Gitlab what is it

What is Gitlab?

Before we dive into definition for Gitlab, first we need to understand few terminologies. We often come across these terms like Git, Gitlab, GitHub, and Bitbucket. Let’s see definiton of all these as below −

GitHub is a publicly available, free service which requires all code (unless you have a paid account) be made open. Anyone can see code you push to GitHub and offer suggestions for improvement. GitHub currently hosts the source code for tens of thousands of open source projects.

GitLab is a github like service that organizations can use to provide internal management of git repositories. It is a self hosted Git-repository management system that keeps the user code private and can easily deploy the changes of the code.

History

GitLab was found by Dmitriy Zaporozhets and Valery Sizov in October 2011. It was distributed under MIT license and the stable version of GitLab is 10.4 released in January 22, 2018.

Why to use GitLab?

GitLab is great way to manage git repositories on centralized server. GitLab gives you complete control over your repositories or projects and allows you to decide whether they are public or private for free.

Features

GitLab hosts your (private) software projects for free.

GitLab is a platform for managing Git repositories.

GitLab offers free public and private repositories, issue-tracking and wikis.

GitLab is a user friendly web interface layer on top of Git, which increases the speed of working with Git.

GitLab provides its own Continuous Integration (CI) system for managing the projects and provides user interface along with other features of GitLab.

Advantages

GitLab provides GitLab Community Edition version for users to locate, on which servers their code is present.

GitLab provides unlimited number of private and public repositories for free.

The Snippet section can share small amount of code from a project, instead of sharing whole project.

Disadvantages

While pushing and pulling repositories, it is not as fast as GitHub.

GitLab interface will take time while switching from one to another page.

What is GitLab

By Priya Pedamkar

Introduction to GitLab

Gitlab is a lifecycle tool that provides a vast repository on web-based DevOps. It provides issue tracking on CI/CD pipeline features by using an open-source license. The license is issued in the GitLab Inc. It is created by Valery Sizov on a multiple by tech enterprises such as IBM Sony, Cisco, Juniper, Oracle, and so on. The code in Gitlab is available from many program languages and mostly it is written in Ruby and fewer parts are scripted in Go. The code source management is developed to support the software development lifecycle. But now the Gitlab is emerged Ruby and Rails, Go and Vue.js. Some important features, advantages, and limitations of Gitlab are explained in this article.

Why we use GitLab

The applications of GitLab provide the functionality to make automation of the complete DevOps which makes a plan to design, create, build, verify, test, deploy, and monitoring on scalability, reputation, availability, and replication. The usage of GitLab is increasing day by day. Because of its wide features and brick blocks of code availability. The collaboration of code platforms is central which can be reused and implemented. It contains many CI/CD pipeline, container registry, integration of Kubernetes, and offers the best data portability. The data integration and monitoring make the GitLab more sustainable.

Web development, programming languages, Software testing & others

The projects of GitLab can be made private and public and it is made as an open-source to provide free access to everyone. The public repository on GitLab can be used for wikis, documentation, and tracking of issues. The GitLab enables the team to collaborate and work on the code which is scripted in Go and Ruby. It is aimed to store the information and array of committed objects with a bunch of references to it. It acts as a central hub where the beginners and developers are used to create, store, test, share, and collaborate on all the web projects.

Features of GitLab

The features of GitLab allows a powerful continuous integration and well-integrated continuous development pipelines. By using GitLab, it can prefer to pay and use the scheme to manually integrate the exterior CI services. For example, the CircleCI is an example of well-defined CI/CD pipelines of GitLab. The docker makes everything with the freely available container. It has an in-built registry that is instantly deployed without the need for configuration. The third-party servers are deployed to manage the docker images by using GitLab. The infrastructure management shows how properly the Kubernetes are organized in the GitLab. It creates a natural fit that is perfectly suitable for Kubernetes integration in it. The deployment of every branch and conduct every basic quality assurance in the real feature to merging of the Dev team and QA team and this collaboration becomes more effective. The project management offered in GitLab is and provides extensive and adaptable to all the workflow using GitLab boards. The examples offered by GitLab project management are group milestones, burnup, and burndown charts, issues of targeted dates, moving issues in between projects, and preparation of CSV exports. It can import enormous projects when compared to GitHub and also enable them to export other codes in the projects. The integrated monitoring is supported by GitLab to gather all the performance measures for both applications and servers. It let the user define the effects of combining both branch and production systems. The quick actions are possible only with it to make the coding compact easy and implied instantly.

