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Shariq Ahmed
Shariq Ahmed

Posted on • Originally published at Medium

Bitbucket vs GitHub: What’s the Difference Between Both?

There’s no denying that version control systems are really important to prevent chaos when different developers are working in a team. This is because they help manage and track changes that are present in the code.

Out of all version control systems, GitHub and BitBucket are the two really helpful and famous. However, the audiences of both version control systems are different. Why is that? Well, that’s because there is a stark difference between the two. Let’s see those differences one by one.

Development

BitBucket is the creation of Jesper Noeher. It was released in 2008. GitHub was also released in 2008. But it was developed by four developers, Chris Wanstrath, Tom Preston-Werner, P. J. Hyett, and Scott Chacon.

Version Control

GitHub uses Git. BitBucket, on the other hand, supports distributed version control.

Free Package

The free package of BitBucket has the following features:

  • 5 users
  • 50 minutes in one month
  • 1,000 build minutes
  • 10 deployment environments

Some of the features of GitHub that are available to free users include:

  • Unlimited public or private repositories
  • Community support
  • Storage of 500MB
  • Automatic security and version updates
  • Companies that Use Them

As per StackShare, more than 18,667 companies use BitBucket. Some of the companies that use BitBucket include Atlassian, Evandro Magalhães, and Odoo. Contrarily, GitHub is used by companies like IBM, Royal Bank of Canada, and Ford Motor Company.

Pros

GitHub provides a lot of minutes in its free plan. Additionally, you can paste images, close issues, link to the code, use command lines, and easily manage files.

On the other hand, in BitBucket, you can use different tools like Jira, Crucible, and Bamboo. There are a lot of built-in tools. For instance, wiki, issue tracker, etc. Moreover, it’s way more flexible than GitHub. It can import from Git, CodePlex, Google Code, etc. Its semantic search is also better. It can crawl your syntax and find definitions. Its Jira and Trello integration is also the best!

Cons

But the problem with GitHub is that it has a steep learning curve. This means that there are some concepts that will be really difficult for people to grasp. At times, it may be a hassle to learn all the concepts. What’s more, is that the privacy of some accounts is limited. This means that everyone can see your code. This can be dangerous if you want to keep your code confidential. Moreover, GitHub is dependent on an internet connection. This means that if the internet is down, then you might face some access issues.

There are also some times when developers complain about performance issues when they are dealing with large repositories. There aren’t simple PR management tools in BitBucket. The repositories that are private are only free for just 1 to 5 members. Want to add new members? You need to pay! Users also face search-related problems while searching for a file. At times, the process is elongated because the users have to find it locally. That’s why for some, BitBucket is not a user-friendly interface.

Who Should Use GitHub and BitBucket?

BitBucket should be your preferred choice if you need only a small number of users in a single project and multiple private projects. It will be cheaper for you this way. For larger teams where multiple users are collaborating, GitHub is better.

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Jon Randy 🎖️

Might want to compare GitLab too!