Iconically the blog post about Github being down is now down:

Forbidden: You don't have permission to access /2014/01/27/github_reliability/ on this server. Apache Server at thoughts.wallproductions.com Port 80

Here's the content even though it's not worth reading IMHO:

I have been using Github for work for the last couple of years. I have noticed that their service has been getting less and less reliable throughout the years. They are the leader when it comes to Git hosting. So it’s hard just to turn them off completely at this point. Plus I am using it at work so I don’t have much say in moving off of it. It’s sad to see it as overall their feature set is really good. They have been very innovative throughout the years. I have been very impressed by their pull request feature and many more. I have also been impressed by how easy they make Git. Saying that they have their own set of issues you have to deal with on a monthly basis. I have noticed more and more that they go down often. It seems that at least once a month Github will go down for a small time period. This can range from a couple of minutes up to ten or so minutes. It’s never hours of downtime. They seem to respond to the issue fast and get it fixed. I feel that most downtime can be avoidable or should be worked at so it is avoidable. We don’t see Google services go down once a month. In the last couple of years I haven’t seen any Google services I use to down at all even. Yes in the technology world unexpected things happen from time to time but it shouldn’t be every month. I think Github has forced us to at least think about other hosting providers. One name that comes to mind is bitbucket. It seems that their feature set is also very rich but they may not have as many downtime issues as Github. I really hope to see Github be able to get it together but if not companies are going to have to start thinking of other Git hosting solutions. It’s also possible to roll your own Git server but of course you won’t get all the rich features of these service platforms.

I didn't choose Github because of their HA policy, did you ?

This article seems more like FUD to me, even if I don't understand the DDoS.

Um... The last month, Github has had 99.939% uptime, Bitbucket has had 99.854%.

In Github's case that corresponds to approximately 30 minutes of downtime, and in Bitbucket's case it's about 60 minutes.

I think that given the cost, a 99.9% uptime is perfectly acceptable.

> We don’t see Google services go down once a month. In the last couple of years I haven’t seen any Google services I use to down at all even.

http://www.google.com/appsstatus

Git is a distributed version control system for a reason.

Even if GitHub is down for a few hours, you can still do most of your work. (Yes, no issue tracking, etc. I know.)

Yeah I suppose. Unless you need to make a pull request.

Git supports many channels for sharing changes.

I agree completely on the diagnosis. But honestly suggesting Bitbucket as an alternative is kind of ridiculous: it has the same scale of availability problems, without all the pressure (DDoS) GitHub faces, and is much less transparent about the exact nature of their technical problems (it was different before being bought by Atlassian). Yours, a bitbucket user

And Bitbucket is damn slow, it's a day to day pain !

The main question for me is: why the fuck do someone want to DDoS Github ?

Does anyone has an idea ?

Many possible reasons; varying from extortion attempts to personal gripes to some men just wanting to see the world burn.

Excuse me, but it still seems ridiculous.

Isn't hosted on site Github entreprise the main source of revenue of Github ? If we ask oursef "why do we choose github as Git hosters", features, awesome culture, openness will sort out, not availability.

Come on, this article seems indeed like propaganda. Git is all about asynchronous workflows. Github down ? Better commit some tests or review my mates the time I can push.

Github services are important but not critical, most of the users don't pay, critical users are not impacted, this all story seem like a huge waste of resources for everyone.

often ignorant people that wants to target a specific project.

Seems like moving to GitHub Enterprise is making more and more sense. Too bad the pricing is simply too cost prohibitive for most startups.

Can anyone using an Enterprise install comment on the reliability/maintenance required?

Seems like there's a good opportunity to build a better GitHub and focus on delivering a solid, on-premise experience at a much better price.

if you need a self hosted version just use gitlab?

http://gitlab.org/

To be clear I am not saying that Github is going away anytime soon. I love their service but I am just sick of them going down during business hours on a regular basis. Right now there is really no good alternative. So I agree on the fact that Github is it. It was more a post about the frustration of Github being down when it's needed the most.

Funny that their own site appears unreachable.

If you rely exclusively on "the cloud" you eventually get burned.

Either pay for 5 9's of reliability or cut the whining.

Funny like this is posted while GitHub is under DDoS attack.

The cynic in me says that this has been waiting to be published at an opportune time.

I was amused that the post mentions Google services never being down, when GMail was down last week.

Another commit the post comes from the view point that Github has enough capital to hire really good people. That is an assumption though.

Is there any alternative to Github at this point? For open source there is not.