Storing your private projects - where?

Question

Hello, SO.

You have probably already guessed what my question is, but anyway, here goes: It is quite natural for a coder to have a few private projects and, basically, non-job-related code lying around. Backups are, of course, great (yes, I am doing them). I would, however, love to have a more centralized solution for this - store it somewhere on the internet. I am sure such solutions exist, but I am not quite sure which ones are to be preferred and why. If you could share your opinion on this one, you are most welcome.

Answer 1

I'd recommend github.com. If you don't have issues with your code being public, it could be free.

You can also get a paid account and get private repositories.

Answer 2

bitbucket.org is a good place to host mercurial repositories. They have a small free plan available and the pricing is quite reasonable if you need more.

I personally have a virtual dedicated server that I sync with another server at home. Easy access from the internet and I don't have much trouble with reliability.

Answer 3

A good option is to use a private SVN hosting service. Something like My Version Control.

Here is a list of SVN hosts.

A better option might be to lease a dedicated server and run your own version control on there, but that could get a bit more expensive.

Answer 4

What I do is use DynDNS to expose a machine at my house with a DNS address. It's a windows machine so it allows me to use Remote Desktop from any other windows machine to access it. DynDNS is free.

I'm not sure which development environment you normally use but Microsoft Live Mesh may be an option. A colleague of mine uses that for something similar.

The DynDNS setup has really changed my development experience 100 times for the better. It allows me to keep Office, Email (w/ a client), VS, SQL Server, etc.. all available no matter where I am.

Answer 5

I'm using http://www.assembla.com and like it.

Pro: has a number of source-control systems (git, mercurial, svn), integrated bug-tracking, wiki, file repository. No-hassle, everything is ready to use. It's well suited for small teams and/or personal development.

Cons: It's not free, but cheap: something like $3 per month per person.

Answer 6

I use Github for the private projects that I feel needs to be on a server of some kind. Some of my repositories are public, others are private for various different reasons.

But if you, like me, prefer Git as a source control tool, then Github is the place.

If you are into Mercurial, then BitBucket the place to be, and Subversion users might like Beanstalk.

Answer 7

Now that repositories for Git and Mercurial have been mentioned, Launchpad 's the equivalent for Bazaar.

Personally, I have simply set up my own BZR repository on my website.

Dreamhost is a decent free webhost which offers SVN and GIT support out of the box, and gives you shell access so you can set up other VCS repos at well.

Answer 8

I got myself a very cheap hosting provider where I can save up to 35GB. I access the webspace via "ssh/ExpanDrive" and store my repositories in crypted containers (TrueCrypt). In addition to the external storage I keep a local backup. I think this is one of the best approaches, if you want your source code to stay private. No problems so far. For official projects/team work in most cases there is enough hardware/money involved to put together some dedicated hardware.

Answer 9

I'm not using the internet at all, but instead creating subversion file:// repositories on a USB stick.

Answer 10

If you don't particularly care for a repository type environment and just want a convenient place to store your files, then you should definitely look into Dropbox. You get 2 GB of space for free and it does automatic file synchronization between locations. It's great!

Answer 11

Sugarsync is free with 2gb of storage.

It's not got a source control system (but branching, labelling doesn't matter for solo projects of your own does it?). However your get a revision history for all your files and comes with a nice free tool that syncs your filesystem.