Vishnu Ramachandra - PeerSpot reviewer
Security Engineer at Suraksha
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
A scalable tool with an easy initial setup phase useful for building new connectors and preparing scripts
Pros and Cons
  • "The initial setup of GitLab is pretty simple, with no complications."
  • "Some of the scripts that we encountered in GitLab were not fully functional and threw up errors."

What is our primary use case?

I use GitLab for some of my CyberArk scripting work.

What is most valuable?

GitLab's scoop is like a lifesaver. It's very crucial for us in our company to use some of those scripts from GitLab, either for health checks or building new connectors is very important for us, and at times, with GitLab, you don't even need to build the connectors.

What needs improvement?

Some of the scripts that we encountered in GitLab were not fully functional and threw up errors. The aforementioned area of the solution needs improvement.

In the future, I would like to see GitLab providing more oversight over the coding part.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using GitLab for a couple of years. I use the solution's latest version.

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What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is a stable solution and seems to be a well-tested product with no issues. I rate the stability a nine out of ten.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is a scalable solution. There are a lot of users on GitLab, so it is a highly scalable product. I rate the scalability a nine out of ten.

GitLab has only two users, including myself, in our company.

We don't have plans in our company to increase the number of users in future.

How are customer service and support?

The solution's technical support is pretty good. If you go on Stack Overflow platform, you can find technical support there. The product's technical team is knowledgeable, responds quickly, and is customer friendly.

I rate the technical support a nine out of ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup of GitLab is pretty simple, with no complications.

The deployment process took less than an hour, which means it can be done in around 45 minutes.

The solution can be deployed on the cloud or on-premises version by installing the EXE file.

Only one junior engineer is required for deployment and maintenance.

What about the implementation team?

The deployment phase can be done by yourself, in-house.

What was our ROI?

The ROI has been good since we have had no issues so far.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

My company uses the free version of GitLab, which is GitLab Community Edition. There is a licensed version also available for GitLab.

What other advice do I have?

I would tell those planning to use the solution to try developing their own scripts in GitLab and then try to download them from the repository there. You build your knowledge while helping others as well.

I rate the overall solution a nine out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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DevOps Engineer at a insurance company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Real User
Top 10
A great user interface but more built-in functions are needed
Pros and Cons
  • "The user interface is really good so that helps with huge teams who need to collaborate."
  • "The solution does not have many built-in functions or variables so scripting is required."

What is our primary use case?

Our company uses the solution as a repository manager for our best code, to set up CI/CD pipelines, and to build projects and get architects. We build code and generate artifacts that we push to UrbanCode for deployment. 

For one use case, we created an entire CI/CD pipeline that deploys code to the artifact and Target Server. This deployment was our first using the solution and included a lot of scripting. The customer has 250 current users that includes maintenance, owners, and developers.

Eventually, we plan to use the solution for all deployments. 

What is most valuable?

The user interface is really good so that helps with huge teams who need to collaborate. 

The solution is great for SCM, depository management, building, and CI/CD.

What needs improvement?

The solution does not have many built-in functions or variables so scripting is required and that is a drawback. For example, it would be nice to have a button on the interface for setting up environments in meta folders. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the solution for two years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is stable. Performance comes down slightly when multiple pipelines for a complex project are triggered at once. I rate performance a seven out of ten. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We use the solution on-premises so do not scale in the way others do on the cloud. 

How are customer service and support?

Technical support is very quick. I raised two tickets and and they followed up regularly which was great. 

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Our company currently uses UrbanCode for deployments. Eventually, we want to conduct all deployments in the solution. 

How was the initial setup?

The setup is straightforward so I rate it an eight out of ten. 

What about the implementation team?

Our company includes a four-person deployment team who implements the solution for customers. 

Our internal team handles maintenance of our GitLab server. Every month, we download, install, and publish patches or upgrades to our community. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The solution is based on a licensing model that includes technical support and is paid annually. Our company currently has between 430 to 480 licenses. 

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

The solution is newer to the market so other tools with longevity such as Jenkins are more popular. The solution is slowly emerging as its potential as a complete CI/CD setup becomes known. 

