Funny timing — I've been working on a hosted Fossil service to scratch this exact itch. The integrated wiki+forum+tickets+code is killer for small teams, but most people who'd pick Fossil don't actually want to babysit a server. So we host it.
Two things I keep coming back to: (1) The "opinionated / small-teams only" critique others have raised in this thread is real, and I think Fossil should own it instead of fighting it. The 5,000-engineer monorepo market is a solved problem (Git won). Fossil should own the 1-50 person bracket — where having issues, wiki, forum, and code in one self-contained, syncable SQLite file is a huge unfair advantage.
(2) AI agents are a brand-new reason to look at Fossil that didn't exist when Git won. Every repo is a queryable SQLite file. An agent reads tickets + wiki + code + history with one SELECT — not 47 GraphQL calls and a rate limit. RAG and MCP setups against the repo become trivial.
We're stuck on the name (fossilforge vs fossilhub). If you have an opinion: https://fossilhub.io | https://fossilforge.io — vote, get early access.
The self-hosted side is already shipping at fossilrepo.io if you'd rather run your own.
--- Disclosure: founder, so grain of salt accordingly.
Fossil is very easy to self host. If you already have a web server it needs maybe 10 or 15 lines of server config. If you want to avoid start up you need something to autostart/restart the server process. If you point it at a directory you can add a new repo simply by adding a Fossil file to the directory.
You can even run it on shared hosting as a CGI (never done it myself).
The only thing that took some setup was sending email notifications.
> The "opinionated / small-teams only" critique others have raised in this thread is real, and I think Fossil should own it instead of fighting it.
I agree I use Fossil for multiple personal and small projects. Anywhere I can, really. It is very simple and everything is distributed.
You should continue with a name which is related to fossils, fossillab.io, boneyard.dev and so on…
fossilised.dev .. maybe british spelling.
palaeontology.dev ... too awkward.
museum.dev has a sort of "this is dead" ring to it.
Ironically what fossils are stored in within a museum is referred to as a "repository"..
Well, there's only 2 hard problems in computer science right?
The best know hosted Fossil service is https://chiselapp.com/
Yeah, museum sounds like dead and rot… However on my small site [1] that’s the name of the fossil repos page
[1]: https://hdrz.cc/museum
> what fossils are stored in within a museum is referred to as a "repository"
I own a cute domain for that: repositoryum.com. I had the plans for it, but it's one of those that never came to a realization.
Maybe something fossil-adjacent:
- amber.dev
- quarry.sh
You’ll probably need to play with gTLDs to find something that works.
Can also echo “scm” from fossil’s domain:
- amberscm.dev
Along with useX.com, Xhq.com, etc., patterns.
Of the two you have listed, I’d choose fossilforge, but would vote for an alternative TLD since .io has an expected meaning coming from GitHub.
Or, hear me out, we learn to host our own shit again and stop giving all our data to $megacorp after the inevitable buyout.