On Friday, March 31st, Microsoft announced that Codeplex, the company’s current project-hosting service, will be closed down. GitHub will become the new Microsoft-recommended software development platform.

Microsoft launched Codeplex in 2006. Built on the novel idea of sharing software, Codeplex allowed its users to create projects, collaborate with others on such projects, and then share their work with the world. Individuals interested in working with others could access the software on their personal computers and make their own necessary changes. In this way, Codeplex came to feature wiki pages, discussion forums, and project tagging.

However, Codeplex’s innovative capabilities have gradually lost appreciation among users.  Codeplex has been criticized for having loading speed that is “too slow for 2017,” as well as an outdated searching function. Customers have also complained that its email notifications and code review function do not reliably work properly.

GitHub was created by software entrepreneur Thomas Preston-Werner in 2008. Despite having been released after Codeplex, GitHub has become the most popular program for open source projects. A major reason for GitHub’s success is its adaptation of Git, a distributed version control system. The Git function enables the program to efficiently store and monitor version modifications, allowing its users to easily upload new versions of software. GitHub is also known for its secure storage of file changes and guarantee of file integrity.

Microsoft expounds its decision to switch from Codeplex to GitHub with the rationale of “going where the community is.” GitHub is generally preferred over Codeplex as a software program. It currently has over 16,000 open source contributors – more than any other organization.

Shortly after Microsoft’s announcement on March 31st, the ability to create new Codeplex projects was disabled. Codeplex will be set to read-only in October and then shut down completely on December 15, 2017. Codeplex is Git-ing out.