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GitLab VS GitHub Enterprise

Compare GitLab VS GitHub Enterprise and see what are their differences

GitLab logo GitLab

Create, review and deploy code together with GitLab open source git repo management software | GitLab

GitHub Enterprise logo GitHub Enterprise

The on-premises version of GitHub, which you can deploy and manage in your own, secure environment
  • GitLab Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-17
  • GitHub Enterprise Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-22

GitLab

Release Date
2014 January
Startup details
Country
United States
State
California
Founder(s)
Dmitriy Zaporozhets
Employees
1,000 - 1,999

GitLab features and specs

  • Integrated DevOps Platform
    GitLab provides a single application for the entire DevOps lifecycle, which simplifies the workflow and reduces the need for multiple tools.
  • CI/CD Capabilities
    It offers powerful Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) features, enabling automated testing and deployment.
  • Self-Hosted and SaaS Options
    GitLab can be hosted on your own servers or used as a cloud-hosted service, providing flexibility depending on your needs.
  • Strong Security Features
    GitLab includes various security features such as code quality analysis, vulnerability management, and compliance management.
  • Robust Community and Support
    There is a large community and extensive documentation available, along with professional support options.

Possible disadvantages of GitLab

  • Complexity for New Users
    The extensive features and functionalities can be overwhelming for newcomers, requiring a steep learning curve.
  • Resource Intensive
    Self-hosting a GitLab instance requires substantial server resources, which can be costly.
  • Price
    While there is a free tier, the advanced features are part of the paid plans, which can be expensive for small teams or startups.
  • User Interface
    Some users find the interface less intuitive and harder to navigate compared to other platforms like GitHub.
  • Performance Issues
    Large repositories or high usage can sometimes lead to performance issues, especially on self-hosted instances.

GitHub Enterprise features and specs

  • Scalability
    GitHub Enterprise can handle large teams and repositories, making it suitable for organizations with extensive development needs.
  • Enhanced Security
    Offers advanced security features such as mandatory 2FA, LDAP integration, and SAML single sign-on, providing enterprises with greater control and protection of their codebases.
  • Dedicated Support
    Provides access to GitHub's dedicated support team, offering quicker and more specialized assistance than what is available in the free or lower-tier plans.
  • Compliance and Auditing
    Includes features that aid in compliance with industry standards and auditing capabilities, which are essential for enterprises needing to meet regulatory requirements.
  • On-Premises Deployment
    Allows for on-premises deployment, which is ideal for companies with strict data residency requirements or those that need to integrate tightly with their existing infrastructure.

Possible disadvantages of GitHub Enterprise

  • Cost
    GitHub Enterprise is significantly more expensive than GitHub's other offerings, which might be a barrier for startups or smaller businesses.
  • Complex Setup
    The on-premises version of GitHub Enterprise can have a more complex setup and maintenance process, requiring dedicated IT resources.
  • Overhead
    Enterprises might encounter administrative overhead when managing large teams, including configuring and maintaining various integrations and security settings.
  • Learning Curve
    Users unfamiliar with GitHub may face a learning curve, particularly when navigating the more advanced features of the Enterprise version.
  • Dependency on Network Infrastructure
    The performance and reliability of an on-premises GitHub Enterprise deployment can be affected by the companyโ€™s network infrastructure, necessitating reliable hardware and connectivity.

Analysis of GitLab

Overall verdict

  • Yes, GitLab is generally considered a good platform, especially for teams looking for an integrated set of tools for software development and DevOps. Its features and flexibility make it a strong choice for many organizations.

Why this product is good

  • GitLab is a popular DevOps platform that provides a comprehensive suite of tools for software development, including version control, issue tracking, continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD), and more. It is valued for its open-source model, strong security features, user-friendly interface, and a wide range of integrations. GitLab's all-in-one approach allows teams to manage their entire DevOps lifecycle from a single application, which can help improve collaboration and efficiency.

Recommended for

    GitLab is well-suited for developers, DevOps engineers, project managers, and teams that require robust CI/CD capabilities, strong security features, and an open-source platform that can be self-hosted or used as a cloud service. It is particularly beneficial for organizations looking for a comprehensive solution to streamline their development workflows.

GitLab videos

Introduction to GitLab Workflow

More videos:

  • Review - GitLab Review App Working Session

GitHub Enterprise videos

A look at the new GitHub Enterprise

More videos:

  • Review - Bring innovation to work with GitHub Enterprise
  • Review - Running GitHub Enterprise at scale in your organization - GitHub Satellite 2019

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to GitLab and GitHub Enterprise)
Code Collaboration
95 95%
5% 5
Git
95 95%
5% 5
Software Development
96 96%
4% 4
Project Management
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare GitLab and GitHub Enterprise

