Hardly usable: GitHub criticized due to many failures

A well-known user of Microsoft’s GitHub platform is now turning his back on the service after almost two decades. This is because it can hardly be used for productive work due to constant failures.

Failure documentation is extensive

HashiCorp co-founder Mitchell Hashimoto announced his withdrawal from the platform. The reason for this is, in his opinion, a sharp decline in reliability, which makes it massively more difficult to handle everyday work on this platform. His current project, the terminal emulator Ghostty, is set to move to another developer service. Hashimoto is considered a long-time and committed user of GitHub. Since joining in 2008, he said he has used the service almost daily and even cited it as one of the main sources of inspiration for his work. Even on vacation, he worked intensively on projects, source codes and working methods of other developers on the platform. But this close bond is now under severe strain.

In a detailed Contribution the developer describes his growing frustration. For weeks, he documented the days on which GitHub outages affected his work. The result: problems almost every day. For example, one day he was unable to review code changes for over two hours because a service was down. An incident at the end of April, in which so-called pull requests could not be completed due to technical problems, also confirmed his decision.

Serious work is hardly possible anymore

For Hashimoto, one thing is certain: GitHub is “no longer a place for serious work” if developers are regularly slowed down by disruptions. Although he still hopes for improvements, he currently wants to concentrate on programming and that is not possible under the current conditions. Ghostty’s move will take place gradually. Hashimoto is examining both commercial providers and open source alternatives.

A read-only mirror archive of the project will remain on GitHub for the time being, as will some of his personal projects. GitHub, which has been considered the central platform for software development since it was taken over by Microsoft, is facing prominent criticism. Observers point out that the increasing technical problems coincide with a greater focus on AI functions. Whether there is actually a connection here remains an open question.