When it comes to building software, keeping track of changes and working together with a team is essential. That’s where code repositories come in. They provide a central place to store code, manage different versions, and collaborate effectively.
I remember being introduced to GitHub, a collaboration and version control system in my data programming class last December. At that time, I couldn’t help but question the usefulness of code repositories and wonder if they were truly necessary. Little did I know that my perspective would soon change dramatically.
Fast forward to my current Masters’ research project, where I collaborated with a company for my experiment. It was then that I realized the true significance of working with a code repository. Bitbucket, the code repository we were supposed to work with, became an integral part of our development process, bringing structure, efficiency, and seamless collaboration to our work.
While developing my code for the experiment, I was able to look back at the edits made by both my peers and me throughout the process. I could seamlessly collaborate with my team members and the external company, sharing code, reviewing each other’s work, and providing feedback through pull request. The built-in code review tools facilitated a smooth and efficient review process, enhancing the overall quality of our project.
In this blog post, I want to share my journey of discovery and explore about Bitbucket vs GitHub. Both platforms have transformed the way both novice and seasoned developers work and collaborate, but understanding their unique strengths and features is crucial in determining which one best suits your project needs.
What Is Git?
Both GitHub and Bitbucket are web-based hosting services built on top of Git repository. But what’s Git?
Git is a distributed version control system that allows developers to track changes made to files and collaborate with others on software development projects. It is designed to be fast, efficient, and reliable, making it popular among developers for managing code.
With Git, developers can create branches to work on separate features or bug fixes, merge changes from different branches, and easily revert back to previous versions of code if needed. It also provides tools for resolving conflicts that may arise when multiple developers make changes to the same file. Overall, Git helps streamline the development process and ensures that changes to code are properly tracked and managed.
What Is Bitbucket?
Bitbucket is a web-based version control code repository hosting service, owned by tech company Atlassian, for source code and development projects. Think of it like a giant digital library that keeps all your code safe and organized. Unlike GitHub which is solely based on Git, Bitbucket supports both Git repositories, as well as Mercurial repositories and it offers for private and public repositories.
It’s particularly neat because it lets you and your team work on the same code at the same time without stepping on each other’s toes. Plus, it’s got a bunch of cool features like pull requests, code reviews, and pipelines for continuous integration and deployment, making it a crucial tool for many software development teams.
Features of Bitbucket
Here are some of the major features of Bitbucket:
- Unlimited Private Repositories: With Bitbucket, you get unlimited private repositories for small teams with which developers can store and manage their code securely.
- Pull Requests: Using Bitbucket, developers can discuss changes and review code before it is merged into the main codebase, which promotes better code quality.
- Integration with other Atlassian Products: Bitbucket integrates seamlessly with other Atlassian products like Jira, Confluence, and Trello, giving teams the chance to manage their workflows more effectively.
- Built-in Continuous Integration/Delivery: You don’t need to build separate CI/CD pipelines because you can use Bitbucket Pipelines to build, test and deploy directly from your repository.
- Branch Permissions: If you work with large teams or contractors, you have better control over who can commit and merge into a branch, adding an extra layer of security to your code.
- Issue Tracking: Bitbucket comes with Jira integration, which allows teams to easily track issues and manage projects.
- Smart Mirroring: With Bitbucket, you can set up mirrors in different geographical locations when working with large repositories without compromising performance.
What is GitHub?
GitHub is a similar platform to Bitbucket that allows developers to store their code online, share it, and work with others. Think of it as a Google Drive or Dropbox for code. GitHub’s features include ‘repositories’ for storing project files, ‘pull requests’ for proposing changes to a codebase, and ‘issues’ for tracking bugs and tasks. It also integrates well with many other development tools. Additionally, GitHub provides a community aspect, where you can follow others, star your favourite projects, and more.