GitLab Reviews

  1. Reinhard
    ยท Boss at CLOUD Meister ยท
    perfect for Freelancers!

The Top 11 Static Application Security Testing (SAST) Tools
GitLabโ€™s in-context testing solution simplifies the development process by automating both application and infrastructure management on a single platform.Why We Picked GitLab: We like GitLabโ€™s automation of testing and compliance across development workflows. Its in-context testing minimizes license costs and reduces the learning curve.
The Top 10 GitHub Alternatives
GitLab is a web-based DevSecOps (take that, Call of Duty) platform that allows software development teams to plan, build, and ship secure code all in one application. GitLab offers a range of features and tools to support the entire software development lifecycle, from project planning and source code management to continuous integration, delivery, and deployment.
The Best Alternatives to Jenkins for Developers
CI/CD GitLab, as a complete DevOps platform, provides an integrated CI/CD solution along with its other features. If your team is already using GitLab for controlling versions and managing projects, the addition of GitLab CI/CD can be very smooth. The offering in CI/CD by GitLab is quite customizable and it backs up many programming languages as well as application test...
Source: morninglif.com
Top 7 GitHub Alternatives You Should Know (2024)
Most of the listed alternatives offer free tier plans for individuals or small teams. Tools like GitLab and Bitbucket allow users to host unlimited repositories without cost.
Source: snappify.com
Best GitHub Alternatives for Developers in 2023
While GitLab features an extensive set of capabilities, this can also serve as a weakness since beginners may find the developer tool overwhelming to begin with. The user interface compounds this issue by being outdated and unintuitive. GitLab could benefit from more third-party integrations, and its performance tends to struggle when dealing with large repositories or CI/CD...

GitHub Enterprise Reviews

We have no reviews of GitHub Enterprise yet.
Be the first one to post

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, GitLab seems to be a lot more popular than GitHub Enterprise. While we know about 144 links to GitLab, we've tracked only 11 mentions of GitHub Enterprise. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

GitLab mentions (144)

  • Git and Unity: A Comprehensive Guide to Version Control for Game Devs
    We use GitHub here as an example, but there are also other hosts you could explore like GitLab and BitBucket. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • Proudly Found Elsewhere
    Expertise. The SaaS provider is declaring: "I am good at XYZ; I can deliver it better than any of my competitors, and I constantly work to improve how I deliver it." Who do you think can better run GitLab, your already overworked Operations team, or GitLab itself? - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
  • What Is Static Code Analysis and How Does It Work
    Integration Capabilities: How easily does it plug into your daily workflow? Look for deep integrations with your IDE, source control (like GitHub or GitLab), and especially your CI/CD pipeline. - Source: dev.to / 5 months ago
  • Navigating the NVIDIA Tech Ecosystem
    Connect your GitLab account for seamless version control. - Source: dev.to / 7 months ago
  • Web Check CI: Catch Browser Compatibility Issues Before They Break Production
    Web Check CI stands out because it is the first CI/CD module of its kind available for GitLab! It's built on Google's Baseline initiative, the new standard for web platform compatibility. Instead of guessing which features are safe to use, developers get authoritative answers based on real browser support data. - Source: dev.to / 10 months ago
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GitHub Enterprise mentions (11)

  • Building a Custom AI Code Reviewer for GitHub Enterprise with Bedrock and Go
    Here's the problem we were solving: we run GitHub Enterprise behind a VPN. Modern AI code review tools like Cursor, Github Copilot, and CodeRabbit expect cloud-hosted repos. We couldn't pipe proprietary code into them. But we still wanted AI code review on every PR. - Source: dev.to / 8 months ago
  • A checklist and guide to get your repository collaboration-ready
    Internal is a special visibility level used by GitHub Enterprise, allowing anyone inside your organization to see the repository, but nobody in the outside world. We generally suggest this as the default level for company projects that donโ€™t have siloed sensitive information (such as customer-specific data or logic that only a specific group should know about). - Source: dev.to / almost 2 years ago
  • Github Actions to deploy your Terraform code
    If the company you work for has subscribed to Github, you probably benefit from a more substantial offer with additional features (GitHub Team or GitHub Enterprise). - Source: dev.to / about 2 years ago
  • hE Is nOT qUaLifIeD!
    Some orgs run GitHub Enterprise on-prem. Set up properly, it's not publicly accessible at all. Source: over 3 years ago
  • hE Is nOT qUaLifIeD!
    I do. My company has an enterprise license and it basically just acts as a private corner of normal public-facing github. Basically like a private repo but instead of being scoped to a single repo it's a full multi-organization scope. All new report default to private, but can be flipped to public if we want to open-source some internal project. Source: over 3 years ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing GitLab and GitHub Enterprise, you can also consider the following products

GitHub - Originally founded as a project to simplify sharing code, GitHub has grown into an application used by over a million people to store over two million code repositories, making GitHub the largest code host in the world.

BitBucket - Bitbucket is a free code hosting site for Mercurial and Git. Manage your development with a hosted wiki, issue tracker and source code.

CircleCI - CircleCI gives web developers powerful Continuous Integration and Deployment with easy setup and maintenance.

GitBucket - GitBucket is the easily installable open-source GitHub clone written with Scala.

Gitea - A painless self-hosted Git service

Jenkins - Jenkins is an open-source continuous integration server with 300+ plugins to support all kinds of software development