Should I use a software hosting solution for my personal projects?

Question

Right now, I am keeping all my projects on my laptop. I think I should not do this, but instead I use a version control system and check them to / from an external hosting repository (Google Code, SourceForge, etc.). Here I see several advantages - firstly, I don’t have to worry about code loss if my computer crashes and burns or my external hard drive crashes and burns; secondly, I can share my code with the world and possibly get more help when I need it.

Is that a good idea? If so, what other project hosts should I investigate (other than Google Code and SourceForge)?

Answer 1

Having lost some freelance work on hard drive failure, I became interested in the philosophy that "it does not exist until its source control." Since I don’t want to share the source of my projects with the rest of the world, I pay for web hosting (using Dreamhost which have great offers for basic shared hosting and simple one-click installations for things like subversion) and thus store my data. They do not claim to be a backup service, but all I really want is somewhere else.

If I decide to share the code, I can always make it public later. Please note that sourceforge does not allow personal / personal projects, and Google Code forces you to license your code using an open source license. Both have some limitations on the number of projects that you can create (and are not really designed to store all and their brother’s personal projects).

The assembly looks pretty smooth, although it's hard to say what you get for free. I am definitely going to try.

There is an extensive list on wikipedia.

Answer 2

Assembla is awesome.

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EDIT: Yes, that is a good idea. I used to use a personal copy of Vault and found that it was more than I was interested in managing (if my server crashed or the hard drive crashed, it was not only painful to worry about losing and backing up data, but simple). Of course, for your own backup, it will not hurt either. Cover all your bases!

Answer 3

• GitHub is a really great option for git.

• Most free public hosting will insist that you license your code with an OSS license (and possibly with your documentation). This is potentially another matter you are talking about (backups).

• For just backups, you can try using a payment service or even something like mozy .

Answer 4

I use Assembla - you can share your code if you want, but you do not need it. This is a big plus for me.

Answer 5

Online backups are cheap and easy. Why do not you want?

Answer 6

I host most of my codeless backups on Amazon S3 .

The code goes to the Slicehost virtual server , which has automatic snapshot backups (daily as well as weekly) and launches Subversion and Trac's web interface to it.

Answer 7

Github is really great hosting if you use Git; and of course everyone should use git. By default, free hosting of public projects, but if your material is property (or perhaps embarrassing), you can get private hosting from them for a certain cost per month.

Answer 8

If you want your projects to be publicly available in some form, it might be useful for you to use a hosting solution.

I have made a list of hosting projects on this issue . Of these lists, only Origo allows you to host a closed source project as well. As long as you want to open your source, you can select everyone on this list.

Answer 9

For my personal projects, I use the git repository on the local Fedora server (which is backed up daily). I have a .tgz repository and mysqldb (for bugzilla) and backup to Carbonite and local redundant hard drive.

I can clone the git repository from any of my other machines into all other environments.

In doing so, you have backup and version control. I think my system is better than what I have at work, LOL.

Answer 10

As long as you want to publish your personal projects as open, you have many options to choose from, because there are many hosters that provide this.

If you just want to keep your code somewhere on the Internet, but don’t share it with the world:
Some hosters also provide private repositories, but the only free one I know is Bitbucket (which I use for my personal and open source projects).
They allow an unlimited number of public and private Mercurial and Git repositories , the only limitation is that no more than five users can access your private repositories (you can have more, but then they are no longer free).