[1][2][3] Launched on November 3, 1994 as The Gate in the wake of an eleven-day newspaper strike,[4] and renamed SFGate in 1998, the site once served as the digital home of the San Francisco Chronicle.

[5] SFGate and the San Francisco Chronicle split into two separate newsrooms in 2019, with independent editorial staff.

[7] By 2021, the SFGate newsroom consisted of about 40 staff, including Drew Magary and Rod Benson.

[8] By 2025, SFGate had grown to 60 journalists in 23 different cities and claimed that it was now "the largest news site on the entire West Coast".

[9][10] In 2021, the site won 10 San Francisco Press Club awards for stories including a look at the future of San Francisco's Great Highway and a profile on members of the Paiute tribe saving their ancestral homeland from wildfires.