GitHub — free plan, limits and what it is good for
Free private repos and 2,000 CI minutes a month. For a solo developer that is a complete toolchain at zero cost.
| Pricing | Free; Team $4/user/mo |
|---|---|
| Free tier | Unlimited public and private repos |
| Account required | Email account |
| Watermark on free output | No |
| Limits | 2,000 Actions minutes/mo, 500 MB Packages storage |
| Platforms | Web, desktop, CLI |
| Best for | Code hosting, CI, open-source contribution |
| Last checked | October 2026 |
What the free plan actually gives you
The free plan stopped being a demo years ago: unlimited collaborators on public repos, unlimited private repos with a cap on Actions minutes, and GitHub Pages for static hosting. A small project never touches a paid tier.
Where it pinches is CI on private repos — 2,000 minutes a month disappears quickly with a matrix build — and Codespaces, which gives you a very small free quota. Both are easy to work around locally.
Where it breaks
- Actions minutes on private repos run out fast
- Codespaces free quota is tiny
- Pages has soft bandwidth limits
What we would use instead
If the limits above are a problem, the closest free substitutes are CodePen and DevDocs. They are not identical — each one trades something different — but all of them let you finish a job without paying.
Free alternatives
Questions people actually ask
Is GitHub really free for private repos?
Yes, with unlimited private repositories. Limits apply to Actions minutes, Packages storage and large file handling.
What counts against the 2,000 Actions minutes?
Only private-repo workflows on standard runners. Public repositories run free, and self-hosted runners do not count.
Can I host a site for free?
Yes, GitHub Pages serves static sites from a repo, with a custom domain and HTTPS included.