Importance of GitLab

The other features of GitLab are setting and grouping of milestones, fixing a team and individual deadlines, shuffling and tracking of issues, configuration of many issues boards, focus and grouping of issue boards, managing multiple issue boards, labelling and resource to issue assignment, merging, assigning and closing of issues, configuring the issue closing sequences, fixing and setting the feature map and road maps, time tracking of confidential issues, marking of associated issues, burndown charts, integration of confidential issues, enrichment of marked issues, chat management issues, web based IDE’s, provide all time available service desk, the marked and described labels and protected tags, finder of fuzzy files, fast forward merges and squashed merges, the request and approval for merges, the conflict resolution on merges, statistical graph representation and report marking, discussion on merge request commit, email merge request, cherry picks up changes, activity streams, notification of customers, locking of files, branching and protected streams, permission and restriction of user access, incorporation of Git empowered WiKi, discussion, and resolution of images, templates, and inline comments, import of GitLab.com, debugging of containers, dynamic and static application and security, comprehensive pipelines graphics, quality report of codes, in-built CI/CD and container registry, chat deployment, secured and verification of custom domains, static web push, online visualization of HTML artifacts, triggering of scheduled pipelines, Jekyll plugin, auto DevOps, support of multiple Kubernetes cluster, monitoring of servers and applications, performance testing and load balancing of the servers and web browsers, widely used in subgroups, disaster recovery, compliance tools, inner sourcing, integration and analytics on API and management of everyday activities.

Advantages and Disadvantages

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This is a guide to What is GitLab. Here we discuss an introduction to GitLab, why we use it, features, importance, advantages, and disadvantages. You can also go through our other related articles to learn more –

What is GitLab and How to Use It?

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Table of Contents

GitLab is one of America’s fastest-growing private software companies, posting huge gains in 2021. The company provides a central server that manages Git repositories and is used to simplify the administration tasks of many corporations worldwide. According to Wikipedia, GitLab has over 100,000 users and is used by large, well-known organizations such as IBM, Sony, Goldman Sachs, and NASA.

But before we answer “what is Gitlab,”, let’s first gain an understanding of its relevance by looking at a use case.

Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. is a multinational investment bank and financial services company, providing services in investment management, securities, asset management, prime brokerage, and security underwriting. The organization has offices in many major financial centers around the world and operates with over 38,000 employees.

Even huge organizations like Goldman Sachs face unique issues and obstacles. Some of the most significant challenges recently faced by Goldman Sachs were:

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Challenges

Solution

GitLab to the rescue!

GitLab helped the engineering teams remove toolchain complexity and accelerate DevOps adoption. It enabled the team to develop an application that allowed Goldman Sachs’ developers to manage all efforts with one UI and simplified the administration by employing one centralized instance for all repositories.

Now that you’ve seen one example of GitLab’s applicability, let’s focus on its basics. To best grasp GitLab’s fundamentals, we must begin by understanding the «Git» part of the name.

What is Git?

Git is a version control system used to track changes in computer files. Git’s primary purpose is to manage any changes made in one or more projects over a given period of time. It helps coordinate work among members of a project team and tracks progress over time. Git also helps both programming professionals and non-technical users by monitoring their project files.В

Git can handle projects of any size. It allows multiple users to work together without having affecting each other’s work.В

Now that we have a better understanding of what Git is, let’s expand cast our net out further by looking at the hosting repository, GitLab.

What is GitLab?

