Microsoft announced on Monday that it will buy GitHub for $7.5 billion, and despite promises that the platform will continue to work as is, many developers have begun looking for an alternative. One platform that has already benefited from the GitHub sale is Gitlab, a similar site whose sales have increased sevenfold since Microsoft confirmed the purchase.
Gitlab claims that in the first 24 hours after the announcement, more than 100,000 projects were moved to its platform, and on Tuesday it broke the record for daily imported projects, surpassing the 200,000 mark
While this massive move from GitHub to Gitlab shows that people are still “afraid” of Microsoft for its stance on open source projects, the blow wasn’t terribly big for GitHub , which still hosts 75 million projects. But Microsoft should definitely take into account the fact that alternative services are being created in an attempt to capitalize on the moment.
Special offers
Gitlab, for example, offers its gold and ultimate plans for free for open source or educational use. They will not come with technical support, but will be available for $4.95 per month.
Meanwhile, Microsoft says it is fully aware of the situation. Satya Nadella, the company's CEO, said in a statement that all the company can do right now is show the developer community that Microsoft is "all-in on open source," and stressed that Microsoft will have to earn their trust as it improves GitHub.
It remains to be seen how significant the decline in GitHub users will be, as the transition to alternative services will likely continue in the coming weeks.
