Dropbox as a GitHub Alternative

Want the benefits of private, distributed version control but don’t want to pay GitHub’s subscription fee? Or simply don’t trust GitHub with checked in passwords, tokens and secrets?

You can fashion yourself a quick and dirty solution using Git and Dropbox.

What You need

• Git
• Dropbox
• git-remote-dropbox

Step 1. Clone an Empty Repository

• Decide on a folder name for your new repo
• Clone it via git clone dropbox://<reponame>
• This will create a new, empty directory in your local with all the necessary .git gubbins

Step 2. Write Some Code!

• Get busy, write some code! Save it to your new local repo.
• Or if you’re feeling lazy, just copy-paste the code from somewhere else.

Step 3. Add, Commit and Push

• Stage the source code via git add
• Commit to your local repository via git commit
• Push to the Remote via git push

Step 4. Share and Collaborate

• Want to collaborate with someone? Just use Dropbox’s built in Share feature.
• Anyone you add can clone, add, commit and push too. Easy as!

Originally published at jamesfmackenzie.com