GitLab is a web-based Git repository that provides free open and private repositories, issue-following capabilities, and wikis. It is a complete DevOps platform that enables professionals to perform all the tasks in a project—from project planning and source code management to monitoring and security. Additionally, it allows teams to collaborate and build better software.В

GitLab helps teams reduce product lifecycles and increase productivity, which in turn creates value for customers. The application doesn’t require users to manage authorizations for each tool. If permissions are set once, then everyone in the organization has access to every component.

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What is GitLab: History of GitLab

Why Use GitLab?

The main benefit of using GitLab is that it allows all the team members to collaborate in every phase of the project. GitLab offers tracking from planning to creation to help developers automate the entire DevOps lifecycle and achieve the best possible results. More and more developers have started to use GitLab because of its wide assortment of features and brick blocks of code availability.

Let’s have a look at a demo to better understand the basics of GitLab and its functionality,.

Learn the basics of Git VCS and understand how to setup Git in your system with theВ Git Training Course. Check out the course now.

To answer “what is GitLab,” a demo is always helpful.

Log in to your account.

After logging in, create a new project.

Choose a name, a description, and whether you want it to be private or publicly visible.

Open your Git Bash

For the first step, to configure your user name and email ID.

To configure, use the following commands:

Then, create the first repository.

To create a repository in the working directory, use the following commands:

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Now you can navigate to this repository, using the following command:

After navigating to this folder, you will find that the folder is currently empty.

Now it’s time to initialize a git repository. To initialize a repository, use the following command:

You will notice that something called the «master» appears on the screen. Whenever a Git repository is created for the first time, it creates a branch, and it’s called the master.

Navigate to the folder, and find the hidden «.git» folder.В

If you check the folder, you can see several directories and configurations. Make sure you don’t make any changes to any of the directories.

This is created when a repository is initialized.В

Now, create a notepad for the repository. Later on, you can push that file onto the GitLab repository.

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To create a notepad, use the following commands:

Notepad will appear on the screen. Type anything inside it, then save and close it.

The next step is to check the status of the file.

This shows that there isn’t a file committed yet, and there are untracked files. The untracked files can be seen in red.

Now, add the file to the staging area with the following command:

The next step is to commit the file. To commit, use the commit command.

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Recheck the status of the file.

You’ll notice that there are no more commits to be made, as there was a single notepad, and that was committed in the previous step.

Now, it’s time to push the notepad onto the GitLab repository.

To accomplish this, go to your GitLab and copy the git remote origin command, as shown below.

After you have done this, go back to your Git Bash and paste the command.

Now use the remote command, followed by the push command, to push the file to the remote repository.

Now go to your GitLab and check to see if there are any additions to the new project you initially created.

You can see that the notepad appears there. You can now open and check the contents of the notepad.

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GitLab Features

GitLab has a rich reserve of Git repository along with several additional features. Here are some of the key features of GitLab:

GitLab Advantages

GitLab Offers several critical advantages for developers. Here are some of the most important advantages of Gitlab:

GitLab Disadvantages

Of course, like any other tool available today, GitLab comes with its own share of disadvantages such as:

ConclusionВ

We hope this tutorial has helped you understand GitLab’s relevance. Through this article, you have learned the basics of Git and its remote repository, GitLab. By the end of this what is GitLab tutorial, you saw how GitLab works, thanks to the hands-on demo.

Want to Learn More?

If you want to kickstart your career in DevOps, check out our DevOps Engineer Master’s Program today. In this comprehensive program, you will learn about all the concepts, tools, and techniques to become a certified DevOps professional—a job role that is high-demand in today’s fast-paced digital world.

About the Author

KarinВ has spent more than a decade writing about emerging enterprise and cloud technologies. A passionate and lifelong researcher, learner, and writer,В KarinВ is also a big fan of the outdoors, music, literature, and environmental and social sustainability.

