurrency-related projects are classed as damaging to Codeberg's reputation.
- LLMs. Projects predominantly generated and maintained by language models have been discouraged since July 2026.
- Quotas. 750 MiB per Git repository, 1.5 GiB for LFS, packages, releases and attachments.
- CI. By request only, linux/amd64 only, with no guarantee that it works.
- Law. German law applies; content that is illegal in Germany is taken down and may lead to an immediate account ban.
Who it's for
It suits free projects for which independent hosting is part of the stance: a non-profit association, German jurisdiction, the absence of a major sponsor and venture capital, a free engine. It suits projects that need free hosting for code and a static site with no advertising and no tracking.
It works as a second home or a mirror for a project whose audience is sensitive to questions of privacy and licensing.
It does not suit companies looking for a promotion channel: an advertising account gets deleted, there is no paid placement, and the very attempt to use the platform as a showcase runs against its rules. It does not suit proprietary products, crypto projects, or projects assembled mostly by generative models. It does not suit large repositories without agreeing a quota in advance.
Verified data
The checked data this deep dive rests on.
About the platform
the platform describes itself this way: «Codeberg is a non-profit community-led organization that aims to help free and open source projects prosper by giving them a safe and friendly home.»
This is the platform's statement about itself, not an independent assessment
source, checked 2026-07-28
«Codeberg is a democratic community-driven, non-profit software development platform operated by Codeberg e.V.»; Codeberg e.V. is a registered non-profit association based in Berlin, Germany
source, checked 2026-07-28
the engine is Forgejo, free self-hosted software for Git-based development; Forgejo is a hard fork of Gitea
source, checked 2026-07-28
Who's here
the platform reports 1691 paying members of the association plus additional donations · the source is dated 2026-05-15
Post dated 15 May 2026. This is the number of members of the association, not of the platform's users
source, checked 2026-07-28
members' vote on large language models: 358 in favour, 144 against, 14 abstentions, with turnout of about 50 % · the source is dated 2026-07-23
Post dated 23 July 2026; an indirect indication of the size of the active core
source, checked 2026-07-28
What you can publish
Codeberg Pages publishes static sites at {username}.codeberg.page or on your own domain; free per the documentation, which names no sizes or quotas for the section
source, checked 2026-07-28
Content
public repositories must carry a licence granting the right to use the content for any purpose (including commercial), to modify it and to distribute it; proprietary public projects are not allowed
source, checked 2026-07-28
Pricing
membership in Codeberg e.V.: individuals — a minimum of €24 a year, €12 a year on request for those with limited means; legal entities — a minimum of €100 a year; the minimum SEPA payment is €10
Membership is not required to use Codeberg.org
source, checked 2026-07-28
the platform has no paid plans: funding comes from member fees and donations, directed at servers, project storage and development
source, checked 2026-07-28
Limits and restrictions
quotas: 750 MiB for Git repository storage plus 1,5 GiB for LFS, packages, releases and attachments; an exception is requested through a form in Codeberg-e.V./requests · the source is dated 2025-05-14
Post dated 14 May 2025; phased in from 16 May 2025
source, checked 2026-07-28
CI is a Woodpecker instance at ci.codeberg.org, access by application through a form and review by a volunteer; «provided as-is and might break at any time», linux/amd64 only, resource use must be reasonable
source, checked 2026-07-28
Restrictions
hatred and calls for violence, Nazi symbols and propaganda for National Socialism, sexually obscene content, and content damaging Codeberg's reputation — for example cryptocurrency-related projects — are prohibited
source, checked 2026-07-28
«Accounts created for the sole purpose of advertisement (excessive promotion of a product, service or company) are removed immediately» — accounts created solely for advertising are deleted immediately
The key rule of the category: a marketing showcase is prohibited here by charter
source, checked 2026-07-28
since July 2026 the terms have been changed so as to discourage «vibe-coded» projects: projects generated autonomously by LLMs, software maintained predominantly by LLMs, and projects with disproportionate resource use relative to the human contribution
In a second decision the association committed not to use users' code and data for training LLMs
source, checked 2026-07-28
Legal
German law applies: content that is illegal in Germany is taken down and may lead to an immediate account ban
The minimum registration age is not stated in the terms
source, checked 2026-07-28
API access
the API is Forgejo's: base path /api/v1, authentication by HTTP basic, «Authorization: Bearer ...» or «Authorization: token ...»; the documentation names no numeric rate limits
The only numeric parameters are pagination: max_response_items 50, default_paging_num 30
source, checked 2026-07-28
the address https://codeberg.org/api/swagger was found on the front page by the «api/dev» marker in the address; the page is served by a script and is empty without a browser, so whether it is documentation has not been verified
CORRECTED the previous version declared any address containing the word api or dev found on the home page to be a developer section. All 57 such records were checked by opening the address: 24 turned out to be documentation. See data/technical/dev-links-verified.tsv and docs/research/S195-догадка-по-адресу.md
source, checked 2026-07-28
Languages
the interface language of the home page: en-US
The language is taken from the markup attribute, the versions from hreflang
source, checked 2026-07-28
Catalogue section: all similar See also: catalogue index · region: Western Europe · scheduler comparison · find by situation · platform restrictions