One of the main features of GitHub is the ability to create free public repositories and private repositories. A repository, or ‘repo’ for short, is like a folder for your project. It contains all of your project’s files and stores each file’s revision history. Public repositories are visible to everyone, while private repositories can only be accessed by you and the people you choose.
Features of GitHub
GitHub has a huge open source community that relies on the following features for their amazing workflow:
- Collaboration: GitHub allows multiple developers to work together on a project, enabling them to track changes, merge code, and resolve conflicts seamlessly.
- Public and Private Repositories: GitHub offers both public repositories (visible to anyone) and private repositories (accessible only to authorized collaborators).
- Social Coding: GitHub has a strong social aspect, with features such as issue tracking, pull requests, and discussions, making it easy for developers to contribute to open-source projects.
- Integration: GitHub integrates with various third-party tools and services, such as CI/CD platforms, project management tools, and code review systems.
- Community and Discovery: GitHub provides a platform for developers to showcase their work, discover projects, and contribute to open-source communities.
- Security and Access Control: GitHub provides various security features, including two-factor authentication, encrypted communication, and vulnerability scanning. Users can also define access permissions at different levels, ensuring that only authorized individuals have the necessary privileges to view, modify, or contribute to a repository.
Github vs Bitbucket: Which is better?
As a developer, I’ve had the pleasure of exploring both platforms and experiencing their respective strengths first hand. Let’s compare the key differences of Bitbucket vs Github based on various factors such as UX navigation, collaborative code review capabilities, third-party collaborations, pricing, and much more.
Bitbucket vs GitHub: UX and Ease of Use
When it comes to comparing Bitbucket vs GitHub in terms of user experience and ease of use, I personally found navigating both platforms easier. GitHub gained widespread popularity among small developers for its well-tested platform and excellent user interface. Its intuitive interface makes it one of the best choices in the open-source community. Collaborative code review becomes a joy with GitHub, as it offers tools to easily review commits, visualize code differences, and foster efficient teamwork.
On the other hand, Bitbucket has undergone a transformation over the years that has pleasantly surprised me. What was once perceived as a complex platform has now evolved into a user-friendly powerhouse. Bitbucket has an online code editor with which you can directly edit code and it has saved me valuable time on numerous occasions. Bitbucket’s interface, centred around the “Your Work Dashboard,” provides a convenient hub for accessing repositories and pull requests.
While GitHub offers a simple and collaborative experience that shines in open-source projects, Bitbucket’s newfound user experience has made it a contender, particularly for businesses and enterprises seeking a robust code hosting solution. In fact, the company I’m collaborating with for my master’s research project, utilises Bitbucket for their extensive code repository.
Bitbucket vs GitHub: Branch Permissions
When it comes to branch permissions, both Bitbucket and GitHub offer the flexibility to grant users access to specific branches, allowing you to fine-tune collaboration within your repository. With the restrictive branch permissions, you can easily create new branches for external collaborators or freelancers without giving access to your entire repository.
One notable advantage of Bitbucket is that it provides this functionality for free across all its plans. Whether you’re using the free tier or a paid plan, you can easily set up branch restrictions to manage access to your private and public repository. This inclusivity makes it a convenient choice, particularly for small teams or open-source projects.
On the other hand, GitHub handles these permissions differently. While you can certainly enable branch restrictions for free on public repositories, enforcing these restrictions on private repositories requires a paid plan. This distinction is worth considering if you’re working on private projects or require granular access control.
Github vs Bitbucket: Wikis and Collaboration
When it comes to collaboration and sharing, both Bitbucket and GitHub go beyond just hosting source code. They have built-in features to enable collaboration among teams while also facilitating the sharing of valuable information.
With Bitbucket, wikis are conveniently automatically created when you set up a code repository. These wikis can be edited and version controlled, allowing team members to collaborate on ideas and even act as project home pages. Apart from wikis, Bitbucket has other collaboration-enhancing features such as side-by-side diffs, integrations with popular IDEs, and the ability to organize repositories into projects. These tools and features allow teams to smoothly collaborate.
