GitArena

GitArena is a software development platform with built-in vcs, issue tracking and code review. It is meant as a lightweight and performant alternative to the likes of GitLab and Gitea, built with self-hosting and cross-platform/cross-architecture support in mind.

To see a demo, you may browse the source code of GitArena itself on my hosted GitArena instance: https://git.mari.zip/mellowagain/gitarena

Features progress

Basics

• Git protocol support
  • HTTP(S)
  • SSH
• Repository management
  • Create
  • Fork
  • Rename
  • Branch listing
  • Tag listing
  • Releases
    • Autogenerated changelogs from merged PRs
    • Asset upload
    • Semantic version tagging UI
  • Archiving
  • Download as .zip and .tar.gz
• Web-based code browser
  • Syntax-highlighted file view
  • Blame
  • View raw
  • Commit history with diffs
• User auth
  • Username and password auth
  • SSH key management
  • Org/team model for access control
• Merge requests
  • Open, review, approve, merge
  • Inline comments on diffs
  • Merge strategies (merge commit, squash, rebase)
• Issue tracker
  • open/close issues
  • Labels
  • Milestones
  • Assignees
  • Kanban
• Webhooks
• REST API
• Protected branches
  • Require reviews
  • status checks before merge
  • Prevent direct pushes to main

Nice to haves

• Woodpecker CI
• Package registry
• Wiki per repository
• Search
  • Code
  • Commits
  • Tags
  • Repos
  • Issues
  • Merge requests
  • Users
  • Orgs
• OAuth/SSO
• CLI
• MCP
• Email notifications
• Dependency/vulnerability scanning hooks
• Commit/PR cross-linking

Stretch goals

• Federation via ForgeFed/AT Proto
• VS Code / JetBrains IDE integration
• Review iteration tracking: show what changed between force-pushed versions of a PR (like Gerrit's patchset model)
• Merge queue
• Commit signing + verification
• Mirror/sync: bi-directional

Building

Backend

Requirements:

• Latest Rust stable toolchain

Compiling:

$ cd gitarena
$ cargo build --release

Frontend

Requirements:

• Node.js 24
• pnpm 10

Building:

$ cd gitarena-frontend
$ pnpm run build

Running

You can either spin up everything via a Docker Compose or the backend and frontend separately.

Docker

A docker-compose.yml is provided to spin up all GitArena components:

• Rust backend
• Next.js frontend
• Postgresql

$ docker compose up -d

Backend

In order to run the GitArena backend, the following environment variable needs to be set:

• BIND_ADDRESS: Socket address to bind to, for example localhost:8080 or 127.0.0.1:80 (Port is required)
• DATABASE_URL: Raw Postgres connection string

Optional environment variables:

• MAX_POOL_CONNECTIONS: Max amount of connections the Postgres connection pool should keep open and ready to use.
• NO_STDOUT_LOG: Set to any value to only write logs to the log file (and Otel, if configured)
• OTEL_SERVICE_NAME: Service name to be used for metrics, traces and logs

Observability is provided through Otel and can be optionally enabled by setting:

• OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT: URL to a otlp endpoint

Standardized Otel environment variables are supported.

GitArena gets compiled as a normal binary so you can just run it. After start GitArena will automatically create the required tables. Please edit the settings table to configure your GitArena instance and restart GitArena. In the future this will be do-able in the web ui.

Afterwards, your GitArena instance will be fully set up and you can register your account. In order to access the admin panel (/admin), please set admin on your user account in the users table to true.

The frontend will now be reachable at https://localhost:8080/api or your configured hostname and port.

Frontend

In order to run the GitArena frontend, the following environment variables need to be set:

• NODE_ENV: set to production
• NEXT_PUBLIC_API_URL: URL to the GitArena backend, defaults to http://localhost:8080

Optionally you can set:

• HOSTNAME: address to bind to, default 0.0.0.0
• PORT: port to bind to, default 3030

Then run:

$ cd gitarena-frontend
$ pnpm run start

The frontend will now be reachable at https://localhost:3030 or your configured hostname and port.

Screenshots

Repository:

Repository commits:

File view:

Issues overview:

Issue detail:

Create repository:

Import repository:

Login:

Sign up:

Explore:

Search:

Thank you

GitArena is part of the Mintlify OSS Program, meaning we receive gracious support from them in the form of a free Mintlify Pro plan (normally $300/month) to host our documentation.