GitLab для начинающих: как и для чего используется

8 сентября 2021

GitLab для начинающих: как и для чего используется

В материале подробно разбираем, что такое GitLab, для чего используется, чем отличается от аналогов и как с ним работать.

Что такое GitLab

GitLab представляет собой веб-приложение и систему управления репозиториями программного кода для распределенной системы контроля версий Git. GitLab, как правило, используется с Git, что позволяет разработчикам сохранять написанный код в онлайн-формате и работать с другими разработчиками над разными проектами.

GitLab позволяет взаимодействовать с репозиториями, управлять правами доступа и пользователями, отслеживать ошибки, автоматизировать процессы и выполнять многие другие операции. Установить и использовать его можно на собственном сервере или же в облаке.

Для чего нужен GitLab

GitLab имеет множество возможностей, основные из них представлены ниже.

Планирование
GitLab способен эффективно поддерживать различные модели коллективной работы вне зависимости от выбранной методологии разработки. Гибкие инструменты управления проектами GitLab позволяют делать процесс разработки наглядным, координировать его, отслеживать и назначать приоритеты.

Создание
С Gitlab команда разработчиков может консолидировать исходный код в общей распределенной среде контроля версий. Веб-сервис позволяет управлять и поддерживать распределенную среду, не нарушая процессы разработки.

GitLab имеет целый арсенал инструментов для управления ветками и доступом к проектам, создавая общую достоверную среду для совместной работы команды разработчиков.

Тестирование
В GitLab реализованы инструменты ревью кода, его тестирования и оценки качества, что позволяет разработчикам быстрее находить ошибки и сокращать цикл их исправления.

Можно персонально настраивать модель приемки качества, тестировать код в автоматическим режиме и назначать изменения в среды тестирования для каждой версии кода.

Сборка
Репозиторий контейнеров GitLab дает возможность создавать безопасное хранилище кастомных образов контейнеров Docker. Причем для этого не придется задействовать дополнительные инструменты — возможности скачивания и загрузки образов внедрены в среду управления репозиторием Git по умолчанию.

Релиз
Компоненты поддержки технологий непрерывной доставки и развертывания позволяют эффективно автоматизировать операции, связанные со сборкой, автоматическим тестированием и установкой релизов. Установка релиза как на один сервер, так и на множество, будет занимать минимум времени.

Конфигурирование
GitLab позволяет автоматизировать весь процесс разработки приложения. Для этого предоставляются готовые шаблоны моделей, с которыми начать работу можно без сложных предварительных настроек — достаточно добавить специфику приложения на каждом этапе сборки и развертывания.

В качестве сервиса с предварительно настроенными шаблонами приложений для разработки можно использовать GitLab CE Virtual Appliance.

Мониторинг
С GitLab можно отслеживать время, затраченное на каждый этап, проверять работоспособность приложения, собирать и просматривать метрики, а также анализировать, как изменения кода влияют на производительность среды.

Git, GitLab и GitHub

Каждому разработчику важно знать и понимать, чем отличаются и схожи Git, GitLab и GitHub.

Git представляет собой распределенную систему контроля версий. Она позволяет разработчикам контролировать изменения в файлах и работать совместно с другими специалистами. Git также локально сохраняет весь репозиторий в файл небольшого объема, не снижая качества данных.

GitHub, как и GitLab, представляет собой онлайн-сервис для размещения репозиториев, удаленного управления ими и других задач разработки. В нем предусмотрены багтрекинг, вики для каждого проекта, история коммитов, графика, вложенные списки задач и многое другое.

Оба сервиса предназначены для использования группами разработчиков, поэтому многие функции и возможности GitHub и GitLab дублируются. Вместе с тем, есть и отличия:

Подробнее о том, чем еще отличается GitLab, можно прочитать на официальном сайте веб-приложения.

Еще одним решением для разработки является Cloud Container Engine от SberCloud — сервис для автоматизации развертывания, масштабирования и управления приложениями в высокопроизводительных кластерах Kubernetes. Он обеспечивает высокую производительность, корпоративную надежность и безопасность, а также открытость и совместимость.

