Gitea on Google Cloud Run

Gitea is a lightweight, self-hosted Git service and software forge (a community fork of Gogs, 45,000+ GitHub stars) that provides repository hosting, issue tracking, pull requests, code review, a package registry, and a built-in Actions CI/CD system from a single Go binary. This module deploys Gitea on Cloud Run v2 on top of the App_CloudRun foundation, which provisions and manages the shared Google Cloud infrastructure.

This guide focuses on the cloud services Gitea uses and how to explore and operate them from the Google Cloud Console and the command line. For the mechanics common to every Cloud Run application — service identity, ingress and load balancing, scaling and concurrency, CI/CD, Cloud Armor, IAP, Binary Authorization, VPC Service Controls, backups, and the deployment lifecycle — refer to the App_CloudRun foundation guide rather than repeating them here.

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What Gitea costs on RAD, and how that compares

Running Gitea in your own Google Cloud project costs about US$83.61/month in Google Cloud charges, on top of a one-time 110-credit RAD module fee (99 credits — 10% lower — in a RAD-managed project). Gitea is a lightweight, self-hosted Git service and source-code hosting platform (a community fork of Gogs) with 45,000+ GitHub stars. If you deploy into a RAD-managed project, you can pause the whole thing for free and pick it back up later — see "Pause it for free" below.

Gitea is also available on GKE — see the GKE guide if you need Kubernetes-based orchestration; this guide covers the lower-cost Cloud Run option.

What you pay on RAD

	Own project	RAD-managed project
Module fee	110 credits (one-time)	99 credits (one-time, 10% lower)
Build time	~3–6 credits (one-time, per build)	~3–6 credits (one-time, per build)
Google Cloud running cost	~US$83.61/month, billed to your own Google billing account at list price	~32 credits/day (~US$3.20/day), metered hourly at list price plus RAD's margin

Default running cost in your own project

Resource	US$/month (Google list price, us-central1)
Cloud Run, 1x vCPU / 2 GiB (scaleToZero)	US$13.16
Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL, 1 vCPU / 3.75 GB, zonal, 10 GB SSD	US$51.02
NFS/cache file server (small VM)	US$13.43
Cloud NAT and networking	US$5
Cloud Storage (add-ons, backups)	US$1
Total	US$83.61

How it compares

• Gitea Cloud's Enterprise tier starts at US$9.50/user/month (1-year commitment required online; SAML SSO, audit logs, priority support) — verified at https://about.gitea.com/pricing. For a team of five that is roughly US$47.50/month and climbing with headcount; RAD's own-project running cost is a flat ~US$83.61/month (Cloud Run) regardless of how many people use it, on an open-source instance you fully control.
• The honest trade here is cap vs. control, not price: a managed SaaS plan is cheaper at this scale, and RAD's running cost is what real Cloud SQL, compute and networking actually cost at Google's list price with nothing hidden in a bundled seat price.
• RAD is not claiming to be cheaper than a bare VPS in cash terms — it usually is not. The case for RAD is what's managed for you.

Pause it for free: delete a RAD-managed project, restore it when you need it

If Gitea is running in a RAD-managed project, you can stop paying for it entirely without destroying it. Deleting that project first unlinks its billing, then asks Google to delete the project outright — Google's own 30-day recoverable soft delete. Unlike deleting the Gitea module on its own, this does not tear down Cloud SQL, any VM or the compute resource one by one: the whole project simply stops, and nothing is charged while it waits, because billing is already unlinked.

Restoring, within 30 days and only by the project's owner, asks Google to undelete the project and reattaches its billing account, then asks you to run Update on each deployment to confirm everything came back. Because nothing was individually destroyed, that Update finds the same resources already there — it is a check, not a rebuild, and an Update never charges the module fee again. This costs only a handful of build-time credits in total — roughly 5–10 credits, under US$1, for a typical 2–3-deployment chain. The 99-credit module fee is not charged again.

What this needs: you must own the project (not one RAD only manages billing for), you must restore it yourself within 30 days — after that Google deletes it for good — and restoring is admitted like creating a new project, so your purchased credit balance must still clear the tier's floor (100 credits for the sandbox tier most study/demo use fits). Google says most services are fully working again within 36 hours of a restore.

