<p>Right now, I keep all of my projects on my laptop. I'm thinking that I shouldn't do this, but instead use a version control system and check them in/out from an external hosting repository (Google Code, SourceForge, etc). I see several benefits here - first, I don't have to worry about losing my code if my computer crashes and burns or my external HDD crashes and burns; second, I can share my code with the world and perhaps even get more help when I need it.</p>

<p>Is this a good idea? If so, what are some other project hosts that I should investigate (other than Google Code and SourceForge)?</p>

[{'answer_id': 33515, 'author': 'Jason Bunting', 'author_id': 1790, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/1790', 'pm_score': 3, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p><strong><a href="http://www.assembla.com/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Assembla</a></strong> is <em>awesome.</em></p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>EDIT: Yes, this is a good idea - I used to use a personal copy of <a href="http://www.sourcegear.com/vault/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Vault</a> and found it was more than I cared to manage (in case my server went down or hard drive crashed - not only was it painful to worry about losing and backing up data, but the downtime). Of course, it doesn\'t hurt to have your own backup as well. Cover all your bases!</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 33520, 'author': 'Dinah', 'author_id': 356, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/356', 'pm_score': 0, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>Online backup is cheap and easy. Why would you not?</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 33528, 'author': 'Luke', 'author_id': 327, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/327', 'pm_score': 3, 'selected': True, 'text': '<p>After losing some freelance work to a hard drive crash, I\'ve become keen on the philosophy that "It doesn\'t exist until its in source control". As I don\'t want to necessarily share the source for my projects with the rest of the world, I pay for webhosting (using <a href="http://www.dreamhost.com" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Dreamhost</a> who have great deals on basic shared hosting and easy one-click installs for things like subversion) and store my data that way.  They don\'t claim to be any sort of backup service, but all I really want is a second copy offsite somewhere.</p>\n\n<p>If I do decide to share the code I can always make it public later.  Do note that sourceforge does not allow private/personal projects, and Google Code forces you to license your code using an open source license.  Both have some limitations on the number of projects you can create (and aren\'t really intended to store everybody and their brother\'s personal projects).</p>\n\n<p>Assembla looks pretty slick although it is hard to tell what all you get for free.  I\'m definitely going to try it out.</p>\n\n<p>There is an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_open_source_software_hosting_facilities" rel="nofollow noreferrer">extensive list</a> at wikipedia.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 33535, 'author': 'Pat Notz', 'author_id': 825, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/825', 'pm_score': 2, 'selected': False, 'text': '<ol>\n<li><p><a href="http://github.com/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">GitHub</a> is a really great option for git.</p></li>\n<li><p>Most of the free, public hosting sights will insist that you license your code with an OSS license (and, possibly, your documentation).  That\'s potentially a different thing that you\'re talking about (backups).</p></li>\n<li><p>For just backups, you may want to try a for-pay service or even something like <a href="http://mozy.com/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">mozy</a>.</p></li>\n</ol>\n'}, {'answer_id': 33557, 'author': 'Chris Marasti-Georg', 'author_id': 96, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/96', 'pm_score': 2, 'selected': False, 'text': "<p>I use Assembla - You can share your code <em>if you want</em>, but you are not required to.  That's a big plus to me.</p>\n"}, {'answer_id': 33825, 'author': 'ceejayoz', 'author_id': 1902010, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/1902010', 'pm_score': 0, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>I host most of my non-code backups on <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/browse.html?node=16427261" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Amazon\'s S3 service</a>.</p>\n\n<p>Code goes on a <a href="http://slicehost.com/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Slicehost virtual server</a> that has automated snapshot backups (daily as well as weekly) and runs Subversion and the Trac web interface to it.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 107333, 'author': 'nathan', 'author_id': 18480, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/18480', 'pm_score': 0, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>Github is a really great hosting service if you use Git; and of course everyone should use Git. The default is free public project hosting, but if your stuff is proprietary (or perhaps embarrassing) you can get private hosting from them for some cost per month. </p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 145442, 'author': 'Mnementh', 'author_id': 21005, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/21005', 'pm_score': 0, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>If you want to make your projects in some form public, than a hosting-solution may be useful for you.</p>\n\n<p>I made a listing of project-hosting-sites at <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10490/best-open-source-project-hosting-site#143546">this question</a>. Of these list only Origo allows you also to host a closed-source-project. As long as you want to open up your source, you can choose everyone on this list.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 5014207, 'author': 'jmq', 'author_id': 551899, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/551899', 'pm_score': 0, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>For my personal projects I use a git repository on a local Fedora Server (that is backed up daily).  I .tgz the repository and mysqldb (for bugzilla) and back it up on Carbonite AND a local, redundant hard drive.</p>\n\n<p>I can clone the git repository from any of my other machines into all other environments.</p>\n\n<p>With this you have a backup and version control.  I think my system is better than the one I have at work, LOL.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 8204837, 'author': 'Christian Specht', 'author_id': 6884, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/6884', 'pm_score': 0, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>As long as you want to publish your personal projects as open source, you have a lot of possibilities to choose from, because there are lots of hosters that provide this.</p>\n\n<p>If you just want to store your code somewhere online, but not share it with the world:<br>\nSome hosters also allow private repositories, but the only free one that I know of is <a href="https://bitbucket.org/" rel="nofollow">Bitbucket</a> (which I use myself for my private and open source projects).<br>\nThey allow an <a href="https://bitbucket.org/plans" rel="nofollow">unlimited number of public <strong>and</strong> private Mercurial and Git repositories</a>, the only limitation is that no more than five users can access your private repositories (you can have more, but then it\'s not free anymore).</p>\n'}]
['https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/33513', 'https://Stackoverflow.com', 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/572/']