Как пользоваться GitLab

Рассмотрим основные этапы работы с GitLab:

Создание аккаунта

На GitLab простая процедура регистрации. На главной странице официального сайта есть форма входа, в которой надо ввести только имя пользователя или адрес электронной почты и придумать пароль. После отправки запроса остается только подтвердить регистрацию в письме, отправленном на указанную почту.

Для входа можно использовать аккаунты в других сервисах и социальных сетях.

Создание репозитория

Для создания нового проекта надо нажать на значок «+» по центру экрана и выбрать соответствующий пункт.

При создании надо указать имя, описание репозитория и определить уровень доступа: приватный, доступный всем зарегистрированным или публичный.

После указания всех данных и нажатия на кнопку «Create repo», репозиторий будет создан, а на его странице будет доступен стартовый набор действий.

Также GitLab позволяет настроить работу удаленного репозитория. Это значит, что продвинутые пользователи смогут решать большинство рутинных задач через консольные команды или графических клиентов.

Загрузка файлов проекта

В интерфейсе предусмотрены удобные варианты загрузки проектов. На главной странице репозитория можно загрузить файл, создать новый файл, добавить лицензию и файл Readme. При этом загрузка файлов с компьютера выполняется быстро, не требует переформатирования или других операций.

SSH-ключи

Чтобы во время загрузки данных репозитория не приходилось вводить логин и пароль, для авторизации можно использовать SSH-ключи. Они создаются в несколько шагов:

После этого создается два файла — закрытый и открытый. Для создания ключей нужен открытый. Его нужно открыть в текстовом редакторе и скопировать содержимое в буфер обмена. Затем нужно перейти в GitLab и выбрать «Настройки» (Settings). В меню настроек в пункте «SSH Keys» в поле «Key» надо вставить скопированный ранее текст и сохранить изменения. Далее нужно перейти в репозиторий и нажать на кнопку «Clone». После этого нужно вернуться к локальному репозиторию, удалить адрес https и добавить ssh. На этом настройка SSH-ключей будет завершена.

Ветки репозитория

По умолчанию в репозитории GitLab предусмотрена только одна ветка — master(main). При этом для реализации вспомогательных функций отдельные этапы разработки можно выносить в независимые ветки. В веб-интерфейсе сервиса ветки отображаются слева, что упрощает переход между ними. Ветки создаются в пару кликов — нужно выбрать «+» по центру экрана и нажать «New branch». Кроме того, после обновления изменений в репозитории в GitLab отображаются и новые ветки, созданные в Git. Все операции с ветками можно выполнять через настройки.

Слияние веток

В ветках разрабатывается функциональность, поэтому может потребоваться их перенос — для этого предназначены запросы слияния («Merge request gitlab»). Для использования этой возможности в интерфейсе GitLab нужно нажать кнопку «Create merge request», задать описание «Merge Request», выбрать исходную и целевые ветки. После одобрения запроса на слияние надо нажать на кнопку «Merge». В результате файлы ветки преемника будут заменены файлами из ветки источника.

Добавление пользователей

В GitLab можно добавлять неограниченное количество разработчиков даже к приватным репозиториям. Чтобы сделать это, надо перейти в меню «Настройки» (Settings) и выбрать пункт «Участники» (Members). В этом пункте в поле «Выбрать участника для приглашения» (Select members to invite) надо указать адрес электронной почты пользователя или его никнейм. Перед отправкой приглашения также указывается уровень доступа. Для добавления надо нажать «Добавить в проект» (Add to project).

Удаление проекта

Возможные проблемы

При работе с GitLab могут возникать проблемы, для каждой из которых есть решение:

Веб-приложение GitLab является отличным решением для построения рабочих процессов CI/CD в облаке, в том числе если системы контроля и разработки надо установить на личном сервере.

GitLab имеет множество сфер применения и широкие возможности, что в сочетании с удобным инструментарием делает его удобным сервисом как для начинающих разработчиков, так и для профессионалов.

