GitHub
Git hosting with pull requests, Actions and Copilot
1/3GitHub hosts Git repositories and the work that happens around them: pull requests with review, required checks and repository rules; Issues and Projects for planning; Discussions for the conversation that is not a bug; and code search across everything. Actions runs CI/CD workflows on GitHub-hosted or self-hosted runners, with 2,000 free minutes a month on the Free plan and unlimited minutes on public repositories, and Packages hosts the artifacts they build. Codespaces gives a configured development environment in the cloud, billed by the hour. Security is layered on top: Dependabot opens pull requests for vulnerable and outdated dependencies on every plan, and GitHub Advanced Security adds code scanning and secret protection as a paid add-on. Copilot is priced separately from the seat plans. Beyond the web app there is the gh command line tool, GitHub Desktop for Mac and Windows, and mobile apps.
- Unlimited public and private Git repositories on every plan
- Pull requests with review, required checks and repo rules
- Actions runs CI/CD workflows, 2,000 free minutes a month
- Codespaces gives a configured dev environment in the cloud
- Issues, Projects and Discussions for planning and support
- Dependabot security and version update pull requests
- Code scanning and secret protection via Advanced Security
- gh command line tool, desktop app and mobile apps
Based on what people have said
Every answer links back to the mentions it came fromWhat are the common concerns regarding GitHub Actions reliability?
Some users express a lack of trust in the platform's reliability, citing frequent downtime and suggesting that the underlying model is fundamentally flawed for modern development velocity. Others advise building logic into local scripts as a fallback to mitigate dependency on the platform's YAML configuration.
7 mentions · r/github · Hacker News · @jezell · Aug 2026 – Sep 2026
How do users feel about the pricing and value of GitHub Copilot?
Opinions are divided; some users find the pricing structure expensive or confusing, particularly regarding how it interacts with other subscriptions like Microsoft 365, which do not include Copilot benefits. Conversely, others view the cost as a form of insurance or find it economical compared to alternatives, though some suggest that other AI tools may offer better quality or cost-efficiency per token.
12 mentions · @r_ffin · r/GithubCopilot · r/ChatGPTCoding · r/GithubCopilot · Hacker News · r/GithubCopilot · and 2 more · Aug 2026 – Sep 2026
What are the performance issues reported by users?
Users have reported slow web searches and fetch requests, which some attribute to aggressive rate limiting. Additionally, there are reports of slow knowledge retrieval in the Copilot harness and delays in CI/CD pipelines, such as long image pull times during builds.
3 mentions · r/GithubCopilot · r/Supabase · r/copilotstudio · Aug 2026 – Sep 2026
How does GitHub compare to other platforms for hosting and CI/CD?
While some users feel locked into GitHub due to its massive mindshare and the difficulty of migrating complex integrations, others are exploring alternatives like Codeberg or self-hosted solutions to avoid perceived enshittification or scaling issues. Some developers also note that while GitHub is a standard, it is not the only option for open-source projects.
9 mentions · Hacker News · Hacker News · Hacker News · Hacker News · Hacker News · Hacker News · and 3 more · Aug 2026
What are the common use cases for GitHub Actions?
GitHub Actions is widely used for automating deployment pipelines, such as pushing code to staging or production servers, managing WordPress themes and plugins, and handling CI tasks like linting and testing. Some users also utilize it for federated identity management and security-related workflows.
9 mentions · r/devops · r/ProWordPress · Aug 2026 – Sep 2026
These summarise counts and dates only. Read the quotes themselves under what people are saying.
What people are saying about GitHub
41% negative“I've got a couple deva on my team using Claude Code and can say that they outspend everyone on GitHub code by 2X but don't have higher output. They just don't have access to as many models.”
“The 5 hour limit in Claude code on the base subscription is like 1/4 a month of the base GitHub Copilot subscription.”
“At work, we were using GitHub Copilot in the version prior to the recent nerf. Realistically, it wasn’t a policy that GitHub could sustain indefinitely. After the nerf, we set up a Claude team to test it, and we’re basically using only that now.”
“From my point of view, however, the main benefit of using GitHub Actions does not lie in the actual CI/CD tool engine but rather in its integration with the whole GitHub environment.”
“These are the current issues I am facing. 1. Gpt 6 Luna is costing more than gpt 5.6 even though its half priced.”
“GitLab nailed it before GitHub even entered the game. I wish my company used it. Far easier and featureful, IMO.”
“my employer authorizes using our corporate GitHub Copilot tokens for personal projects, but I don’t like using it like that. I have my own subscription.”
“GitHub also have new features for business that have a lot of data around usage, how and where. So don’t do it.”
“Gitlab’s documentation and YAML syntax always really trips me up, GitHub Action’s workflow setup feels more natural to me.”
“Github actions are smooth as f.”
“The main issue GHs availability in the recent past. Its not that great.”
“50 ft of shit, then Github actions followed by Azure Devops.”
“Can confirm Github Actions is lightyears better than Harness CI. We have spent the last year migrating to Harness CI and none of our developers even like it.”
“Teams that say "Actions is a fight" are usually debugging the control plane that puts a job on a node. Both can be true.”
“I make quite a decent amount as a side gig helping orgs move away from GitHub actions back to jenkins after they learned the hard way. Most people use jenkins wrong and blame the tool instead of themselves”
“Not even that - AFAIK now GitHub is at 89% reliability, I.e. zero nines!”
“Awful example and you’ve been shown why. You can use docker with GitHub actions to. This just looks like massive ignorance with actions.”
“GitHub actions is garbage”
“My issue with Actions is reliability. I will have to use another service for anything production related, because Actions is just down too often.”
“This doesn't feel like a particularly strong comparison, given that the Github action is pinning specific versions of tasks and the Gitlab example isn't, and the rest of the syntax is naming steps for structured output.”
“They are terrible. It is really obvious that whoever designed them has absolutely no clue about good software architecture, programming languages or build systems. It's doubly embarrassing for Github because Microsoft actually has good researchers that know how to do it better, but they didn't bother to ask them.”
“I always felt Azure DevOps was the better platform, I'm sad Microsoft basically stopped developing it when they bought github.”
“And the GitLab example runs it as a container image while the GitHub example installs it on Ubuntu. Two different use cases”
“imo github runners are designed in to be a headache to host on your own so you use their services”
“GitHub supports login to Azure via OIDC through a specific managed identity, so no secrets is required though”