Forgejo - actively developed open source. It's what powers Codeberg. Easy to set up and manage with Docker. I moved to it from Gogs and skipped Gitea after reading about the forks.

Gogs is the original. Gitea is a fork because the dev of Gogs wasn't taking community input (I think that was the reasoning behind it). Forgejo is a fork of gitea because some folks didn't like gitea forming a for profit corporation (Or something to that effect).

As far as day to day use they're all fairly similar, though it's been a long time since I used Gogs.

+1 for Forgejo

+1 for Forgejo!

Just set it up with Docker this past week, it was fairly straightforward and has been working well since

I use Forgejo for my private git repos but in all honesty, it's massive overkill for my needs.

The things you're describing aren't really version control systems themselves. Git is a version control system; these are an ecosystem of web-based tools surrounding that version control system.

I don't know if there's a good term for these.

kagis

Wikipedia calls them "forges":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forge_(software)

In free and open-source software (FOSS) development communities, a forge is a web-based collaborative software platform for both developing and sharing computer applications.

For software developers it is an online service to host the tools they need to work and communicate with their coworkers. It provides a workflow to propose modifications and engage in discussions. The goal is to reach an agreement that will allow these modifications to be merged into the software repository.

For users, a forge is a repository of computer applications, a place where bugs can be reported, a channel to be informed of security issues, etc.

The source code itself is stored in a revision control system and linked to a wide range of services such as a code review, bug database, continuous integration, etc. When a development community forks, it duplicates the content of the forge and is then able to modify it without asking permission. A community may rely on services scattered on multiple forges: they are not necessarily hosted under the same domain.

Used Gitea for a while, and decided to switch to Forgejo before the hard fork split (no more code from Gitea), been using it since, In my opinion both work well, but prefer Forgejo.

Forgejo all the way

You asked for a service, but listed software. The latest FOSS software option is Forgejo, you should use it instead of others for all the reasons mentioned. However, if you're looking for a service, Codeberg runs a very popular Forgejo instance as a service.

You're missing GitLab. I'd be looking at GitLab or Forgejo.

But you might not need this. When you access a private Git repository, you're normally connecting over SSH and authenticating using SSH keys. By default, if you have Git installed on a server you can SSH to and you have a Git repository on that server in a location you can access, you can use that server as a Git remote. You only really want one these services if you want the CI pipelines or collaboration tools.

My only input is gitlab is very complicated, never used the others

I'm currently using forgejo and have no complaints.

Depending on your requirements, you might also consider just using regular git and ssh on a central server somewhere.

Those 3 are all fairly similar. Here are some others I can think of:

• Gitlab: many features, complex, pr workflow.
• Forgejo / Gogs: simpler, github inspired interface, pr workflow.
• Radicle: peer to peer, idk much more...
• Sourcehut: minimal (non-github) interface, very modular, email workflow.
• Cgit / Gitweb / etc.: just a git interface, no specific workflow.

If you're not using any of the additional features, cgit should be enough. If you're planning on collaborating with others, probably Forgejo would be better.

You can also use individual components of sourcehut, if you want a git web interface with just issue tracking, ci, or wiki, for example.

I use Forgejo mostly for code archiving but anything that requires CI/CD, like personal code projects, i use OneDev. No extra setup for pipeline, batteries included

If you are not wed to git, and are willing to try something else, why not give Fossil SCM a try. It's created and maintained by the creator of SQLite. It's a single executable that provides everything for modern source code management, including a website, and even has an official docker file that just works.

Issue tracking, forum support, email, it's all there, in a single executable that can serve as both the front and back end depending on how you launch it. And it's a smaller install than git by itself.

Not what you want probably but Tangled.sh

tightly-knit
social coding. tangled is new social-enabled git collaboration platform built on atproto. we envision a place where developers have complete ownership of their code, open source communities can freely self-govern and most importantly, coding can be social and fun again.

How about Fossil ??

Basically it's an alternative to Git itself, has commands similar to git but with an added bonus of having Github-like features, like:

• A frickin GUI
• Bug-tracker
• Wiki System
• Ticketting system
• Forum + Chat
• Web-Server

Best part !! It's just one file & the website I linked is a self-hosted instance

+1 for Forgejo here. It's lightweight on resources compared to GitLab but still has all the features you'd need, plus the security/privacy focus aligns with your priorities. I've been running it on a small VPS for over a year and it's been rock soild.