GitHub is also known for its support of large-scale open-source projects where wide range of people can collaborate. It has played a key role in some of the renowned projects like Node.js, Rust, and TensorFlow, which have thriving collaborator networks and extensive contributor bases. GitHub’s workflow includes cloning, forking, branching, pull requests, merging, and more, making it an exceptional choice for teams collaborating on code, regardless of whether it’s public or private repositories. GitHub also offers wiki functionality to document projects and share information within the team. You can write wikis in Markdown or other supported formats, and they also can have varying permissions for private projects.
GitHub vs Bitbucket: Extensions and Third-Party Integrations
When it comes to enhancing your coding experience, you’ll find a wide range of extensions and apps available for both Bitbucket and GitHub. From a quantitative perspective, Bitbucket holds an advantage over GitHub when it comes to third-party integrations. Because of the Atlassian Marketplace, Bitbucket users have access approximately 2,300 apps that are compatible with both Bitbucket and other Atlassian products. This cross-product compatibility is particularly beneficial for companies and enterprise developers who need comprehensive solutions for their vast git repositories.
On the other hand, GitHub users can use the GitHub Marketplace where you can discover numerous apps and “GitHub Actions” that are designed to extend functionality of the git repositories and also automate other aspects of the development workflow. Although GitHub Marketplace has less number of integrations than Bitbucket, most of these solutions are designed are exclusive to GitHub.
GitHub vs Bitbucket: Pricing Structures
When it comes to choosing between GitHub vs Bitbucket, pricing will definitely play a crucial role. Of course, your specific needs will vary depending on whether you’re an enterprise company, a freelancer, or a small team.
Let’s dive into Bitbucket’s pricing. Bitbucket offers a free cloud hosting plan where users can create public repositories and unlimited free private repositories, but it’s for teams smaller than 5 users. You also get 1 GB of Git large file storage (LFS) for managing large non-text files. For additional users, the rates increase by $3 per user per month. For self-managed hosting, Bitbucket has a tiered pricing structure based on the number of users. Enterprise-level hosting at a Bitbucket datacenter begins at $1,980 for 25 users.
One of the biggest reasons why teams prefer GitHub is that the platform is free to use for creating unlimited public repositories and free private repositories, and there are no limitations on the number of users you can have. The free plan also comes with 500 MB of storage for your projects. Paid plans on GitHub start at $4 per month with which you can gain access to Github Codespaces, increased storage capacity, protected branches, reminders, 3000 CI/CD minutes/month and the ability to create wikis and pages for private repositories, among other features. Enterprise plan at Github start at $21 per user per month. You can also purchase ad ons such as git large file storage, Copilot, and Codespaces on the free plan.
GitHub vs Bitbucket: Open-source Community
Both Bitbucket and GitHub offer robust functionality for managing and hosting open-source repositories that rely on community collaboration and contribution. GitHub has a thriving open-source community primarily because it offers several features specifically designed to support open-source projects. One of the key benefits is a complimentary 12-month subscription to GitHub Copilot. In fact, open-source teams can continue to renew the subscription for free. Although Bitbucket and GitHub offers features such as issue tracking and forking repositories that help open source developers to effectively manage repositories.
Conclusion
In conclusion, when it comes to choosing between Bitbucket and GitHub for manage repositories, we saw that both platforms offer a range of features and benefits. Both Bitbucket and GitHub are closely matched in terms of functionality, making either of them a suitable choice for using Git version control system and managing repositories.
However, the decision between Bitbucket and GitHub may ultimately depend on the specific needs and structure of your projects. If you have multiple private projects with a small number of users per project, Bitbucket may be a more cost-effective option due to its pricing for small teams. GitHub may be better for scalability and collaboration if you have big teams working on a few projects or if you want to host open source repositories because it doesn’t limit the number of collaborators.
Leave a Reply