Git is git, it'll be the same regardless of where your repository is hosted.

As for a GitHub desktop alternative, you can use any of the thousands of git guis.

In general you are not allowed to have private repos if you don't contribute to open source.

https://docs.codeberg.org/getting-started/faq/

They do recognize that private repos are sometimes needed, so there is a guideline.

Codeberg doesn’t have much compute available for CI runners, and asks that you use the runners they do have sparingly. If you’re into the self-hosting thing, you can run the Forgejo runner, which has the same workflow syntax as GitHub Actions, or you can run something like Woodpecker CI, which has its own workflow syntax. I’ve had better luck running Woodpecker myself and I have it running jobs for all my projects as well as a Renovate bot that runs every hour.

is there an alternative front-end for codeberg like there is gothub for github ?

As far as I know GitHub Desktop also works with other git hosting plattforms.

It may be outdated info though. Have you tried it with codeberg?