You can access data from deleted forks, deleted repositories and even private repositories on GitHub. And it is available forever. This is known by GitHub, and intentionally designed that way.
From a self-hosting perspective, it looks like much more of a pain to get it set up and to keep it updated. There aren’t even official Docker images or builds. (There’s this and the forks of it, but it’s unofficial and explicitly says it’s not recommended for prod use.)
sourcehut is much better if you can pay
Edit: Only repo hosters need to pay. Everything else is free.
I want forgejo for its upcoming federation feature tbh.
What makes sourcehut better?
From a self-hosting perspective, it looks like much more of a pain to get it set up and to keep it updated. There aren’t even official Docker images or builds. (There’s this and the forks of it, but it’s unofficial and explicitly says it’s not recommended for prod use.)
It also supports browsing without JavaScript, if that’s your thing.
Sourcehut has straightforward much better UI, UX, and features (more than gitea/forgejo but less than GitLab ig). I really dig the subdomain design.
Issues and PRs are conducted through email, essentially making that part federated and signup-less.
I’ve seen many pieces of software that claim to be beta/not used for prod but are actually bedrock solid.