Is GitHub free? What it actually costs in 2026

What the free tier actually includes

• —Unlimited public and private repositories
• —2,000 Actions minutes per month on private repositories
• —500 MB of Packages storage
• —Files over 100 MiB are blocked; repositories ideally under 1 GB
• —Codespaces capped at a $0 spend limit
• —Community support only

Where the wall is

The team's review workflow, before the repositories. Repository rules, multiple required reviewers and code owners are Team features, and a growing team usually needs them before it runs out of Actions minutes.

After that: Team at $4 per user per month, the price GitHub lists for the first 12 months, adding 3,000 CI/CD minutes, 2 GB of Packages storage, repository rules, multiple reviewers, code owners and web-based support. Enterprise is listed from $21 per user per month.

Can you self-host GitHub? Paid plans only

Self-hosted GitHub is GitHub Enterprise Server — "for on-prem appliances or self-managed cloud tenants", in GitHub's words — an Enterprise product with no public list price. The Free and Team plans are hosted by GitHub; the free self-hosted forges compared on this page are the alternative.

Questions people ask

Is GitHub free for personal use?

Yes. GitHub lists Free at “$0 USD per month forever”, and GitHub Free for personal accounts includes unlimited public and private repositories, 2,000 GitHub Actions minutes a month, 500 MB of Packages storage and community support. There is no trial clock on it.

How many private repositories can you have on GitHub Free?

Unlimited. GitHub’s pricing page lists “Unlimited public/private repositories” on the Free plan, so the count of private repositories is never the reason to upgrade. What a private repository does use up is Actions minutes — 2,000 a month on Free — while public repositories run standard Actions at no cost.

Is GitHub free for commercial use?

Neither GitHub’s pricing page nor its plans page limits the Free plan to non-commercial use, and there is a free plan for organization accounts too: GitHub Free for organizations adds team access controls and 2,000 Actions minutes a month. What a company usually pays for is Team ($4 per user a month for the first 12 months): repository rules, multiple required reviewers and code owners.

Does GitHub have unlimited storage?

No — repositories are unlimited in number, not in size. GitHub recommends keeping a repository “ideally less than 1 GB”, says “less than 5 GB is strongly recommended”, warns at 50 MiB per file and blocks any file larger than 100 MiB (25 MiB when uploaded through the browser). The Free plan also includes 500 MB of Packages storage.

What it actually takes to run one yourself

Real RAM against the documented minimum, monthly cost, setup time, and the one thing that catches people out.

What you are locked into

Repositories use standard Git, so code and history are portable, but issues, pull requests, Actions workflows, project boards, and the integration ecosystem are GitHub-specific and require conversion when moving. Enterprise governance features and the Copilot/Advanced Security add-ons deepen the tie to GitHub's platform and pricing.

If you would rather not pay: Forgejo