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Several of these answers are significantly out of date in regards to comments about GitHub and security because of changes at GitHub since they were posted.

• GitHub does not force you to be externally hosted
• The FREE version of GitHub is what puts this restriction in place.
• There is an Enterprise Version of GitHub available for for internal hosting. https://enterprise.github.com/home . It is not free and costs $ of course

The company I work at just started using it and we had the EXACT same concerns because our code is a trade secret, we are in the finance sector. That aside there are other ways to use GIT that dont involve GitHub that are similar, redmine, gitosis, etc...

Regarding the "who's using it" question: PayPal, Etsy, rackspace, vimeo, SAP, NASA's JPL, Linux Kernel

Compelling technical reasons are too many to list. The only thing worth focusing on here is the high level bigger enterprise issues which the other answers point out. The biggest one I can think of is consistency, uniformity, clear auditing, simplicity of auditing. Though solving a treasure trove of problems with many of these other VCS systems is a big one.

There are reductions in duplicated effort to all of those departments that have to write different wacky scripts to integrate between the different systems, to audit them and report on them and control them.

• Everytime I've had to use SVN in a paranoid environment like a trading firm, the absurd 'compliance' and 'security' hooks were so extremely detrimental to performance.

Since I glossed over the technical usage issues from a dev prospective, I'll say this. I've used CVS, SVN, CMVC, clearcase, perforce, and other systems in a professional setting along with GIT. If someone wanted me to use something other than GIT ( with the exception perhaps of bzr, mercurial, perforce and clearcase ( depending on the setup of the last two ) ) I would immediately know my time is better spent elsewhere.

Several of these answers are significantly out of date in regards to comments about GitHub and security because of changes at GitHub since they were posted.

• GitHub does not force you to be externally hosted
• The FREE version of GitHub is what puts this restriction in place.
• There is an Enterprise Version of GitHub available for for internal hosting. https://enterprise.github.com/home . It is not free and costs $ of course

The company I work at just started using it and we had the EXACT same concerns because our code is a trade secret, we are in the finance sector. That aside there are other ways to use GIT that dont involve GitHub that are similar, redmine, gitosis, etc...

Regarding the "who's using it" question: PayPal, Etsy, rackspace, vimeo, SAP, NASA's JPL, Linux Kernel

Compelling technical reasons are too many to list. The only thing worth focusing on here is the high level bigger enterprise issues which the other answers point out. The biggest one I can think of is consistency, uniformity, clear auditing, simplicity of auditing. Though solving a treasure trove of problems with many of these other VCS systems is a big one.

There are reductions in duplicated effort to all of those departments that have to write different wacky scripts to integrate between the different systems, to audit them and report on them and control them.

• Everytime I've had to use SVN in a paranoid environment like a trading firm, the absurd 'compliance' and 'security' hooks were so extremely detrimental to performance.

Since I glossed over the technical usage issues from a dev prospective, I'll say this. With 15+ years of total usage I've used CVS, SVN, CMVC, clearcase, perforce, and other systems in a professional setting along with GIT. If someone wanted me to use something other than GIT ( with the exception perhaps of bzr, mercurial, perforce and clearcase ( depending on the setup of the last two ) ) I would immediately know my time is better spent elsewhere. I was nearly at that conclusion ( albeit extending a slight allowance to CVS and SVN ) back in 2009. I was so fed up with the short falls of how SVN was used at my workplace I started using GIT as my SVN client in early 2010 before helping to convince us to change over to GIT.

Several of you have missed an absolutely key and critically important piece of information in regards to GitHub that has a significant impact on your points

• GitHub does not force you to be externally hosted
• FREE version of GitHub is what puts this restriction in place.

There is an Enterprise Version of GitHub available for for internal hosting. https://enterprise.github.com/home . It is not free and costs $ of course

The company I work at just started using it and we had the EXACT same concerns because our code is a trade secret, we are in the finance sector. That aside there are other ways to use GIT that dont involve GitHub that are similar, redmine, gitosis, etc...

Regarding the "who's using it" question: PayPal, Etsy, rackspace, vimeo, SAP, NASA's JPL, Linux Kernel

Compelling technical reasons are too many to list. The only thing worth focusing on here is the high level bigger enterprise issues which the other answers point out. The biggest one I can think of is consistency, uniformity, clear auditing, simplicity of auditing. Though solving a treasure trove of problems with many of these other VCS systems is a big one.

There are reductions in duplicated effort to all of those departments that have to write different wacky scripts to integrate between the different systems, to audit them and report on them and control them.

• Everytime I've had to use SVN in a paranoid environment like a trading firm, the absurd 'compliance' and 'security' hooks were so extremely detrimental to performance.

Since I glossed over the technical usage issues from a dev prospective, I'll say this. I've used CVS, SVN, CMVC, clearcase, perforce, and other systems in a professional setting along with GIT. If someone wanted me to use something other than GIT ( with the exception perhaps of bzr, mercurial, perforce and clearcase ( depending on the setup of the last two ) ) I would immediately know my time is better spent elsewhere.