One real gap: nightly backups are written to a bucket inside the project, and that bucket has Cloud Storage's soft-delete explicitly turned off, so it is very likely gone as soon as you delete the project — even though the project itself is recoverable for 30 days. If you have customised Gitea and want to keep that work, copy a backup out (to Google Drive, or a bucket outside the project) before deleting. For a default install with nothing irreplaceable in it, this does not matter.

Pay only while you use it, the other way: delete and redeploy

If Gitea is in your own project (or more than 30 days have passed on a RAD-managed one), the way to stop paying is to delete the deployment and redeploy later when you need it again.

A redeploy costs the module fee again, plus the builds: roughly 110 + ~3–6 credits (~US$11.45) in your own project, or 99 + ~3–6 credits on a RAD-managed one.

Deleting only saves money once Gitea would otherwise sit unused long enough to clear that redeploy cost against its own running cost: roughly about 5 days or more idle in your own project (against its ~US$83.61/month Google Cloud bill), or about 4 days or more idle in a RAD-managed project (against its ~32 credits/day).

Most of Gitea's running cost is the database and the shared file/cache VM. They stop only when nothing else in the project uses them, so deleting this app while something else shares the project saves only this app's own compute share of the total above.

Keep data first: nightly backups go to a bucket inside the deployment and are deleted with it, so copy the latest backup out before deleting if you want to keep it.

Lab sessions and Managed Environments

• Lab sessions, for training: a trainer runs a session for a class. Each participant gets the app in their own Google Cloud project for 15 minutes to 24 hours, within an allowance the trainer sets. Either the trainer funds every place, or each participant pays for their own. Everything is deleted when the session ends and unused credits go back to the trainer.
• Managed Environments, for consultancies: a partner runs the app for a client from a ring-fenced wallet it funds, and settles with the client directly. If the wallet runs low, billing pauses and the data is kept, so nobody receives an unexpected charge. At the end the partner hands the project over and the deployments become the client's own.
• Credits can be bought in more than 20 currencies, including XAF, XOF, NGN, GHS, KES and ZAR, by card, bank transfer or mobile money.

Sources (8 October 2026): Google Cloud Billing Catalog API list prices; radmodules.dev/pricing for RAD's own fees and daily-credit estimates; Google's project delete/restore docs for the pause/restore mechanics; Gitea Cloud pricing for the Gitea Cloud figures.

1. Overview

Gitea runs as a single Go-binary container on Cloud Run v2. The deployment wires together a focused set of Google Cloud services:

Capability	Google Cloud service	Notes
Compute	Cloud Run v2	1 vCPU / 2 GiB by default, request-based billing, scale-to-zero
Database	Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL 15	Repository metadata, users, issues, PRs — GITEA__database__DB_TYPE = "postgres"
Shared files	Filestore / NFS	Repositories, LFS objects, and attachments on the shared /mnt/nfs volume (gen2 required)
Object storage	Cloud Storage	A data bucket provisioned by the foundation, plus the automated-backup bucket
Secrets	Secret Manager	SECRET_KEY, INTERNAL_TOKEN, and the database password managed automatically
Container image	Artifact Registry + Cloud Build	Thin custom build over the official gitea/gitea image
Ingress	Cloud Run URL / Cloud Load Balancing	Default run.app URL, optional external HTTPS load balancer + custom domain

Sensible defaults worth knowing up front:

• PostgreSQL 15 is the wired engine. Gitea_Common sets GITEA__database__DB_TYPE = "postgres"; do not switch database_type to MySQL.
• The image is a near-stock custom build. Cloud Build produces FROM gitea/gitea:<version> plus a small platform entrypoint. The entrypoint exists because Cloud Run does not interpolate $(VAR) env references — it composes GITEA__database__{HOST,NAME,USER,SSL_MODE} from the foundation-injected DB_* values at container start and picks the right Postgres SSL mode per connection hop.
• DB user and name are tenant-prefixed. The foundation creates the role and database as gitea<tenant><hex> and injects them as DB_USER / DB_NAME; the entrypoint maps them into Gitea. Never hardcode gitea in database settings.
• TCP by default. enable_cloudsql_volume = false — Gitea connects to the Cloud SQL private IP over TCP with SSL_MODE = require (the entrypoint switches to disable automatically on the Unix-socket or proxy-loopback paths).
• All repository data lives on NFS. GITEA__server__APP_DATA_PATH is set to the NFS mount (/mnt/nfs), so repositories, LFS, and attachments survive restarts and are shared across instances.
• The first-run web installer is skipped. GITEA__security__INSTALL_LOCK = "true" — configuration is fully supplied via environment variables. The first user to register becomes the administrator.
• Self-registration is enabled by default (GITEA__service__DISABLE_REGISTRATION = "false"). Register your admin account immediately after deploy, then disable registration for private forges.
• A db-init job runs on every apply to idempotently create the Gitea PostgreSQL role and database.
• Health probes target /api/healthz — Gitea's unauthenticated health endpoint.
• Scale-to-zero, request-based billing. min_instance_count = 0, max_instance_count = 1, cpu_always_allocated = false. Set cpu_always_allocated = true only if you rely on scheduled mirror sync, repository health cron, or timed webhook delivery.

