Both services store Git repositories, run pull requests and execute CI, and the practical difference is who else is already there. GitHub is where open source lives and where most developers have an account; Bitbucket is one product inside Atlassian's stack, which matters when Jira issues, Confluence pages and Bitbucket branches are supposed to reference each other.
TL;DR
Bitbucket prices seats: free forever for up to 5 users with unlimited repos, 1GB of LFS storage and 50 build minutes, then Standard at $3.65 per user per month and Premium at $7.25, with extra build minutes or 100GB of storage at $10 a month. GitHub prices the platform: a free plan with unlimited collaborators and 2,000 CI minutes, Team at $4 per user per month with 3,000 minutes, and Enterprise starting at $21 with 50,000 minutes and a 30-day trial. Choose by ecosystem: Bitbucket if Jira and Confluence run your process, GitHub if the wider developer world needs to find you.
Bitbucket's pricing page is short. Free covers up to 5 users forever with unlimited public and private repositories, 1GB of file storage for large files plus 1GB per repository, and 50 build minutes on Atlassian runners. Standard costs $3.65 per user per month and adds the full feature set with the option to buy extra allowances. Premium costs $7.25 per user per month and is aimed at teams needing granular admin controls: enforced merge checks, IP allowlisting, deployment permissions and required two-step verification. Run out of capacity and you can buy 1,000 more build minutes or 100GB of storage for $10 per month. A self-managed Data Center product exists for organisations with regulatory requirements, and community or academic subscriptions grant unlimited private repositories with 5GB of LFS storage and 500 build minutes.
GitHub's free plan lists unlimited public and private repositories, Dependabot security updates and 2,000 CI/CD minutes per month, with Actions free for public repositories, and the page advertises a Copilot starting point of up to 2,000 completions per month. Team costs $4 per user per month, with the page also showing a first-12-months promotional line, and lifts CI/CD minutes to 3,000 per month while adding Codespaces access, repository rules, multiple reviewers, draft pull requests, code owners and required reviewers. Enterprise starts at $21 per user per month on the same promotional pattern, comes with 50,000 CI/CD minutes per month, a 30-day free trial, data residency options and SOC 1 and SOC 2 type 2 reports. Beyond hosting, GitHub sells usage-priced extras on the same page: Codespaces compute from $0.18 per hour with storage at $0.07 per GB per month, and Packages bandwidth and storage bundled at $5 per month for 50GB.
| Feature | Bitbucket | GitHub |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier | Up to 5 users, unlimited repos, 1GB LFS, 50 build minutes | Unlimited collaborators and repos, 2,000 CI minutes a month |
| Entry paid plan | Standard $3.65 per user per month | Team $4 per user per month |
| Mid tier | Premium $7.25 per user per month | No mid tier between Team and Enterprise |
| Top tier | Data Center, self-managed, priced by contact | Enterprise from $21 per user per month, 30-day trial |
| CI minutes | 50 on Free; extras at 1,000 minutes or 100GB for $10 a month | 2,000 on Free, 3,000 on Team, 50,000 on Enterprise |
| Admin and security | Merge checks, IP allowlisting, deployment permissions on Premium | Data residency, SOC 1 and SOC 2 type 2 reports on Enterprise |
| Ecosystem | Atlassian: Jira, Confluence and Rovo in one contract | Public open source, Actions marketplace, Copilot and Codespaces |
| Self-managed option | Data Center, plus a hybrid license announcement | GitHub Enterprise Server sold separately from the cloud plans |
Pick Bitbucket if
Bitbucket makes sense when Jira tickets, Confluence specs and branch names already belong to the same vendor contract, and when the team is small enough that five free seats or $3.65 per user covers it. Premium's merge checks and IP allowlisting answer specific compliance needs at $7.25 per user rather than $21.
Pick GitHub if
GitHub wins wherever external contributors, public examples, marketplace actions or hiring matter. Its free plan with unlimited collaborators is the most generous starting point here, and Team at $4 per user per month is only slightly above Bitbucket Standard while carrying a much larger ecosystem. Budget for usage-priced extras when pipelines and packages grow.
No ratings or community sentiment are quoted here: we did not collect a public review corpus for this pair. All prices and allowances were read from bitbucket.org/product/pricing and github.com/pricing on 2026-10-12.
Slightly. Bitbucket Standard is $3.65 per user per month against GitHub Team at $4, and Premium is $7.25 against GitHub Enterprise from $21. The free tiers differ more: Bitbucket stops at 5 users with 50 build minutes, GitHub allows unlimited collaborators with 2,000 CI minutes.
Yes. Both accept standard Git remotes, so repositories move with a push and a fetch. Pull request history does not carry over, and issue trackers have to be exported separately.
Bitbucket gives 50 build minutes on Free and sells 1,000 more, or 100GB of storage, for $10 a month. GitHub includes 2,000 minutes on Free, 3,000 on Team and 50,000 on Enterprise, measured per minute of runner time.
Bitbucket, because it ships as part of Atlassian's platform with native linking between commits, branches and Jira issues under one contract. GitHub offers Jira integration through the marketplace, which works but is a separate connection.
Both, as separately priced products. Bitbucket sells Data Center as its self-managed offering and has announced a hybrid license, while GitHub sells Enterprise Server apart from the cloud plans.
On Bitbucket you either add paid seats above 5 users or buy more build minutes at $10 a month. On GitHub the limits are usage based: buy extra Actions minutes, Codespaces compute or Packages storage rather than upgrading the plan.
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