The more than 75,000 organizations that rely on GitHub Inc. to manage their software projects now have a new and more convenient way of using its code repository platform.

In a blog post published today, the company announced the introduction of a hosted, fully managed tier that delivers key features from its on-premises enterprise offering.

Their biggest shared selling point is a strong focus on security. Organizations can connect GitHub’s new service to their third-party authentication provider of choice to regulate how developers access company code, monitor activity and gain the ability to quickly add or remove user permissions when project requirements change.

Rounding out the value proposition is a 99.95 percent uptime guarantee that ensures software repositories managed by GitHub are available when a company’s developers need them. The new service is priced the same as the on-premise version at $21 per seat per month, which in practice makes it cheaper since organizations don’t have to spend resources on managing their deployments.

On the downside, however, it appears that the hosted version doesn’t provide some of the more advanced features included in GitHub Enterprise. Among the capabilities not listed in today’s launch announcement is the centralized compliance and auditing mechanism that enables users of the latter product to identify potential security problems. Since it’s one of the main draws, there’s a good chance that GitHub will need to fill the gap in future releases if there’s enough demand from customers.

Either way, the new managed tier represents an important addition to its lineup as more and more traditional enterprises that until recently kept their code on-premises move to the cloud. Plus, the offering should also appeal to smaller companies that require stronger security controls than those included in GitHub’s cheaper plans.

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