UrbanCode is specifically designed as a deployment tool and dominates because of its efficiencies. The user interface has built-in functionality for creating multiple environments, creating approval processes, and downloading artifacts. Conversely, to perform these same functions in the solution you must script the configuration file. 

Java includes Deployment Managers and agent pools for deploying to a Target Server. The solution might not be good for deployments because there isn't enough flexibility to create them quickly. We can script, but it is easier to click buttons for deployment functionality. 

What other advice do I have?

I recommend the solution and rate it a seven out of ten. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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GitLab
March 2024
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Syed Mustafa Imam - PeerSpot reviewer
DevOps Engineer at NayaPay
Real User
Top 5
A highly stable and affordable solution that provides good repository management features and support
Pros and Cons
  • "CI/CD is valuable for me."
  • "The documentation is confusing."

What is our primary use case?

We use the solution for on-premises repository management

What is most valuable?

CI/CD is valuable for me. The product also has a monitoring feature connected to Grafana. It helps with alerts. We are using the free GitLab Community Edition. It has a lot of great features.

What needs improvement?

The documentation is confusing. Sometimes, it is incomplete or has incorrect information. I have informed the vendor about it. Some features in the GitLab Community Edition are not available to us.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the solution for nine months. My organization has been using it for around two years. We are using the latest version of the solution.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I rate the tool’s stability a ten out of ten. We never faced any downtime.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I rate the scalability of GitLab Community Edition a seven or eight out of ten. The product could improve the scalability of GitLab Community Edition. Around 60 people are using the product in our organization.

How are customer service and support?

Their support is good. 

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is easier for someone who knows Linux and has been working as a system administrator. We need to have experience to deploy the solution. It takes around three to four hours to deploy the solution.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

We are using the open-source version, anyone can download it.

What other advice do I have?

I am my company’s GitLab administrator. Many features we need are available in Enterprise Edition. If we say that we do not have enough features in GitLab Community Edition, GitLab might just ask us to upgrade to Enterprise Edition. Overall, I rate the product a nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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DevOps/Cloud Lead at a comms service provider with 1-10 employees
Real User
With a comprehensive and flexible CI/CD engine, this is the leading solution in the market right now
Pros and Cons
  • "Their CI/CD engine is very mature. It's very comprehensive and flexible, and compared to other projects, I believe that GitLab is number one right now from that perspective."
  • "I don't really like the new Kubernetes integration because it is pretty focused on the on-premise environment, but we're in a hybrid environment."

What is our primary use case?

There are two primary functions. The first function is a Git-compliant source code repository, and the second function is a full-fledged CI/CD platform.

What is most valuable?

The CI/CD functionality as a whole is pretty helpful and nice to have. Their CI/CD engine is very mature. It's very comprehensive and flexible, and compared to other projects, I believe that GitLab is number one right now from that perspective.

What needs improvement?

They have had a Kubernetes integration built in, but they recently announced that in Version 16 they're going to strip out the legacy Kubernetes integration, and then introduce a new way of doing the integration. I don't really like the new way because it is pretty focused on the on-premise environment, but we're in a hybrid environment. The integration they're offering is not really a good fit for hybrid infrastructure and I was disappointed with that new feature. 

I work for a government-based institution in the US and government-based institutions are very strict about compliance and security. The new model GitLab is offering implies the connectivity will be initiated from the server side to the clients, meaning from Kubernetes back to GitLab, and that's not going to work in our space. We cannot allow traffic back from the cloud to on-prem, so that's going to be a compliance violation. I understand why they want to implement the feature, maybe it's going to be more solid, but it looks like they aren't taking into consideration hybrid environments and the security and compliance aspects. We will find a workaround, but we're still kind of disappointed. It'll generate a lot of additional work.

