GitLab Reviews

“fantastic for team collaboration”

Pros

Version control and the private cloud repository are the things I appreciate most about this tool. It gives my team and me a reliable way to collaborate on projects by working locally and then pushing our updates to the repository. That setup makes the workflow much more flexible and the platform is very user-friendly. The interface looks good and having CI/CD included is another big plus.

Cons

Other than the fact that private repositories require payment, I really do not have any complaints about the software. It has been an excellent platform for team-based projects and cloud storage.

“Effortless branch management”

Pros

Managing branches is really easy whether I'm creating them, merging them, deleting them or handling other branch tasks. The merge wizard is especially helpful and adds a lot of value.

Cons

The branch list could be better because when there are too many branches, the display starts to feel cluttered and not very well organized.

“brilliant Git support”

Pros

Interface is simple to understand, the CI pipeline works really well and the full Git support is a big plus. It also feels like the service keeps improving all the time.

Cons

I haven't run into any problems with it at all.

“tool that earns its place”

Pros

Using it is very easy from the start. It stays transparent for the user, runs fast and being open source is a big plus. You can download it and host it on your own private server which makes it especially useful for companies that want to keep Git local.

Cons

It just doesn't offer the same number of add-ons or tools that it's competitor has and that was ultimately the reason I went back to GitHub.

“Organized group repositories”

Pros

Having a free place to keep my project folders online has been really useful.

Cons

Learning how to use the software isn't very easy at first.

“excellent product”

Pros

Installing it is very easy thanks to the Omnibus packages. The software is genuinely lovely to use. The pipelines are excellent and merge requests finally feel sane.

Cons

Searching between repositories is inefficient when you are not a member of them.

“Exceptional value from day one”

Pros

The to-do list management works really well and creating a project is simple. Adding different branches is also very simple for us.

Cons

Handling merges feels pretty inconvenient and could be managed better.

“UI worth loving”

Pros

For a web-based application the interface is very clear and easy to work with. It offers a lot of features similar to GitHub and it's the best control system I've used for a closed network environment.

Cons

A few of the features are things I probably will never end up using.

“free pipelines for every stage”

Pros

Being free and open source is a big plus. Even with private repositories, the pipelines cost nothing to set up or run. You can also create multiple pipelines for different stages such as test, build and deploy.

Cons

One concern is that many organizations keep their repositories on GitHub while still wanting CI/CD features like the tool offers. If the option to import existing repositories from GitHub is removed in the future, that could become a real limitation.

“source code integration wins”

Pros

Source code integration has been the biggest time-saver for us and it also cuts down the space needed when making changes or rolling out updates. It makes the whole process feel much more manageable.

Cons

The per-user pricing can climb pretty fast but I still think it justifies the cost. It saves a huge amount of time and that really does translate into money.

“improved performance”

Pros

There's definitely no shortage of features here and the performance has improved a lot over the years. The stack is excellent especially if you want to integrate your CI workflow into one platform.

Cons

I still prefer GitHub personally. It has come a long way and works well as an alternative but it still feels like it's one step behind.

“BETTER THAN GitHub”

Pros

The YAML configuration is flexible enough to let you reach your servers directly from the tool so every push can trigger an automatic build. Built-in CI/CD is the feature that really sets it apart for me. With deployment keys and access tokens, it feels much more capable than GitHub and the UI/UX is also friendlier than Bitbucket. Another plus is how lightweight the pages are-you barely notice any loading time. On top of that, it being free makes it even better.

Cons

As impressive as the Git features are, the issue tracking side still feels pretty complicated to me. The board itself is decent and being able to drag items across categories is nice but the missing subtask support is a big problem. If I have a larger feature task, I want to break it down into smaller subtasks under one parent item so I can track everything together. Tools like Redmine or Asana handle that much better. This is one area where GitHub clearly does a better job than this one.

