We performed a comparison between GitLab and Sonatype Nexus Firewall based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Result: Based on the parameters we compared, Sonatype Nexus Firewall came out ahead of GitLab. Although both products have valuable features and can be estimated as high-end solutions, our reviewers found that GitLab's complexity is its main drawback, which some users find overwhelming and difficult to navigate.
"The solution has an established roadmap that lays out its plans for upgrades over the next two to three years."
"It is very flexible and easy because you can store data on cloud."
"The important feature is the entire process of versioning source code maintenance and easy deployment. It is a necessity for the CI/CD pipeline."
"For us, Gitlab's most valuable feature is the integration with Cypress. We're using Cypress as an automation tool, so we're using GitLab as a tool for running in parallel."
"The initial setup of GitLab is pretty simple, with no complications."
"The dashboard and interface make it easy to use."
"GitLab is a solution for source code management, container registry, pipelines, testing, and deployment."
"The most valuable features of GitLab are the CI/CD pipeline and code management."
"Another thing that I like about Sonatype is that if you download something today, and five days from today it becomes vulnerable, it will notify you."
"The product's network and intrusion protection features are valuable. It also has rules and compliance features for security."
"The solution should again offer an on-premises deployment option."
"It would be better if there weren't any outages. There are occasions where we usually see a lot of outages using GitLab. It happens at least once a week or something like that. Whatever pipelines you're running, to check the logs, you need to have a different set of tools like Argus or something like that. If you have pipelines running on GitLab, you need a separate service deployed to view the logs, which is kind of a pain. If the logs can be used conveniently on GitLab, that would be definitely helpful. I'm not talking about the CI/CD pipelines but the back-end services and microservices deployed over GitLab. To view the logs for those microservices, you need to have separate log viewers, which is kind of a pain."
"Merge conflicts and repository maintenance could improve. If there is someone new to the system they would not know if there is a conflict."
"GitLab's UI could be improved."
"Atlassian offers more products than GitLab. GitLab offers source control management, version control and collaboration between developers. Atlassian offers features on top of this as well as more integration points for developers."
"I've noticed an area for improvement in GitLab, particularly needing to go through many steps to push the code to the repository. Resolving that issue would make the product better. My team quickly fixed it by writing a small script, then double-clicking or enabling the script to take care of the issue. However, that quick fix was from my team and not the GitLab team, so in the next release, if an automatic deployment feature would be available in GitLab, then that would be good because, in Visual Studio, you can do that with just one click of a button."
"The tool should include a feature that helps to edit the code directly."
"The solution does not have many built-in functions or variables so scripting is required."
"What I don't like is the lack of an option to pick up the phone and call someone for support. That is something they need to improve on. They need to have a professional services package, or they need to include that option with their services."
"The tool needs to improve its file systems. The product should also include zero test feature."
GitLab is ranked 6th in Application Security Tools with 70 reviews while Sonatype Repository Firewall is ranked 35th in Application Security Tools with 3 reviews. GitLab is rated 8.6, while Sonatype Repository Firewall is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of GitLab writes "Powerful, mature, and easy to set up and manage". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Sonatype Repository Firewall writes "You will get clean code every time, and that's a great achievement". GitLab is most compared with Microsoft Azure DevOps, SonarQube, Bamboo, AWS CodePipeline and Tekton, whereas Sonatype Repository Firewall is most compared with JFrog Xray, Cisco Secure Firewall, Black Duck, GitHub and Snyk. See our GitLab vs. Sonatype Repository Firewall report.
See our list of best Application Security Tools vendors and best Software Composition Analysis (SCA) vendors.
We monitor all Application Security Tools reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.