
GitHub Enterprise is now free through Microsoft for Startups - i_am_not_elon
https://github.blog/2020-02-13-github-enterprise-is-now-free-through-microsoft-for-startups/
======
Alupis
It gives you a credit of $1,000 monthly for 2 years, but there's no real
indication anywhere on Github of exactly what that pays for?

So it's not really free.

How does this compare with Gitlab and Bitbucket offerings for small teams?

I know Bitbucket has a one-time payment option for their self-hosted version
of $10 for 10 users. Pretty hard to beat that, unless you're adamant you need
it hosted for you.

~~~
gruez
>It gives you a credit of $1,000 monthly for 2 years, but there's no real
indication anywhere on Github of exactly what that pays for?

Random screenshot I was able to find on their help page. Seems to be that the
pricing for github enterprise is around $21/month/user.

[https://help.github.com/assets/images/help/organizations/sta...](https://help.github.com/assets/images/help/organizations/start-
trial-button.png)

~~~
thefreeman
So basically up 47 free users for 2 years. Not bad.

~~~
Alupis
Is 47 users really a "startup"? If you have anywhere near 47 actual users,
affording $1k a month is going to be trivial.

Would be nice if you could have, say, 5 users and extend the 2 years by not
using all $1k monthly credits, adding users as you grow.

~~~
toomuchtodo
If you can't afford to start paying after 2 years, it's time to give up or
pivot. This is very generous of MS/GH to offer until you've got traction.

~~~
Alupis
> If you can't afford to start paying after 2 years, it's time to give up or
> pivot

That's kind of extremist, isn't it?

Plenty of startups are bootstrapped, one or two people, and can survive just
fine using basic tooling. The free offerings from Gitlab and Bitbucket (which
include private repos) are just fine for a lot of startups.

Not all startups are your VC backed unicorns.

> This is very generous of MS/GH to offer

Is it? It's really just an attempt to lock you into a proprietary system that
you cannot export your data out of nor easily move off of down the road.

~~~
eyelidlessness
> It's really just an attempt to lock you into a proprietary system that you
> cannot export your data out of nor easily move off of down the road.

The GH API covers a _lot_ of what `git` doesn't. GH's strategy has never been
lock-in. They provide a good service that's constantly improving. (I'm sure
other services have advantages and I'm in no way going to claim that GH is the
best in class, but I am continually happy with GH and with its continued
improvement.)

~~~
kelnos
Liking GH and not (currently) wanting to move doesn't mean you're not locked
in. Sure, it's _possible_ to export your GH data and import it into something
like GitLab or Bitbucket, but it's not exactly an easy process, and most orgs
would think really hard before moving. It's definitely lock-in, regardless of
whether or not it's a part of their strategy.

From MS's side, of _course_ it's a lock-in strategy. The whole "MS for
Startups" thing is a way to attract small companies to their platform and keep
them there until they've grown to a point that switching away is more work
than it's worth. Adding GH Enterprise to the offering just makes it more
attractive.

------
guptaneil
Interesting that it’s explicitly limited to B2B startups.

Is there a feeling that B2C isn’t a “real” business? Or maybe because B2B
startups are more likely to be acquired by larger companies, thus absorbing
Microsoft’s stack?

~~~
maddyboo
Not just B2B, but the business must be “Seed, Series A, B, or C stage (or
validated equivalent)” funded.

I’m not entirely sure what “validated equivalent” entails, but I take it to
mean they’re interested in VC-funded companies, not bootstrapp{ed,ing}, angel-
funded, or crowd-funded companies

Your acquisition hypothesis seems quite likely to me; it would be naïve to
believe that Microsoft would offer such value out of the kindness of their
hearts.

I don’t want to sound bitter: If one has a business that qualifies and is okay
with adopting a Microsoft stack, it seems like a great value. However, let’s
not give MSFT too many PR creds for being a selfless charitable organization
who is ‘looking out for the little girl’ in business, because they’re simply
not. They’re a for-profit corporation.

~~~
frankdenbow
Frank here, I work at Microsoft for Startups.

Validated equivalent means that you don't necessarily need to be a company on
the fundraising path in order to make it into the program.

So if a self-funded company comes to us and shows they have sales traction,
then we can take them to our field sales team, make a target list of
companies, and get them intro'd to the right accounts to close deals.

No, this is not out of the goodness of our hearts (although I do know my team
has good hearts also :).

The point of the program is to get companies on Azure (a strong platform from
a technical perspective), and the best way to keep companies on Azure is to
provide value via technology and sales.

If you're closing more deals with us, you will have to consume more Azure in
order to service those deals.

Win, meet win.

P.S: On the side, I run a community for profit-driven entrepreneurs who have
not raised venture:
[http://inflectioncommunity.com](http://inflectioncommunity.com)

------
xrd
Having played a lot with gitlab and really happy with it, I'm confused as to
why I would look at GitHub.

This looks like it is free as in price, but not free forever and not free of
red tape.

~~~
mdaniel
I also have experienced GH.com, GHE on prem, and (now) twice GL on prem.
There's absolutely zero comparison between how hungry the GL team is as
compared to GH(E). I appreciate that GH is the gorilla in the room, and
"nobody got fired for going with GH" but there's a new feature __packed
__release every month from GL, and it comes batteries included.

I do have a huge amount of frustration with GL's open core system where it
seems they use a dartboard for deciding what level to make open source, or
ultra-enterprise $$$$, and their issue tracker is the definition of chaos, but
nothing's perfect, I guess.