One feature that has been requested by our development team is a multi-level review of the pool request. When you maintain code and you've got a lot of contributors, a contributor can submit a change in the form of a pool request. There is a feature called merge request in GitLab for when you have a team of people who are supposed to approve a change, but Atlassian BitBucket has a more complete version of the same feature, which includes a multi-approval mechanism. For instance, if you have three people, you can create a rule for how changes should be approved. Maybe they should be approved by you and me and the third guy is not really important, or it could be approved by only you or me, or all three of us together. BitBucket has that flexibility and there is no such flexibility in GitLab.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using GitLab for approximately four years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Overall, it's pretty stable. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability is not directly a feature of GitLab because GitLab is about storing your source code. Your storage can be organized in a way that makes it very scalable. For instance, we use the NetApp Store and we are not limited at all, so whenever we hit a disk space problem, we can simply extend the storage and give it more IOPs. However, the way you organize your storage is not GitLab's responsibility.

There are about 100 people currently involved with this solution at my company. 

How are customer service and support?

Their customer service is very helpful. They're really good. I communicate with tons of different support clients and GitLab's support is one of the best. A lot of people don't like calling support because it's often useless or annoying, but I would rate GitLab's support as a ten out of ten. I haven't had any complications. 

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is pretty straightforward. I don't remember having any issues related to the setup. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

There is an open-source edition and a commercial version. I've used both, but mostly I've used the commercial one. However, the open-source version is also very, very good. The commercial version is reasonably priced. It's about 20k annually. 

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Checkmarx is a static analysis tool. GitLab offers, in turn, their own solution. They offer static analysis, dynamic analysis, and a lot of integration. They also offer integration with Checkmarx. There are a lot of features, actually, and plenty of tools. For the price, I think it's very comprehensive.

Compared to other products, for instance, Nessus, they're approximately at the same price level. I would put them all on the same level with approximately the same functionality, but GitLab is one of the best.

What other advice do I have?

I would give this solution a ten out of ten. There are a couple of caveats, but compared to other products, GitLab is certainly the leading solution in the market right now. 

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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I was looking for a free alternative to GitHub for my hacking projects. I tried GitHub, BitBucket, GitLab, and a few others and settled on GitLab. It's free, easy to use, and has a lot of great features.


I will say that the UI is a bit confusing at first, but it is very easy to figure out. For the most part, you will just be adding and removing repos. You can also view and edit issues and merge.

Senior Test Engineer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Top 10
A scalable, easy to implement solution that can also be customized
Pros and Cons
  • "This is a scalable solution. We had around 200 users working with it."
  • "I would like configuration of a YML file to be done via UI rather than a code file."

What is our primary use case?

GitLab was mostly used for version control. All of the code was uploaded into GitLab and then shared across the company. We also used it for running CICD pipelines and automating those pipelines.

What is most valuable?

Basically, it was up to the mark. The solution did what it was supposed to do.

What needs improvement?

We had to write GitLab configuration files, commands and conditions, in a YML format. I would like configuration of a YML file to be done via UI rather than a code file. There should be support for code files, as well, but if there could be a UI for it and a little bit of documentation along with it, that would help.

For how long have I used the solution?

I used this solution for two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is stable. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

This is a scalable solution. We had around 200 users working with it. Two people are required for deployment and maintenance. 

What about the implementation team?

The implementation was handled in-house. It shouldn't take a long time to implement because it's pretty basic stuff. It all depends on how much customization you want to have. 

What other advice do I have?

My advice for others looking into this product is to go for it. GitLab is the future. There are some alternates, like Stash and Bitbucket, that have the same concept, but GitLab is one of the most widely used version control systems. It's easy to use.

I would rate this solution as a nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Private Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
DevOps manager at a engineering company with 201-500 employees
Real User
Version control history is valuable for our development workflow
Pros and Cons
  • "I find the features and version control history to be most valuable for our development workflow. These aspects provide us with a clear view of changes and help us manage requests efficiently."
  • "I believe there's room for improvement in the advanced features, particularly in enhancing the pipeline functionalities."

What is our primary use case?

We create the pipeline and push it to GitLab to initiate the process. The cloud integration is straightforward.

How has it helped my organization?

When it comes to GitLab's CI/CD integration, it significantly supports our development process by accelerating deployments. With automated pipelines, we can focus more on development tasks without worrying about manual deployments, ultimately speeding up our development cycle.

What is most valuable?