GitLab активно развивается как продукт, подстраиваясь под актуальные потребности разработчиков, поэтому его применение оправдано в проектах любого масштаба.

Gitlab — это великолепный веб-инструмент, который можно использовать для разработки проектов любого размера и сложности. Каждый разработчик или компания может найти в Gitlab для себя подход, который сделает разработку более надежной, качественной и быстрой. Я считаю, что Gitlab CI, разграничение ролей, автоматическое тестирование и мониторинг незаменимы для разработки в командах и оценки эффективности Кирилл Шеховцов Технический лидер в SberCloud.

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For beginners, what is Git?

Linus Torvalds, the creator of the open source Linux operating system also created the concept of git which is a distributed version control system. Git enables programmers to keep track of changes to their code and to collaborate with teams or other individuals. Git is free and open source, and it requires repositories to store code and information about the development of that code.

Git tracks changes in code by creating a commit every time the source code is changed. This keeps a visual record of all that’s happened to the code during its development. A repository is required to store all these versions of code and their commits. Members of DevOps teams can then access the repositories.

Why do you need Git?

Well, if you found this post, you’ve probably already decided that you can’t move forward without implementing a git service in workflow. When you start programming you can just keep everything on your local machine and learn, but once you develop a project that you would like to share with the community then you have to become more efficient.

You will discover a big world called open source, where multinational companies or single enthusiasts create valuable projects and share code with other people. Moreover a lot of people who don’t even know each other, will work together collaboratively on those projects as joint contributors.

Publishing your code in open source creates a social effect. You will be a part of the larger tech community. You will be able to ask others for code review, show your projects at a job interview or if you are good enough and you have created a cool service, other people might ask to join your project and help you build it!

Also, when you get your first job, it is 99% likely that you will face git storage in your company. As a company grows, they hire more software engineers, and a lot of engineers will work on one project. They therefore have to keep their code base up to date., That’s when git as a technology solves a big problem in the tech world. Services like GitLab and GitHub provide some cool features that help even more, such as branching, merge requests, pull requests, CI and so on.

GitLab vs GitHub

What’s the difference between GitLab and GitHub? Each service has its own development story and its unique strengths. Teams have many factors to consider when choosing their service. We’ll run through some of the basic attributes of each and then compare them on some specific issues. We hope to help you make the best decision for your projects. Both services are compatible with DeployPlace, allowing you to deploy your code directly from any git hosting platform you choose.

What is GitHub?

GitHub is an open source standard. Companies create their repositories on GitHub and allow other people to create issues and contribute to them. Huge parts of frameworks, libraries, etc. are open source projects and are hosted in GitHub.

What is GitLab?

When GitHub was acquired by Microsoft, the tech community became nervous that their open source privileges would be compromised. GitLab, a Ukrainian company, was established in 2011 as an alternative to GitHub. They sought to distinguish themselves by providing services that cover the entire DevOps lifecycle. More than 100,000 organisations use GitLab as of 2019, including IBM, Sony, and NASA.

There are important features to consider when considering whether to choose GitLab or GitHub, so keep in mind that you’re choosing the best of two already good options. Both are seeking to outdo expectations and provide more features than just being a repository. Understanding the strengths of each can help you choose the best tools for your team.

GitHub vs GitLab: Features

We will cover here all the main features that both Git storages provide, including free and paid plans and with a small description of each feature.

GitHub features:

GitLab features:

GitLab vs GitHub: Pricing

Let’s be real: often the driving factor in business decisions is the cost of service. The good news is that both GitLab and GitHub offer free versions of their products. They also have upgraded options for a monthly per-user fee.

