GitHub was co-founded by Tom Preston-Werner, Chris Wanstrath, and P. J. Hyett. The platform grew from a project intended to make sharing and collaborating on Git-based software easier.
Development began in 2007, and the website launched in 2008. The original team also included Scott Chacon, whose work helped shape GitHub’s early product and community. GitHub was initially bootstrapped: its founders used revenue from the service to support the company and hire employees before accepting major venture investment.
GitHub combines Git, a distributed version-control system, with web-based tools such as repositories, issue tracking, code review, project documentation, and collaboration features. Its name is often confused with Git itself, but the two are not the same: Git is the underlying version-control software, while GitHub is a hosting and collaboration platform built around it.
GitHub became a major home for open-source software and professional development teams. In June 2018, Microsoft agreed to acquire the company in an all-stock deal valued at $7.5 billion. The acquisition did not make GitHub a Microsoft product in name; it became a subsidiary while continuing to operate under the GitHub brand.