When Microsoft bought Github, everybody wanted to move to Gitlab. After 5 months on Gitlab, I can do the comparison.
Philosophy
Github and Gitlab are two different git repository managers. I think I don't need to present them because almost everybody already knows this two services.
Gitlab is a professional git repository manager. You have a lot of tools to deploy, test your applications. It can also be self-hosted, which is a very good point.
Github is more like a social network, and almost every big open source libraries, framework or tools are on Github.
Use cases
Gitlab
For me, Gitlab is a very professional git repository manager. It means if I were a professional programmer, I'll use Gitlab to host my git repositories. For many reasons like :
Free private repositories
Docker Registry / Free Docker registry
Powerful CI tools
Github
If you want to code an opensource project, Github will be a better option. Github is more like a social network. It means you will have more visibility on Github whereas Gitlab. There is also one good point for Github :
- Community
Yes, the open source community didn't move from Github to Gitlab that's why I said, GO GITHUUUUUB if you want to code an open source project.
My mind
I think twice are very good choices. It only depends on what you want to do.
Gitlab is very useful but I come back to Github to have better visibility for Filtrify. Sorry, Gitlab ^^
I'm testing gitote.in, I should write something about it in a few weeks
Oldest comments (33)
I'm very happy to read your comment. Marketplace is a very good point. I can't say something about UI because it's a personal mind. Take a look at Gitlab Pages.
I need to explain me about this article. I wanted to create a little article with a
something vs another thingformat. That's why some people found this article empty with only few arguments...Very interessant discussion
a social network without basic communication systems like private messages, chat, boards and forums.
As the compassion goes, GitHub will try to balance the difference with Actions, but for now GitLab is a superior platform from most perspectives (it evens has pages
it used to have private messaging, they removed it for the obvious reasons (and I guess to avoid spam and harassment). User interaction is designed around issues and PR and most maintainers are one email or tweet away.
Exactly, it is a place where we throw away code and do very few code practices and operations, but is not a "social" anything.
I had a private repository at GitLab for a while but there where too many outages too close together, so I moved to Github and opted for a paid plan. Never looked back.
I think there is a key difference betweenn GitHub and GitLab to be mentionned (although everything that is said is certainly true): reliability. For having used GitLab both in the cloud and self-hosting, I think that GitHub is an oasis of stability and availability compared to an ocean of changes, UI confusion, and 502s... My two-cents.
Thank for your comment. I am totally agree with you.
Thanks for writing this article.
I know this article is regarding GitHub vs. GitLab, but it seems curious the lack of mention of BitBucket even in the comments. I know there are a lot of Code Repo tools out there, but I would have thought more people dealt with BB than GF, probably just my own experience bias.
BB has some nice CI tools, and free private repos for teams <= 5. I'm a paid user for team size, but not affiliated with them at all. I've used paid GitHub in the past as well, and I've been very happy with BB. It also has an issue tracker kind of like a mini-jira (that could be good or bad depending on your experience)
I never used BB. That's why I didn't write something about it. But ill test it one day. Thx for your comment
Also can you do a github vs gitlab vs bitbucket?
I think I'll make an entire article on bitbucket.
I second that. @dimensi0n , why not be honest with your audience upfront and add what you just wrote to the beginning of your article? That would save folks some time who were expecting an actual in-depth comparison of both tools.
That's a good idea ^ I'll do it during the day
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