GitHub’s pricing

Free usage includes:

GitLab’s pricing

Free usage includes:

GitHub deploy

Let’s talk a bit about deploy from GitHub. At the moment GitHub doesn’t provide any solution out of the box to build your code or even deploy. They plan to release GitHub Actions, but currently you have to use external CI tools, such as CircleCI, Jenkins, etc. Once you have a CI tool setup, your code will be built on every commit you do, and you may have to think about whether to deploy it on servers or the cloud. With DeployPlace you can deploy from GitHub directly if you have something simple like a static website or client app. In case you have some complex application, you can deploy from CI by connecting it to DeployPlace.

GitLab deploy

Deploy from GitLab is much easier to use compared to GitHub. As GitLab has its own CI built-in to the platform, all you have to do is set up it. GitLab has great documentation and tons of examples of how to setup GitLab CI. Once you establish your GitLab CI, you can deploy it via DeployPlace. As well as with GitHub you can deploy static web pages or client apps directly from GitLab without CI. For complex applications, you can connect your GitLab CI and DeployPlace will take care of the rest.

GitHub vs GitLab: Usage

One of the important things when choosing what to use is understanding where and for what purposes you will use it. GitHub has been a well-known service for years, most programmers know how to use it properly, and probably every programmer knows basics like branching, merging, merge requests, etc. GitHub is also well known as an open source hub. If you plan to contribute in open source a lot, GitHub should definitely be your choice!

On the other hand, GitLab is a more closed platform, but it provides other values. For example, if you have a big company or team of software engineers, you may need to build your projects and deploy them somehow. GitLab provides awesome CI features out of the box.

GitHub vs GitLab: Familiarity

Another important aspect to consider when choosing your programming platform is that of familiarity. What do your people already know how to use? How intense would the learning curve be to establish a new platform?

Since GitHub was developed earlier, it’s the old standby of git repositories. Most programmers will be very familiar with its interface.

GitLab mimics many aspects of GitHub’s interface, with the hopes of diminishing the learning curve. That said, it’s more likely to take a little getting used to for the average team.

GitLab vs GitHub: Scope

GitHub focuses on maintaining repositories and its social networking features. It does easily integrate with other applications for continuous integration (CI), continuous delivery (CD), bug tracking, etc. One drawback to using multiple third-party applications though is having to keep them all updated to avoid compromising the fluidity of your system.

GitLab intends to be a “Complete DevOps” system for the entire programming lifecycle. It includes issue trackers, CI, and much more. It also provides better granularity for user permissions. For example, you can give access to some components like bug tracking individually. Or grant access to the issue tracker without giving access to your source code.

Consider your project requirements

For small teams working on open source projects or startup projects, GitHub is the most popular choice. Developers can connect to a big community and ask for help or feedback, track their issues and invite contributors who will help to grow the project faster. GitHub has a great track record, the service is comfortable for most developers, and they provide a fast interface.

GitLab tends to be more robust for larger teams and more expansive projects. They seek to integrate the many overlapping functions of DevOps into one application. They’ve proven their reliability and provide a compelling alternative for programmers. GitLab looks like a more Enterprise focused solution. It provides a lot of things out of box, and some of them are great everyday tools. For a lone-wolf developer they provide private repos and a large set of features.

Should companies choose GitLab or GitHub?

Most startups choose GitHub as they provide flexible rules for them. Another reason is that in your work process you will likely create some utility services for your platform. These could be useful for other people. As in GitHub you can create an organisation and share some repositories with the community and keep some of them private as core codebase.

A list of companies that use GitHub:

GitLab is also a very popular choice in big companies, because of its project management system, CI out of box, and other features mentioned before.

A list of companies that use GitLab:

Other comments to consider in the GitLab vs GitHub debate:

What we use at DeployPlace?

At DeployPlace we use self-hosted GitLab. We have chosen GitLab as most of us are familiar with it. We are happy with all the features GitLab provides, and I can’t imagine our life without integrated GitLab CI. Another important feature for us is its integrated code review tool. We use it every day, we use merge requests, code reviews, and branching. To be honest, most of us have GitHub accounts as well, we like to contribute in open source, and we want to be a part of the tech community. The lack of solutions from GitHub in the area of CI doesn’t allow us to chose it for our projects though.