Microsoft bought GitHub in 2018. But what is GitHub? You have probably seen that many websites or news take us there when it comes to downloading a program or an application. It is a platform that works as a repository for developers, for free software or for projects thanks to Git version control. It was developed almost fifteen years ago and today it is one of the essential Internet services to create projects but also to download them.
If you’re not sure what it is or what it’s for, we’ll explain how to use GitHub, what its functions are or why it’s one of the essentials on the Internet.
What is GitHub
GitHub is a web page designed to host applications. Microsoft bought GitHub in 2018 for 7.5 billion dollars and thus got closer to developers. What is it? A developer repository where we can share complete projects, documentation and code. A web portal that intends to give a space to creators and developers to upload the code of applications, programs, tools and all kinds of software. A support page for developers where they can store or upload the code of all kinds of software created.
It has more than 25 million users worldwide with a version control system that allows you to make changes to projects or view and track changes to a file or a set of files. This allows you to make changes or delete them in case one of the modifications has caused an error or has broken the project. But it allows all developers to collaborate or contribute to a project if we think we can improve it, contribute something. But without taking risks.
Thanks to this version management system we have a safety cushion in case something goes wrong in a modification, always having the possibility of going back or comparing the code between versions, restoring the old ones, etc.
Users and uses
There are currently over a hundred million repositories on GitHub and most of them are open source. Companies and developers use the page and not only small developers bet on it, but also large companies like Apple or Amazon or Google have GitHub for their projects, but how can we use it? It is likely that you will see many websites that take us to the repository to download a specific application or program. In that case, we simply have to go to the corresponding link to download the files.
Or, we can do it from GitHub’s own page if we’re looking for something. We can see all the project files, the issues, the insights. To download it, we simply have to touch the upper right corner and choose the option to download ZIP with everything necessary for that specific project.
Prices
We can use GitHub for free or with one of the payment plans, monthly or annual. The free option is designed for individual users with the option of unlimited access to repositories, with 500 Mb of storage, security, etc. But there are also paid plans for $40 per user per year or $210 per user per year. They are plans designed for organizations and companies that want more functions, tools included, more storage.
Plans can be annual at the above price or monthly at $4 per user per month on the Team plan or $21 per user per month on Enterprise.