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2. Google Cloud Services & How to Explore Them

All commands assume PROJECT and REGION are set. Service and resource names are reported in the deployment Outputs.

A. Cloud Run — the Gitea service

Gitea runs as a Cloud Run v2 service that autoscales by request load between the minimum and maximum instance counts. Each deployment creates an immutable revision; traffic can be split across revisions for safe rollouts.

• Console: Cloud Run → select the service for revisions, traffic, logs, and metrics.
• CLI:

  gcloud run services list --project "$PROJECT" --region "$REGION"
  gcloud run services describe <service-name> --project "$PROJECT" --region "$REGION"
  gcloud run revisions list --service <service-name> --project "$PROJECT" --region "$REGION"

See App_CloudRun for scaling, concurrency, execution environment, and traffic splitting.

B. Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL 15

Gitea stores all relational data (users, repositories metadata, issues, pull requests, Actions state) in a managed Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL 15 instance, reached over the private VPC IP (no public endpoint). On first deploy a db-init Job creates the tenant-prefixed application role and database.

• Console: SQL → select the instance for connections, backups, flags, metrics.
• CLI:

  gcloud sql instances list --project "$PROJECT"
  gcloud sql instances describe <instance-name> --project "$PROJECT"
  gcloud sql connect <instance-name> --user=postgres --project "$PROJECT"

The instance name, database, user, and password secret are in the Outputs. See App_CloudRun for the connection model, backups, and password rotation.

C. Filestore (NFS) and Cloud Storage

Repository data — bare Git repositories, LFS objects, and issue attachments — is written under GITEA__server__APP_DATA_PATH on an NFS share mounted into the service, so it persists across restarts and revisions. A Cloud Storage data bucket is also provisioned, and scheduled backups land in the foundation's backup bucket. The gen2 execution environment is required for NFS mounts.

• Console: Filestore → Instances (or Compute Engine → VM instances for the self-managed NFS server); Cloud Storage → Buckets.
• CLI:

  gcloud filestore instances list --project "$PROJECT"
  gcloud storage buckets list --project "$PROJECT"
  gcloud storage ls gs://<data-bucket>/        # bucket name is in the Outputs

See App_CloudRun for the NFS mount, GCS Fuse, and CMEK.

D. Secret Manager

Three secrets are managed automatically: the database password (injected as GITEA__database__PASSWD), Gitea's SECRET_KEY (encrypts sensitive stored data such as 2FA and OAuth2 tokens), and its INTERNAL_TOKEN (authenticates Gitea's own internal API calls). All are generated once and injected at runtime; plaintext never appears in configuration.

• Console: Security → Secret Manager.
• CLI:

  gcloud secrets list --project "$PROJECT" --filter="name~gitea"
  gcloud secrets versions access latest --secret=<secret-name> --project "$PROJECT"

See App_CloudRun for injection and rotation details.

E. Artifact Registry & Cloud Build

The deployment builds a thin custom image (FROM gitea/gitea:<application_version> + the platform entrypoint) via Cloud Build and stores it in Artifact Registry. Incrementing application_version triggers a rebuild against the matching upstream tag.

• Console: Artifact Registry → Repositories; Cloud Build → History.
• CLI:

  gcloud artifacts repositories list --project "$PROJECT" --location "$REGION"
  gcloud builds list --project "$PROJECT" --limit 5

F. Networking & ingress

The service is reachable at its run.app URL by default. An external HTTPS load balancer with a custom domain, Cloud CDN, and Cloud Armor can be layered on; ingress settings and VPC egress control connectivity.

