Show HN: Gitdot – a better GitHub. Open-source, written in Rust
What works now: user signups, org creations, private/public repos, and importing GitHub repositories (both as read-only mirrors and full migrations). So basically, you can create, push and pull to a repo, but we don't have many features quite yet (issues, PRs, CI). What is a bit unique is: 1) we built it in Rust and 2) the website is a little odd. Its design is inspired by CLIs (e.g., fzf, broot, vim) instead of web apps, and as such, lacks some affordances that you might typically expect in favor of keyboard-driven instant navigations (we have the very ambitious goal of an FCP of 100ms). In case you're curious, here's how we we built it: https://gitdot.io/designs We recognize that we're making some bold claims here and are also well aware that we have much to learn. Building software is still hard, and that's a fact we seem to relearn everyday. But we wanted to share what we built so far nonetheless. Cheers, thank y'all for reading, and till the next —paul & mikkel.
Discussion Highlights (20 comments)
Imustaskforhelp
This is really interesting. Especially as its open source and I really liked the UI design of it. I was thinking about creating my own git forge given the unreliability of Github and I wouldn't be able to create just at the moment incredibly reliable software like git forge although I could use AI to create a minimalist piece of software, I didn't because I didn't want to create yet another AI slop fighting another AI slop (github/gitlab). Forejo is incredible but I have always wanted to get more alternatives in this field. Much thanks for making it. I have signed up and I have high hopes for it too and I will try to either self host this on my servers or gitdot.io as well as Github I recommend making a small community in matrix (preferred), fluxer.gg, discord etc. as I'd like to join it. PS: small personal thing that I have made which helps in making communities: https://mirror.forum I am definitely interested in gitdot.io! This seems incredible I wish nothing but the best for you folks. Gonna create a local copy of the source code of gitdot.io right now! Thanks for open-sourcing the efforts too. I really appreciate it :-D The software is so nice! I genuinely hope that you guys and the project blows up and if you guys might ever hire a junior dev, I hope you all could remember me as the world right now needed such software that you have made!! :-D (Although I am more interested in managing servers/golang but that's because rust is hard to learn as a beginner but that's different topic but I like rust's ideas too and rust is a great/preferred language with golang for this type of service :-D)
chwzr
the design looks neat. + for hexagonal pattern on the backend - that fits perfectly!
mathisdev7
I hate that when we scroll through a codebase files, it changes the file we are hovering, I'd rather having to click to see the file
umanwizard
Why does it have to be a website? Why merely "CLI-inspired" and not actually CLIs?
eqvinox
What's the differentiation against Forgejo going to be?
screamingninja
> 5. What features will gitdot not have? > AI. > We view AI as an implementation detail — and do not think that using it is necessarily good. > In fact, we think it makes many products worse by acting as a bandaid for poor design. > That isn’t to say we are blind to it, but that we will be judicious in our use of it instead. Not sure I follow. What feature are the developers referring to? I understand that AI will power tools that may or may not fit a particular use case. How is AI a feature and what does it mean to be anti-AI?
Kiro
I think you're in an interesting space where there's a real opportunity to create something fresh. When people are actively looking for alternatives it will be easier to break out of the established norms. What does anti-AI mean? Don't really see anything about it in the design doc except "no AI copilot".
TazeTSchnitzel
The minimal look feels very refreshing, and yet it's not disorienting like many minimal web git UIs are in my experience; I actually feel like I know how to navigate this thing. Site feels very snappy too, especially with those instantly loading file previews when you hover. Congrats!
SwiftyBug
I absolutely love the minimalist UI. I see code reviews is in the roadmap, I can't wait to try it.
garbagepatch
I like the terminal aesthetics but please, for accessibility's sake, make input boxes look more like input boxes and buttons look like buttons.
Cieric
Seems interesting an I'll take more of a peek after work, but one thing that stood out to me is the only way back to the home page after navigating to a repo is the back button. Going back to the home page via the back button also doesn't retain that "new" was selected. But I agree with others, I do like the simplicity of the site.
jacques_chester
It is ... problematic ... to lead with "anti-AI" and then bury terms like "judicious in our use of it" in the fine print. IMO a team like yours can either: * Use LLMs, in which case you aren't "anti-AI". * Not use LLMs currently, but the non-use is not due to following a principle, in which case you aren't "anti-AI". * Not use LLMs and promise never to do so. I'm happy you are trying something new. But you hurt yourself by engaging in something very old: disingenuity. (edits for presentation and grammar)
skrtskrt
Love the idea of someone tackling this space in Rust, but please just make a normal UI, I have no idea what I am looking at.
abathologist
Would be interested in a comparison with https://sourcehut.org/ (which has a comparable minimal aesthetic, but also has the deep benefit of being FOSS.
7moritz7
There is a dozen CLAUDE.md in the gitdot source. The "Anti-AI" in your title seems a bit disingenuous.
isatty
Maybe it’s the HN effect but /files takes a while to load. Personally while I appreciate something not being AI slop, writing something in Rust has no meaning to me.
ramon156
A lot of fuss that needs to be chiseled out first. There's an idiom that is followed a bit too black and white, but the grey is grey. No loading animation, but my screen jitters while loading in stuff. My internet speed is fine, so it's a performance/bug issue. I also did not initially understand the UI, but that'll come as I use it more
graypegg
Interesting stuff! I really like the design philosophy you're applying here, where the browser/web behaviour is actually part of the UX. Pretty rare for web application nowadays! If I could make one suggestion, I really like the old MacOS "inspector" pattern. Basically a consistent way to get meta-information about any "thing" the user chooses to inspect. Your right sidebar is going towards that, but it would need some work to make it more consistent between views. GitHub's UI has these weird meta-states/restrictions that are so badly explained in the UI they feel like bugs. Each line gets a [...] menu in github which lets you see the blame/spawn a issue linking to it/get a permalink/etc. It's a totally different UI in the diff view, and then totally different again if you're looking at a comment referencing a line in a diff AND different if it's referencing a permalink to a line in a file, even if it's the same code that would be in that diff! I want the UI to have obvious "nouns". If the UI is showing me a line of code, even if it's in a diff view, let me "inspect" it and get the exact same meta-info + tools I get for lines of code anywhere. It's "a line", not a weird meta state of "a line, but you're in the comment of a PR linking to this line". Same concept applies to comments/commits/authors/etc. If the UI shows me a username, I should be able to pull up a "who is that again" inspector. Going into github's commit view, clicking on a name... and being sent to a filtered list of that person's commits makes zero sense to me because this is the ONLY place where that happens. That behaviour should be a "recent commits" button inside some "user inspector".
flexagoon
Feels weird to ship a website without mobile support in this day. The desktop version looks nice though
denysvitali
> Mobile support to come. In 2026 not being mobile first is a bit of a disappointment to be honest