Gogs VPS Docker Hosting

Gogs (Go Git Service) is a painless, self-hosted Git service that ships as a single cross-platform binary written in Go. It gives a team a private GitHub-style server with repository management, issue tracking, pull requests with code review, a per-repo wiki, an in-browser editor, organizations and teams, webhooks, and repository mirroring. Its design goal is to be as simple and lightweight to run as possible, so it works on everything from a Raspberry Pi to a production VPS.

Gogs is famously light on resources. A small instance runs comfortably on a single CPU core and around 512 MB of RAM, and the project is well known for running on low-power hardware such as a Raspberry Pi. Resource use scales mainly with the number of users, the volume of concurrent Git operations like clones and CI pulls, and the database backend rather than with the raw number of repositories stored on disk.

Gogs serves its web UI on TCP port 3000 by default and handles Git over SSH on port 22 through either its built-in SSH server or the host's OpenSSH daemon. Production deployments place an HTTPS-terminating reverse proxy such as NGINX in front of port 3000, with TLS certificates from Let's Encrypt and the upstream pointing at 127.0.0.1:3000 on loopback, while SSH access is exposed on 22 or a custom port.

Gogs needs very little RAM. A personal or small-team instance runs comfortably in 512 MB or less, which is why it is a popular choice for low-power and home-lab hardware. A busier team server with frequent concurrent clones, CI pulls, and a PostgreSQL backend is happy with 1 to 2 GB of RAM, and the figure scales with concurrent Git activity and user count rather than with the number of repositories.

Gogs ships a built-in backup command (gogs backup) that bundles the database, configuration, and repository data into an archive for restore on a clean server. You can also back up the pieces directly: dump the PostgreSQL or MySQL database (or copy the SQLite file), copy the repository directory on disk, and save the app.ini config and custom directory. Because Gogs keeps repositories on the filesystem and metadata in the database, preserving both is all that is needed to rebuild an instance.

Yes. Gogs is fully free and open source under the MIT license, with no paid tiers, seat fees, or capacity limits for any use, commercial or personal. The entire product is the open-source binary, so self-hosting it on your own VPS gives you the complete feature set without any license cost.

Gogs supports SQLite3, PostgreSQL, MySQL, TiDB, and MSSQL as its backing database. SQLite is the zero-configuration default and is fine for personal use or a very small team, while PostgreSQL (or MySQL) is the recommended choice once more than a handful of users share the server, because it handles concurrent access to issues, pull requests, and metadata far better than a single SQLite file.

Two install paths are common. Run the official gogs/gogs Docker image with the web port mapped to 3000 and the SSH port mapped to 22 or 2222, mounting a /data volume for repositories and config, or download the single Gogs binary for your platform and run it directly with a service manager such as systemd. In either case, point Gogs at a PostgreSQL or MySQL database during the first-run web installer once you expect more than a couple of users.

Yes. PostgreSQL is one of the supported database backends for Gogs, alongside SQLite3, MySQL, TiDB, and MSSQL. PostgreSQL is the recommended choice for any deployment beyond a single user or a tiny team, because it handles concurrent reads and writes to issues, pull requests, users, and organization metadata much better than the default SQLite file, and an SSD-backed Postgres keeps the service responsive as repositories and activity grow.

Gitea is a community fork of Gogs that started in 2016 when contributors wanted faster, more open development. Both share the same Go single-binary, lightweight self-hosted Git heritage, but Gitea has since added a larger feature set, a faster release cadence, and a bigger community, while Gogs deliberately stays minimal and focused on simplicity. Gogs remains an excellent choice when you want the lightest possible self-hosted Git server with a small, stable footprint.