• Console: Cloud Run (service URL); Network services → Load balancing.
• CLI:

  gcloud run services describe <service-name> --region "$REGION" --format='value(status.url)'
  gcloud compute addresses list --project "$PROJECT"

See App_CloudRun.

G. Cloud Logging & Monitoring

Container logs flow to Cloud Logging; Cloud Run and Cloud SQL metrics flow to Cloud Monitoring, with optional uptime checks and alert policies.

• Console: Logging → Logs Explorer; Monitoring → Dashboards / Alerting.
• CLI:

  gcloud run services logs read <service-name> --project "$PROJECT" --region "$REGION" --limit 50

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3. Gitea Application Behaviour

• First-deploy database setup. A db-init Job (postgres:15-alpine) waits for the Cloud SQL instance, then idempotently creates the tenant-prefixed application role (with CREATEDB), creates the Gitea database owned by that role, and grants privileges. The job runs on every apply (execute_on_apply = true, up to 3 retries) and is safe to re-run.
• Runtime database wiring. The platform entrypoint logs a line like Gitea DB wired: host=… sslmode=… name=… user=… on every start, then hands off to Gitea's stock entrypoint (which writes all GITEA__* env vars into app.ini and launches the server under s6). When DB_HOST starts with / it is treated as the Cloud SQL Auth Proxy socket directory (SSL_MODE=disable); a loopback host means a proxy sidecar (disable); anything else is the private IP over TCP (SSL_MODE=require).
• Installer skipped; first registrant is admin. INSTALL_LOCK=true suppresses the web installer. Register the first account immediately after deploy — it receives administrator privileges. For private forges, then set GITEA__service__DISABLE_REGISTRATION = "true" via environment_variables.
• Clone URLs come from public_domain / public_url. These drive GITEA__server__DOMAIN and GITEA__server__ROOT_URL. The defaults (localhost / derived) produce wrong clone URLs and redirects — set them to the service's run.app host or your custom domain.
• HTTPS clone only. Cloud Run routes only the HTTP container_port (3000). The image's bundled SSH daemon is not reachable, so use HTTPS remotes (with a Gitea access token or password); SSH-based git clone is not available on this platform.
• Gitea Actions. The built-in Actions CI/CD server ships with Gitea, but job execution requires separate act_runner compute that this module does not provision.
• Health path. Startup and liveness probes target /api/healthz, which returns HTTP 200 without authentication once Gitea is serving.
• Verification CLI:

  SERVICE_URL=$(gcloud run services describe <service-name> --region "$REGION" --format='value(status.url)')
  curl -s -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code}\n" "$SERVICE_URL/api/healthz"

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4. Configuration Variables

Variables are grouped exactly as they appear on the deployment platform. Only settings specific to or notable for Gitea are listed; every other input is inherited from App_CloudRun with its standard behaviour.

Group 1 — Project & Identity

Variable	Default	Description
project_id	(required)	Target Google Cloud project.
region	us-central1	Region for the service and regional resources.

Group 2 — Deployment Environment

Variable	Default	Description
tenant_id	demo	Short suffix that makes resource names unique per environment.
support_users	[]	Emails granted project access and monitoring alerts.
resource_labels	{}	Labels applied to all resources.

Group 3 — Application Identity

Variable	Default	Description
application_name	gitea	Base name for resources. Do not change after first deploy.
display_name	Gitea	Friendly name shown in the Console.
application_version	1	Upstream gitea/gitea image tag the custom build is based on; increment (e.g. 1.24) to upgrade.

Group 4 — Runtime & Scaling

Variable	Default	Description
deploy_application	true	Set false to provision infrastructure only.
container_image_source	custom	custom builds the thin wrapper image (required); prebuilt deploys the stock image, which does not work on Cloud Run (no $(VAR) env interpolation for the DB wiring).
cpu_limit	1000m	CPU per instance.
memory_limit	2Gi	Memory per instance.
container_port	3000	Gitea's HTTP port (GITEA__server__HTTP_PORT).
min_instance_count	0	Scale-to-zero by default; set 1 to eliminate cold starts.
max_instance_count	1	Cost ceiling.
cpu_always_allocated	false	Request-based billing. Set true if you rely on scheduled mirror sync, repo health cron, or timed webhook delivery.
enable_cloudsql_volume	false	TCP to the Cloud SQL private IP (SSL required by the entrypoint). Set true for the Unix-socket Auth Proxy path.
execution_environment	gen2	Required for the NFS mount.
enable_image_mirroring	true	Mirror the base image into Artifact Registry to avoid Docker Hub rate limits.

