If you don’t know enough about open source application then check it on Wikipedia. Open source code hosting services are those sites which will provide all possible needs for hosting open source projects. Yes you can host your open source code/application to your site but a open source hosting site will give you more facility. There you can upload your own developed application and provide documentations, give support at forums and more. A standard open source project hosting must have download page, wiki page, forum, bug tracking and blog/news system. Some project hosting sites also provide custom domain hosting. According to all these requirements I have listed top free most popular open source code hosting sites.

Top Free Open Source Project Hosing sites :

SourceForge
Sourceforge is the most used and most known open code hosting site. Even I think when downloading softwares you already encountered this site. Source forge has all aspects required for a good open source service like web hosting, wiki, bug tracking, mailing list, announce system and more.

Google Code
Google Code is the second most popular open source project hosting by Google after sourcefogre. Google code has also better support for hosting your code. And it’s becoming more popular day by day than others. In comparison to sourceforge, google code has extra support for Code review. And google code has don’t support for forum and announcing system.

LaunchPad
In comparison to above two I found launchpad the third most popular and featured code hosting site. It’s owned by Canonical which is founded by Mark Shuttleworth who is known for Ubuntu Linux. Unlike Google code and source forge, Launchpad has translation system, team support, web hosting. And it don’t have wiki and forum support.

CodePlex

Free open source project hosting from Microsoft. It provides a source code repository with access over Subversion, CodePlex Client, Teamprise Explorer, Visual Studio Team Explorer. It has an issue tracking system, a forum for discussions, a release management system and wiki pages. CodePlex doesn’t support the GPLv3 license but GPLv2 is allowed.

GitHub
Online project hosting using Git. Includes source-code browser, in-line editing, wikis, and ticketing. Free for public open-source code. Commercial closed source hosting is also available.

You are also recommend to heck all Open Source hosting service comparisons.

The first fours are recommended by me. If you ask me what would be my own choice then it will be google. May because I love google. I prefer sourceforge for all.

Author: Jaber Al Nahian

Jaber is a Programmer and Tech Enthusiast Geek from Dhaka, Bangladesh. He is the founder and Chief-Editor of TechGainer. While he is away from his keyboard, either he's fishing or messing with wildlife. In case, you can contact him at rijans[at]techgainer[dot]com.

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