Should I downgrade or upgrade my GitHub account, now that the free tier has unlimited private repositories? I could save seven dollars a month, 84 dollars a year.
What do you get with the GitHub Pro Account?
What I learned is that the added features are related to many things that are useful for doc publishing and reviews, using private repositories on GitHub. These features and tools on your private repos include these, with links to help pages where available:
- Unlimited collaborators (with Free you get three collaborators per repo)
- GitHub Pages
- Wikis
- Protected branches
- Code owners
- Repository insight graphs: Pulse, Contributors, Traffic, Commits, Code frequency, Network, and Forks
Now, you can do all those things on public repositories with your GitHub Free account. So what does this mean for people using GitHub for tech writing? I think it’s similar to any use case for development. If you want to work in private with more than three collaborators, and publish from a private repo to a public webpage using GitHub Pages, you want a GitHub Pro account. If you’re pretty sure you’re always going to work in public repos in the open, then you don’t lose anything by staying with a Free account.
For me, I’ll keep paying my $7 a month as I’ve found it super valuable to work through things either on my own or in small groups. I also like protected branches, sometimes for my own safety. And maybe, or at least I’d like to think so, I’m supporting students and starting users of GitHub by supporting GitHub itself.