All other inputs follow standard App_CloudRun behaviour.

Group 5 — Access & Ingress Control

Variable	Default	Description
ingress_settings	all	Which networks may reach the service.
enable_iap	false	Require Google sign-in via Identity-Aware Proxy — note IAP in front of Gitea also gates git HTTP clients.

All other inputs follow standard App_CloudRun behaviour.

Group 6 — Environment Variables, Secrets & Public URL

Variable	Default	Description
environment_variables	placeholder EMAIL_SMTP_* map	Extra env vars merged over the module defaults. Gitea itself is configured via GITEA__<section>__<KEY> names (e.g. GITEA__mailer__SMTP_ADDR, GITEA__service__DISABLE_REGISTRATION); the placeholder EMAIL_SMTP_* keys are not read by Gitea.
public_domain	localhost	Sets GITEA__server__DOMAIN — drives clone URLs. Set to your real host.
public_url	""	Sets GITEA__server__ROOT_URL; empty derives http://<public_domain>/. Set to https://<host>/ in production.
secret_environment_variables	{}	Map of env var → Secret Manager secret name.

All other inputs follow standard App_CloudRun behaviour.

Group 7 — Backup & Restore

Variable	Default	Description
backup_schedule	0 2 * * *	Automated database/NFS backup cron (UTC).
backup_retention_days	7	Retention; raise for production/compliance.
enable_backup_import / backup_source / backup_uri / backup_format	restore options	Restore from a backup on deploy.

Groups 8–11 — CI/CD, Custom SQL, Domain/CDN/WAF, Storage

Standard App_CloudRun behaviour — see App_CloudRun. Gitea-notable entries:

Variable	Default	Description
enable_nfs	true	Keep enabled — repositories, LFS, and attachments live on the NFS share.
nfs_mount_path	/data	Mount path; also becomes GITEA__server__APP_DATA_PATH.
storage_buckets	one data bucket	Foundation-provisioned GCS bucket.
application_domains	[]	Custom hostnames for the external LB — keep in sync with public_domain.

Group 12 — Database Backend

Variable	Default	Description
database_type	POSTGRES_15	Gitea is wired for PostgreSQL — do not change.
db_name	gitea	Base database name; the foundation tenant-prefixes it and injects it as DB_NAME.
db_user	gitea	Base application user; tenant-prefixed and injected as DB_USER. The password is injected as GITEA__database__PASSWD.
database_password_length	32	Generated password length (16–64).
enable_auto_password_rotation	false	Automated DB password rotation.

All other inputs follow standard App_CloudRun behaviour.

Group 13 — Jobs & Scheduled Tasks

Variable	Default	Description
initialization_jobs	[]	Leave empty to use the built-in db-init job (postgres:15-alpine).
cron_jobs	[]	Recurring jobs triggered by Cloud Scheduler.

Group 14 — Observability & Health

Variable	Default	Description
startup_probe	HTTP /api/healthz, 30 s delay, 10 failures	Startup probe against Gitea's health endpoint.
liveness_probe	HTTP /api/healthz, 15 s delay	Liveness probe.
uptime_check_config	disabled, path /	Cloud Monitoring uptime check — enable for production.
alert_policies	[]	Metric alert policies.

Group 21 — Redis Cache

The Redis inputs (enable_redis, redis_host, redis_port, redis_auth) are declared for platform convention but are not forwarded by this module — Gitea does not use Redis here; setting them has no effect.

Group 22 — VPC Service Controls & Audit Logging

Variable	Default	Description
enable_vpc_sc	false	Enforce a VPC-SC perimeter.
vpc_cidr_ranges / vpc_sc_dry_run	(set)	Access level CIDRs / dry-run mode.
enable_audit_logging	false	Detailed Cloud Audit Logs.

