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Is Google code similar to Github where you can put your source code for collaboration?

Which is the de-facto SCM it's using?

And which one is recommended for project hosting?

JasonMArcher
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never_had_a_name
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  • According to http://google-opensource.blogspot.de/2015/03/farewell-to-google-code.html Google Code is shutting down, and suggesting GitHub as the most likely replacement. – MvG Jan 08 '16 at 01:58

6 Answers6

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Yes, they are similar but support different versioning systems. Also the collaboration style is different. While Github (and Launchpad and BitBucket and all the other DVCS hosters) focus more on active collaboration between forked projects, Google Code's primary way of collaboration is through tickets.

So none of them is per-se better than the other, but perhaps fits your project management and contribution/collaboration style better. The whole debate between centralized and decentralized code versioning systems is related to that.

Horst Gutmann
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    There's also the element that Google Code's user interface sucks bowling balls through garden hoses. Utterly and completely terrible in every respect. It verges on sucking matter out of black holes. – JUST MY correct OPINION Sep 15 '10 at 11:38
  • Not that I actually agree absolutely 100% with the comment, but I just HAD to vote it up for bringing physics into it! Nice. – Subfuzion Sep 22 '11 at 18:33
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Update 2013:

All major repo hosting services supports git, and supports smart https access (see below):

Currently (July 2013), the main difference (between GitHub and other services) is in term of release management, more specifically:

Initial answer (September 2010)

One big difference is the support by GitHub for smart http, as explained in the ProGit "smart http" section, supported since April 2010.

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Being behind a firewall at work, that is more than useful to actually push anything to the remote repo!

I don't think "Google Code" support it officially, even though some contributors try to push that feature.

Community
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VonC
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  • This is plain wrong (or at least very misleading); mercurial (which is the equivalent DVCS google code supports) also works over http(s) - i.e. this isn't a distinguishing feature with the (probably irrelevant) caveat that if hosted by google code, commits are required to occur over https. – Eamon Nerbonne Dec 07 '10 at 10:26
  • @Eamon: I am not sure we are talking about the same thing ("dumb" HTTP protocol with only WebDAV operation vs. "smart" HTTP protocol, i.e. able to dialog with the receiving end of those POST, here Git, as in http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4372306/git-push-over-http-not-activating-remote-hooks/4373606#4373606). To my knowledge, Mercurial nor Google code has it yet. I would be very interested in any reference you could submit to support your comment. – VonC Dec 07 '10 at 11:18
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Some features that you should consider:

  • Open source:
    Google: Always open source.
    Git: Open source for free account, but you can pay to switch to close source.
  • VCS: Both google & github support Git (and others)
  • Wiki: Google wiki is poorly supported, unless you love to write with wiki tags. You can find many project in Google project hosting has there wiki in Git hub. Compare Wiki
  • Statitstics: Github provides many nice statistics chart, while Google provides only a list of updates Git:

Statistics-Git

Google:

Statistics-Google

linquize
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greensuisse
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AFAIK Google code is yet to support git natively. At least as far as I can tell by the comments on the ticket open for this.

So if you are using or would like to use Git then Github will be naturally more suitable.

On the other hand if you are using SVN and would like to continue to then Google code might be a more natural fit.

I have found Github projects easier to set up and get going but that is fairly subjective. Some of my friends also claim that Github's support/ecosystem is better than Google's.

Manoj Govindan
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    Google supports git now. http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/2011/07/announcing-git-support-for-google-code.html – Subfuzion Sep 22 '11 at 18:34
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Use GitHub. GitHub gives each account its own namespace for project names, so you don't have to worry about your project names having already been taken by people's projects. If you're using Google Code, however, then you do have to worry about this.

user240515
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If you need private repos, you won't get that with Google Code. At least not yet; see this open issue: http://code.google.com/p/support/issues/detail?id=1829

Subfuzion
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