“reliable LFS support from day one”

Pros

Setting it up was really easy. It was the only free Git server option I came across that included LFS support. We originally launched our project without Git LFS but once the repository got bigger, we needed a proper solution and had to move everything to a server that supported LFS. It turned out to be exactly what we needed since we could keep using our existing SSH keys for authentication, retain our LDAP users and migrate the project without much trouble. Since making the switch, we haven't had any problems and the server has been running reliably from the start.

Cons

Because the server is built on Ruby on Rails, it is heavier than a basic Git server. You do need to make sure the machine has enough resources available for it to run well.

“love the system”

Pros

Built-in CI/CD is a huge win for me. I seriously can't explain how useful that is especially because I really dislike having to rely on Jenkins. The interface also looks polished and well thought out and even though GitHub is the de facto standard, I genuinely enjoy using this tool's GUI too.

Cons

This isn't really their fault but a lot of other projects already live on GitHub so collaborating across platforms can be frustrating. If you want to contribute to a GitHub project, you're still forced to do that work there. It's annoying having things split across different sites and needing to switch between different interfaces and workflows.

“good for self-hosting”

Pros

This one is a suitable alternative to the GitHub and honestly might even be better than that. They make the full product source code available so you can self-host it and still keep all of the same functions.

Cons

A downside right now is that the user base is still smaller since GitHub has long been the established industry standard. That could shift over time especially after the Microsoft acquisition though.

“Our team's new home”

Pros

After using Bitbucket and GitHub, switching to it really feels like we've landed in the right place. I'm genuinely happy with pretty much everything about it. The platform is good overall and the CI/CD toolset is easy enough to use without much struggle

Cons

I'd still like to see the ability to organize repositories by category and use those categories when searching. That would make a big difference and honestly make the product feel nearly perfect. I'd also like the separate project, group and related search options at the top to be merged into a single smart search.

“Incredible software!”

Pros

I don't get why more teams aren't using it when it is an incredible platform. The feature set is mind-blowing and when you use it the right way it genuinely works as a full-cycle product.

Cons

Some parts seem pretty developer-oriented to me so bringing designers on board can be a bit challenging.

“User friendly Dashboard”

Pros

Running several projects on it's free edition has been a really positive experience. One of its best advantages is that it's fully open source which means you can even install it on your own server and manage your own instance. It comes with built-in issue tracking, boards and milestones through a clean, user-friendly dashboard, plus Continuous Integration and Deployment already included. You can also choose between private, internal or public repositories which is a big reason I prefer it over its biggest competitor. The built-in Web IDE is also very useful for editing files and reviewing code directly online. It includes a wiki feature and even though it's not especially advanced, it's still something many competing platforms don't offer.

Cons

There aren't any major problems that I've run into with it. Every now and then, the service has some downtime and they tend to change the UI and features a bit too frequently so it can take a while to get used to the updates. It would also be nice if they offered static page hosting directly on their own servers like their main competitor does. SSL setup can occasionally be troublesome and there's still no desktop repository manager available.

“impressed by this product”

Pros

We're seriously considering shifting everything from Bitbucket to it because it gives us unlimited team members across unlimited private repositories. That's a huge reason our upcoming product already connects with it. If our marketplace supported Bitbucket instead, we could very easily miss out on thousands of dollars in the first month alone. On top of that, it has open-sourced its code which is a big plus if we ever decide to host it on our own proprietary servers. That's honestly really impressive.

Cons

Only issues that come to mind are fairly minor for us right now. We can't control the specific permissions tied to each role although we don't currently need that level of functions anyway. The documentation also needs some improvement. For example, it doesn't clearly explain what each field in the JSON object represents or which values the enumerated items can take so I often end up hunting that information down somewhere else. It would also be incredibly useful if the docs showed the response types we should expect from calls and the possible errors we need to handle.

“valuable features”

Pros

Everything I need for my business operations is in one place which makes it so valuable to me. It covers the entire software development lifecycle, from planning a project and managing source code to building a solution from the ground up. It is also a very practical way to deploy cloud-native applications. When working with newer technologies like Kubernetes, it saves a lot of time since much of the configuration is handled automatically.

Cons

Interface is not very visually appealing or engaging to use. I would really welcome some improvements to the platform's UI and overall UX.