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5. Outputs

Returned on a successful deployment — the quickest way to locate and explore the running resources.

Output	Description
service_name	Cloud Run service name.
service_url	Default run.app URL of the service.
service_location	Region the service runs in.
stage_services	Stage-specific service URLs (Cloud Deploy).
load_balancer_ip / load_balancer_url	External HTTPS load balancer IP / URL (when enabled).
database_instance_name	Cloud SQL instance name.
database_name / database_user	Tenant-prefixed application database name / user.
database_password_secret	Secret Manager secret holding the DB password.
database_host / database_port	DB endpoint (sensitive) / port.
storage_buckets	Created Cloud Storage buckets.
network_name / network_exists / regions	VPC network, presence, regions.
container_image / container_registry	Deployed image and Artifact Registry repo.
monitoring_enabled / monitoring_notification_channels / uptime_check_names	Monitoring status, channels, uptime checks.
initialization_jobs	Names of the setup jobs.
deployment_id / tenant_id / resource_prefix	Naming identifiers.
project_id / project_number	Project identifiers.
cicd_enabled / github_repository_url / github_repository_owner / github_repository_name / cicd_configuration	CI/CD status and details.
artifact_registry_repository / cloudbuild_trigger_name / cloudbuild_trigger_id	Registry and build trigger.
vpc_sc_enabled / vpc_sc_perimeter_name / vpc_sc_dry_run_mode	VPC-SC status.
audit_logging_enabled / artifact_registry_cmek_enabled	Audit logging and CMEK status.

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6. Configuration Pitfalls & Sensible Defaults

Risk: Critical (data loss / outage / security) — High (service degraded) — Medium (cost or partial degradation) — Low (minor).

Setting	Sensible value	Risk	Consequence if wrong
database_type	POSTGRES_15	Critical	The module wires GITEA__database__DB_TYPE=postgres; another engine breaks startup.
db_name / db_user	set once	Critical	Immutable after first deploy; renaming recreates the DB/user and orphans all forge data.
enable_nfs	true	Critical	Without the NFS share, repositories/LFS/attachments live on ephemeral disk and vanish on restart or scale-to-zero.
container_image_source	custom	Critical	The stock image has no platform entrypoint; Gitea tries to dial a host literally named $(DB_HOST) and never starts.
container_port	3000	Critical	Mismatching Gitea's HTTP port fails every probe.
Database settings via env	never hardcode gitea	Critical	The real DB_USER/DB_NAME are tenant-prefixed; hardcoding fails with password authentication failed.
GITEA__service__DISABLE_REGISTRATION	true after first admin	High	Left open, anyone who finds the URL can register on your forge (the very first registrant is admin — claim it immediately).
public_domain / public_url	real host	High	Defaults (localhost) produce broken clone URLs and redirects in the UI.
execution_environment	gen2	High	NFS mounts require gen2.
enable_cloudsql_volume	false (TCP)	High	If flipped to socket mode, the entrypoint adapts — but mismatched manual GITEA__database__HOST overrides break the SSL-mode selection.
cpu_always_allocated	false, or true for mirrors/cron	Medium	Request-based billing throttles background work; scheduled mirror sync and timed webhooks stall while idle.
min_instance_count	0 (or 1 for teams)	Medium	Scale-to-zero adds a cold start to the first git operation after idle.
uptime_check_config	enable for production	Medium	Disabled by default; no external availability signal.
backup_retention_days	7 (raise for prod)	Medium	Too short for compliance retention.

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For the foundation behaviour referenced throughout — service identity, scaling and concurrency, ingress and load balancing, CI/CD, Cloud Armor, IAP, Binary Authorization, VPC-SC, backups, and image mirroring — see App_CloudRun. Gitea-specific application configuration shared with the GKE variant is described in Gitea_Common.

Related guides

• Hands-on lab: Gitea on Cloud Run — deploy it step by step, with the console screens and commands at each stage.
• Gitea on GKE Autopilot — the same application on Kubernetes, for when you need the other deployment target.
• Gitea Common — Shared Application Configuration — the configuration shared by both deployment targets.
• Deployed alongside Woodpecker CI on GKE Autopilot, Hoppscotch on Google Cloud Run, GlitchTip on Google Cloud Run in the Source Control & CI/CD solution.