Get Smarter, Together
Learn, grow, and innovate with students and experts from NRW
Who is git.nrw for?
What does git.nrw offer?
Why a shared GitLab instance?
Collaborative work. Benefit from centrally operated infrastructure and GitLab Ultimate – funded by MKW and recommended by DH.NRW.
Central Maintenance & Updates
No more maintaining your own servers. Updates, backups, and security patches are handled centrally by the git.nrw team.
GitLab Ultimate
Free for all DH.NRW universities. Key Ultimate capabilities including CI/CD, security testing, and compliance management.
Collaborative Work
Cross-university collaboration made easy. Simply invite researchers and students from other NRW universities.
Data Sovereignty & GDPR
Hosted in Germany with a GDPR focus and minimized reliance on external services.
Comprehensive DevSecOps Toolset
Funding within the academic community:
Data & Content
- Versioning (Git)
- Online Editor
- Large Files (LFS)
- Releases & Tags
Project Management
- Task Boards
- Milestones & Planning
- Wikis & Documentation
- Epics & Iterations
Automation
- CI/CD Pipelines
- Integrated Templates
- Docker & Containers
- Package Management
Security & Quality
- Security Scans
- Dependency Check
- License Management
- Audit Logs & Compliance
git.nrw in comparison
Why git.nrw is the best choice for NRW universities
| Function |
|
GitHub / GitLab
|
Self-hosted
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Costs | Funded by MKW & DH.NRW | License costs for Enterprise Features & CI/CD Minutes | Effort for operations, updates & infrastructure |
| Enterprise / Ultimate Features | Included: SSO, Advanced Security, Epics, Roadmaps | Surcharge for: SSO (SAML), Advanced Security, Epics & Roadmaps | Requires GitLab Ultimate |
| GDPR-compliant | Yes | Uncertain | Yes |
| Hosting Location | Germany | USA | Germany |
| Maintenance & Updates | Centrally managed | Automatic updates | |
| SSO (University Login) | Yes | SAML SSO requires Enterprise Plan | |
| University Collaboration | Central | Central | Cross-university collaboration difficult |
| Support | Local contact persons & Central Expert Team | Free support often only via Community Forum, Enterprise Support mostly in English | No external support, everything must be solved yourself |
The best of both worlds
git.nrw combines the professional features of a cloud solution with the data sovereignty of a self-hosted instance – without the administrative hurdles and costs.
What users say
Practical experiences from students, teachers, and researchers
Is your university not yet involved?
git.nrw is open to all DH.NRW universities. Become part of the network and benefit from the shared GitLab infrastructure.
Contact us for information on the onboarding process and participation conditions.
Funded by the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia
Learn at your own pace
The level describes what a course assumes, not its topic. When in doubt, pick the lower one.
Beginner
No or first experience with version control. You cannot yet explain what a commit is.
Intermediate
Clone, commit, push, branch, merge, and Merge Requests are routine. Conflicts and rebase are not yet.
Expert
You resolve conflicts, rebase deliberately, design branching workflows, and write CI pipelines.
Community
Connect with other users and discover exciting projects
Connect in the Community Chat
Exchange ideas with other users, ask questions, and stay up to date. Our Mattermost chat is the central meeting point for the git.nrw community.
Showcase
git.nrw
The official website and documentation platform for git.nrw - the central GitLab instance for universities in North Rhine-Westphalia.
Divekit
Divekit CLI - A tool for distributing individualized repositories for students with automated tests.
Documentation
A guide for git.nrw starters, explaining active features and how to migrate your data from other instances.