In GitLab, I find the features and version control history to be most valuable for our development workflow. These aspects provide us with a clear view of changes and help us manage requests efficiently. I haven't utilized GitLab's security scanning capabilities yet. 

We plan to integrate tools like Sonicheap for code security. Currently, we use another product for security, focusing on Q4 security points.

We have used GitLab's features selectively for added security. We don't store passwords directly but use a secret manager and tools to sync passwords securely to our deployment environment.

What needs improvement?

I believe there's room for improvement in the advanced features, particularly in enhancing the pipeline functionalities. Better integration and usability within the pipeline could make a significant difference in user experience. I would suggest considering new features or functions that could streamline workflows further and make using GitLab even more efficient. Having additional functionalities that cater to specific needs could greatly enhance the overall experience with the platform.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been working with GitLab for the past 5 years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Regarding stability, while I can't rate it on a scale of one to ten, I can say that we've experienced good stability with GitLab, with no downtime or major issues.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?


When it comes to scalability, I can't provide a rating as we're using the enterprise version and haven't explored scalability yet in terms of user count, we have between three hundred and four hundred users in our company or department.

How are customer service and support?

I've had support from forums like Stack Overflow when needed. In my experience, GitLab integrates well with third-party tools like SonicWall and Slack without any major issues.

How was the initial setup?

The setup process for GitLab is straightforward and easy to use.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Regarding pricing, I would rate GitLab as moderately priced, maybe around a seven or eight out of ten. It could be more flexible for clients but generally offers good value.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

When comparing GitLab to competitors like Bitbucket, I find GitLab to be superior, especially in terms of features and functionality. Bitbucket still has its own strengths and is preferred by some organizations.

What other advice do I have?

Overall, I would rate GitLab around eight or nine out of ten. I highly recommend it to other users for both company purposes and personal projects. GitLab provides a solid starting point for learning and working efficiently, making it a valuable tool for developers.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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Petronela Ghergulov - PeerSpot reviewer
Engineering Quality Analyst at Visteon Corporation
Real User
Top 10
Issue-free, straightforward to set up, and reliable
Pros and Cons
  • "The scalability is good."
  • "Perhaps the integration could be better."

What is our primary use case?

I primarily use it for verifying some things. We're using it as a repository. It's used for software code. 

What is most valuable?

I didn't have an option when coming to this solution. It was imposed on me. That said, I've had no problems so far. 

The solution is stable.

The scalability is good.

My understanding is that the setup is straightforward. 

What needs improvement?

I'm not sure of the complete capabilities of the tool as I don't use it that much. Perhaps the integration could be better. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I've used the solution for one year, however, not so regularly.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I have not heard of any stability complaints. My understanding is that the product is reliable. There are no bugs or glitches. It won't crash or freeze. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have about 100 people using the solution in our organization. 

For our purposes, we find the solution scales well. It's okay. We've never had any issues. 

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We previously used IBM CLM and RTC.

How was the initial setup?

I did not directly handle the initial setup. There is an IT team, which is responsible for all the installation and setup tasks. I'm not sure how many people were involved in the deployment and maintenance of the solution. 

What about the implementation team?

Our IT team set the solution up.

What was our ROI?

I haven't looked into if we have noticed an ROI or not. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I can't speak to the exact cost or licensing structure. I don't deal with this aspect of the product. 

What other advice do I have?

I'd recommend the solution to others. I'd rate it eight out of ten. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Saurav Krishna - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Engineering and AI Intern at .3Lines Venture Capital
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
Acts as a code base and helps to set up CI/CD pipelines
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution makes the CI/CD pipelines easy to execute."
  • "The tool should include a feature that helps to edit the code directly."

What is our primary use case?

We have our CI/CD pipelines set up in GitLab. It is our code base. 

What is most valuable?

The solution makes the CI/CD pipelines easy to execute. 

What needs improvement?

The tool should include a feature that helps to edit the code directly. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the product for two years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is stable. 

How are customer service and support?

I haven't reached out to them yet. 

How was the initial setup?

GitLab's deployment is easy. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

GitLab is cheap. 

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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Download our free GitLab Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: March 2024
Buyer's Guide
Download our free GitLab Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.