We performed a comparison between GitHub and GitLab 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 reviews provided by users, GitHub and GitLab both seem to provide comprehensive and practical software development and project management tools. Long-time users find GitLab's customer service and responsiveness less reliable than GitHub's because they haven't had enough time to develop in that direction.
"GitHub's version control is valuable."
"This solution is just easy to use."
"GitHub's source code management is top-notch. It's easy to inspect changes and visualize code and differences. Their action system is comprehensive in terms of making changes and automation."
"It is really simple to set up."
"I have found GitHub stable."
"GitHub is pure or open-source; you can access it anywhere. You can have a lot of collateral information. You can make the changes and do the reviews from one place."
"The deployment is fast since we just have to run the script, and once it's done, it takes a few minutes."
"GitHub is the best tool for source repositories."
"The solution has an established roadmap that lays out its plans for upgrades over the next two to three years."
"The user interface is really good so that helps with huge teams who need to collaborate."
"The dashboard and interface make it easy to use."
"GitLab is very useful for pipelines, continuous integration, and continuous deployment. It is also stable."
"GitLab is a solution for source code management, container registry, pipelines, testing, and deployment."
"The solution makes the CI/CD pipelines easy to execute."
"The most valuable feature of GitLab is its security."
"It speeds up our development, it's faster, safer, and more convenient."
"GitHub uses basic configuration, but messaging is not clear."
"The project management sector really needs some improvement for GitHub. I don't know if GitHub made sense for me as a project manager."
"If you are uploading or cloning a large file, with more than 25 megs, it's pretty slow."
"GitHub could improve by being more user-friendly."
"While using the solution when merging two code branches the code becomes a bit messy. This should be improved in the future."
"I would want to see some form of code security scanning implemented."
"I think it would be valuable to have more security. Some of the data is very open to everyone."
"As of now, if I would like to learn about GitHub or its features, I would have to look on YouTube. It would be nice if they were able to send out a newsletter with explanations of new features that they are offering and what features are available."
"It would be really good if they integrated more features in application security."
"I'm new to GitLab, so I would appreciate more documentation about the code and commands."
"The solution should again offer an on-premises deployment option."
"We'd like to see better integration with the Atlassian ecosystem."
"Expand features to match other tools such as a static code analysis tool so third-party integrations are not required."
"The initial setup was quite challenging because it takes some time to understand how to pull out or push the code."
"GitLab could consider introducing a code-scanning tool. Purchasing such tools from external markets can incur charges, which might not be favorable. Integrating these features into GitLab would streamline the pipeline and make it more convenient for users."
"I would like to see static analysis also embedded in GitLab. That would also help us. If there's something that it does internally by GitLab and then that is already tied up with your pipeline and then it can tell you that you're coding is good or your code is not great. Based on that, it would pass or fail. That should be streamlined. I would think that would help to a greater extent, in terms of having one solution rather than depending on multiple vendors."
GitHub is ranked 10th in Application Security Tools with 64 reviews while GitLab is ranked 7th in Application Security Tools with 70 reviews. GitHub is rated 8.6, while GitLab is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of GitHub writes "Beneficial version control and continuous integration, but guides would be helpful". On the other hand, the top reviewer of GitLab writes "Powerful, mature, and easy to set up and manage". GitHub is most compared with Snyk, AWS CodeCommit, Atlassian SourceTree, Bitbucket and Qualys Web Application Scanning, whereas GitLab is most compared with Microsoft Azure DevOps, Bamboo, AWS CodePipeline, SonarQube and Tekton. See our GitHub vs. GitLab report.
See our list of best Application Security Tools 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.