A lot of words to say that I agree with you: short of your team/company
already being locked into the GH world, I can't imagine going back to GH

------
ArtWomb
Got to meet MS4S at Govt Cloud Conf in DC. The deal for premiere founders is
$325K in Azure Credits. That's pre-seed level. No equity. Then post-incubation
you can talk to MS Ventures for Seed Round. Auto-enrolled via YC SUS ;)

I also like the Azure Portal web panel. Powershell in the browser is fun to
play with on simulations of clusters.

------
narenkeshav
Thank you, I am happy with GitLab.

------
yhoiseth
Kinda funny that they market their enterprise plan to startups.

~~~
greglindahl
This startup-focused "first drink is free" marketing effort for Enterprise
software has been going for years.

------
bigmit37
Would companies have to worry about their proprietary code being seen and used
in a not-so-obvious way?

If some start up is working on some novel ML algorithms, that has some nice
demos out in the public showcasing their work, I wonder if these bigger
companies would take a peek at the source code and use some ideas from the
algos for their ml products. This would prevent start-up from expanding into
other areas.

~~~
amf12
> Would companies have to worry about their proprietary code being seen and
> used in a not-so-obvious way?

Does that happen when you use AWS or Azure? Enterprise is a completely
different ball game, be it Microsoft, Google or Amazon.

The amount of value they will get by peeking will be insignificant as compared
to the reputation loss they will suffer from enterprise customers.

------
luxphl
I have a company I started with 2 university professors in the geospatial
analytics space and as I work on building out the tech I am increasingly
anxious about spending since we're pre-revenue and it's all out of my pocket
for now. This Microsoft for Startups is appealing to me. Anyone know of any
similar programs I should look into?

~~~
5cott0
AWS activate.

[https://aws.amazon.com/activate/](https://aws.amazon.com/activate/)

------
amsully
Startups requiring compliance documentation from GitHub were forced to upgrade
to GH Enterprise. Many competitors provide this for free or a fraction of the
price. An industry based on an open source language will naturally have a race
to the bottom in terms of price.

GitHub's CLI is a move to get people off the open source solution by
obfuscation.

~~~
chungy
The CLI is itself open source. Surely it can't be a huge barrier for competing
software (GitLab, Gitea, etc) to implement its API.

~~~
dublinben
It's still an open point of contention whether an API can be copyrighted.
There's obvious benefits to GitHub to encourage the use of a 'gh' command over
the 'git' command.

------
moondev
I would love to run this in my homelab with a few users, is there a path for
that or do I need a registered company?

~~~
divbzero
The answer appears to be: yes _you must be a privately held company_.

The FAQs for Microsoft for Startups [1] list the following requirements:

\- _You must be engaged in development of a software-based product or service
that will form a core piece of you current or intended business - this
software must be owned, not licensed._

\- _You cannot have received more than $10,000 of free Azure in the past._

\- _Your headquarters must reside in the countries covered by our Azure global
infrastructure._

\- _You must be a privately held company._

\- _You must operate a public website on your own domain._

\- _Your contact email address domain must match your public website._

\- _Your funding information must be verifiable._

The FAQs also add that:

> _The qualified offer is designed to help companies that are focused on
> growth, so it’s less applicable for consultancies and small businesses. If
> you are a small business or consultancy you can get started with a free
> trial._

[1]: [https://startups.microsoft.com/en-
us/benefits/#faq](https://startups.microsoft.com/en-us/benefits/#faq)

Note also that Microsoft’s new offer is for GitHub Enterprise Cloud, not self-
hosted GitHub Enterprise. GitLab is probably your best bet for a self-hosted
GitHub alternative. [2]

[2]: [https://about.gitlab.com/install/](https://about.gitlab.com/install/)

~~~
moondev
Thanks for the info, looks like I had the wrong idea with the wrong product!

------
wodenokoto
Am I the only one finding GHE vastly worse than GH.com? Or is my employer just
running an old version?

------
zelcon
Reminder that this exists:
[https://git.zx2c4.com/cgit/](https://git.zx2c4.com/cgit/) and is the
preferred implementation of "web frontend to git" by Linus himself ( _ahem_
the creator of git)

~~~
kelnos
cgit is a great git web frontend (I'm the guy who set it up on git.xfce.org
back in 2009 or so), but it's a far cry from a full-project management
solution like GH (or GitLab, or Bitbucket, or even Sourceforge, of all
things).

------
lwb
Interesting, it looks like Microsoft has finally realized how unpopular they
are among SV style startups. I’ve never been a fan of Windows but if there are
enough perks in the program I would seriously consider using a Microsoft stack
for a future startup.

~~~
hastes
I use Azure at work, honestly the Kuberentes/Docker support is pretty awesome.
Not to mention the fact that they only run garbage collection after 28 days so
if you accidentally destroy a production bucket with user images in it,
support can easily get it back to you. (Yes this happened before)

------
microdrum
Scam to create MSFT lock in. Devs are too smart to get snookered.

------
unixhero
Better go Gitlab

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TicklishTiger
I would not use GitHub these days.

On GitLab, you can decide to download all your data anytime and put it into a
selfhosted GitLab instance.

Why would I want to give that up and put my balls into the hands of Microsoft?

~~~
decebalus1
Don't worry, soon you'll probably be able to put your balls in the hands of
Google. Git is distributed by definition. If you really want to be free, stop
using external centralized sc services.

~~~
zelcon
they sunsetted code dot google dot com like 10 yrs ago...it's not coming back

------
dhdhehzhzhe
Ah the GitLab astroturfers are here

~~~
reificator
I mean, I use gitlab, gitea, github, and bitbucket all fairly regularly for
different projects, and I haven't seen anything out of the gitlab posts here
that I think is wrong.

People disagreeing with you and/or opposing the free offerings of a company
known for embrace/extend/extinguish does not mean they're astroturfing.

~~~
dhdhehzhzhe
They spam every GitHub post with “I use gitlab” regardless of the content.

