# Source control hosting: what AI models recommend, September 2026

IT AI Recommendation Index, September 2026 Edition. Asked as "source control hosting platform" and as "Git hosting service", six framings each, to twelve models with search on, on behalf of a mid-market B2B company. Page: https://it-ai-index.com/developer/source-control-hosting/

**Standing:** GitHub leads with 74% of first choices; verdict clear leader. 47 first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts.

## First-choice share

| # | Product | Share | Negative rate | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | GitHub | 74% | 17% | 72 |
| 2 | GitLab | 19% | 16% | 70 |
| 3 | Bitbucket | 4% | 17% | 69 |
| 4 | Gitea | 2% | 16% | 25 |
| 5 | Azure DevOps | 0% | 14% | 22 |
| 6 | Codeberg | 0% | 0% | 11 |
| 7 | Azure Repos | 0% | 0% | 13 |
| 8 | Forgejo | 0% | 22% | 18 |
| 9 | AWS CodeCommit | 0% | 36% | 11 |

## Each model's first choice on the direct prompt

- Claude Haiku 4.5: GitHub; alternatives Bitbucket, GitLab
- GPT-5.4 mini: GitHub; alternatives Bitbucket, GitLab
- Gemini 3.5 Flash: GitHub; alternatives Bitbucket, GitLab
- Perplexity Sonar: GitHub; alternatives Bitbucket
- Grok 4.1 Fast: GitHub; alternatives GitLab
- Mistral Small: GitHub; alternatives Bitbucket, GitLab
- DeepSeek V4 Flash: GitHub, GitLab; alternatives Azure DevOps, Azure Repos, Bitbucket
- Llama 4 Maverick: GitHub
- Qwen 3.7 Flash: GitHub; alternatives Bitbucket, GitLab
- Kimi K2: GitHub; alternatives Bitbucket, GitLab
- GLM 4.7 FlashX: GitHub; alternatives Azure DevOps, Bitbucket, GitLab
- MiniMax M2.5: GitHub, GitLab; alternatives Bitbucket

## Sources the answers cite

61 of 72 answers came back with a source list, from 12 of 12 models. Sites named in the most answers:

- g2.com: 22 answers, 32 citations
- mgsoftware.nl: 19 answers, 19 citations
- slant.co: 19 answers, 19 citations
- guideflow.com: 18 answers, 18 citations
- note.com: 18 answers, 18 citations
- worldmetrics.org: 17 answers, 18 citations
- gitprotect.io: 13 answers, 22 citations
- devopsboys.com: 13 answers, 16 citations

Pages named in the most answers:

- https://mgsoftware.nl/en/tools/best-version-control-systems (19 answers)
- https://slant.co/topics/153/~best-hosted-version-control-services (19 answers)
- https://guideflow.com/blog/version-control-software (18 answers)
- https://note.com/snake_dragon/n/n87068052df3a?hl=en (18 answers)
- https://g2.com/categories/version-control-hosting?hsCtaTracking (14 answers)
- https://devopsboys.com/blog/github-vs-gitlab-vs-bitbucket-2026 (12 answers)
- https://learnmandu.com/blog/tech/github-vs-gitlab-vs-bitbucket-version-control (11 answers)
- https://bmc.com/blogs/github-vs-gitlab-vs-bitbucket (10 answers)
- https://gitprotect.io/blog/top-git-hosting-services (10 answers)
- https://worldmetrics.org/best/source-code-control-software (10 answers)

## Warned against

- GitHub: 12 of 72 labels negative. "GitHub is a platform that some users may want to avoid due to its controversies" (Llama 4 Maverick, negative prompt)
- GitLab: 11 of 70 labels negative. "The "Budget Trap" to Avoid: GitLab SaaS ... it is not budget-friendly for small, scaling teams" (Gemini 3.5 Flash, budget prompt)
- Bitbucket: 12 of 69 labels negative. "About one-third of Bitbucket incidents had major impact ... Atlassian struggled with high-severity flaws including CVSS scores over 9" (Claude Haiku 4.5, negative prompt)
- SourceForge: 8 of 9 labels negative. "Who should avoid it: Any modern engineering team looking for a standard DevSecOps development lifecycle." (Gemini 3.5 Flash, negative prompt)

## Record

- Method: https://it-ai-index.com/methodology/
- Raw judge labels and full responses: https://it-ai-index.com/data/
- License: CC BY 4.0. Cite as IT AI Recommendation Index, September 2026 Edition, it-ai-index.com.