Several of these answers are significantly out of date in regards to comments about GitHub and security because of changes at GitHub since they were posted.

• GitHub does not force you to be externally hosted
• The FREE version of GitHub is what puts this restriction in place.
• There is an Enterprise Version of GitHub available for for internal hosting. https://enterprise.github.com/home . It is not free and costs $ of course

The company I work at just started using it and we had the EXACT same concerns because our code is a trade secret, we are in the finance sector. That aside there are other ways to use GIT that dont involve GitHub that are similar, redmine, gitosis, etc...

Regarding the "who's using it" question: PayPal, Etsy, rackspace, vimeo, SAP, NASA's JPL, Linux Kernel

Compelling technical reasons are too many to list. The only thing worth focusing on here is the high level bigger enterprise issues which the other answers point out. The biggest one I can think of is consistency, uniformity, clear auditing, simplicity of auditing. Though solving a treasure trove of problems with many of these other VCS systems is a big one.

There are reductions in duplicated effort to all of those departments that have to write different wacky scripts to integrate between the different systems, to audit them and report on them and control them.

• Everytime I've had to use SVN in a paranoid environment like a trading firm, the absurd 'compliance' and 'security' hooks were so extremely detrimental to performance.

Since I glossed over the technical usage issues from a dev prospective, I'll say this. I've used CVS, SVN, CMVC, clearcase, perforce, and other systems in a professional setting along with GIT. If someone wanted me to use something other than GIT ( with the exception perhaps of bzr, mercurial, perforce and clearcase ( depending on the setup of the last two ) ) I would immediately know my time is better spent elsewhere.

Several of you have missed an absolutely key and critically important piece of information and it has tarnished the duration of your answer.

• GitHub does not force you to be externally hosted
• FREE version of GitHub is what puts this restriction in place.

There is an Enterprise Version of GitHub available for for internal hosting. https://enterprise.github.com/home . It is not free and costs $ of course

The company I work at just started using it and we had the EXACT same concerns because our code is a trade secret, we are in the finance sector. That aside there are other ways to use GIT that dont involve GitHub that are similar, redmine, gitosis, etc...

Regarding the "who's using it" question: PayPal, Etsy, rackspace, vimeo, SAP, NASA's JPL, Linux Kernel

Compelling technical reasons are too many to list. The only thing worth focusing on here is the high level bigger enterprise issues which the other answers point out. The biggest one I can think of is consistency, uniformity, clear auditing, simplicity of auditing. Though solving a treasure trove of problems with many of these other VCS systems is a big one.

There are reductions in duplicated effort to all of those departments that have to write different wacky scripts to integrate between the different systems, to audit them and report on them and control them.

• Everytime I've had to use SVN in a paranoid environment like a trading firm, the absurd 'compliance' and 'security' hooks were so horrible that using the system was miserable.

Since I glossed over the technical usage issues from a dev prospective, I'll say this. I've used CVS, SVN, CMVC, clearcase, perforce, and other systems in a professional setting along with GIT. If someone wanted me to use something other than GIT ( with the exception perhaps of bzr, mercurial, perforce and clearcase ( depending on the setup of the last two ) ) I would immediately know my time is better spent elsewhere.

Several of you have missed an absolutely key and critically important piece of information in regards to GitHub that has a significant impact on your points

• GitHub does not force you to be externally hosted
• FREE version of GitHub is what puts this restriction in place.

There is an Enterprise Version of GitHub available for for internal hosting. https://enterprise.github.com/home . It is not free and costs $ of course

The company I work at just started using it and we had the EXACT same concerns because our code is a trade secret, we are in the finance sector. That aside there are other ways to use GIT that dont involve GitHub that are similar, redmine, gitosis, etc...

Regarding the "who's using it" question: PayPal, Etsy, rackspace, vimeo, SAP, NASA's JPL, Linux Kernel

Compelling technical reasons are too many to list. The only thing worth focusing on here is the high level bigger enterprise issues which the other answers point out. The biggest one I can think of is consistency, uniformity, clear auditing, simplicity of auditing. Though solving a treasure trove of problems with many of these other VCS systems is a big one.

There are reductions in duplicated effort to all of those departments that have to write different wacky scripts to integrate between the different systems, to audit them and report on them and control them.

• Everytime I've had to use SVN in a paranoid environment like a trading firm, the absurd 'compliance' and 'security' hooks were so extremely detrimental to performance.

Since I glossed over the technical usage issues from a dev prospective, I'll say this. I've used CVS, SVN, CMVC, clearcase, perforce, and other systems in a professional setting along with GIT. If someone wanted me to use something other than GIT ( with the exception perhaps of bzr, mercurial, perforce and clearcase ( depending on the setup of the last two ) ) I would immediately know my time is better spent elsewhere.