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CAST Highlight vs GitLab comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 5, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

CAST Highlight
Ranking in Software Composition Analysis (SCA)
16th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
GitLab
Ranking in Software Composition Analysis (SCA)
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
91
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (9th), Build Automation (1st), Release Automation (2nd), Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (7th), Rapid Application Development Software (10th), Enterprise Agile Planning Tools (2nd), Fuzz Testing Tools (2nd), DevSecOps (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Software Composition Analysis (SCA) category, the mindshare of CAST Highlight is 1.2%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of GitLab is 3.7%, down from 4.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Software Composition Analysis (SCA) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
GitLab3.7%
CAST Highlight1.2%
Other95.1%
Software Composition Analysis (SCA)
 

Featured Reviews

Jayanti Rode - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Associate Manager at Accenture
Identifies migration blockers and boosters while facing challenges with platform-specific roadblocks
The solution provides agnostic blockers for platforms as well as for containerization. Within that containerization, it offers generic blockers. However, my project might require it to provide Windows-specific blockers or Linux-specific blockers, as I often work with only one platform at a time. If I received categorization in containerization blockers, it would save time. Understanding only the OS-specific blockers means I would avoid resolving irrelevant issues, thus saving time. Initially, I receive a response from support, however, if there is involvement from R&D or other teams, it may take longer than expected. The support team is challenging when sharing source code. As this is a static code analysis tool, it sometimes requires source code for R&D. However, CAST clients may be restricted from sharing due to business logic and nondisclosure agreements. This creates a challenge, and I may have to share pseudo code or seek client approval, risking escalation.
BasilJiji - PeerSpot reviewer
System Engineer at a retailer with 10,001+ employees
Role-based workflows have transformed daily deployments and improve team collaboration
GitLab has role-based access control, so when a team member needs to make a code change, they cannot directly apply it to the environment but must put in a merge request. Once a senior reviews the code and approves it, then it is implemented across the environment, making it safer and allowing everyone to experience the process. The best features GitLab offers are version control and automation, which are the major things that stand out to me. When it comes to access, the login is very smooth, with just one login integrated with our Okta, allowing everyone to log in easily. Deployments become much easier, and that is how GitLab helps. The automation features make my work easier because we use a tool called AWX, which is connected to GitLab. Whenever we run a job on AWX, it directly checks the code and uses it. Since the code is not preserved locally but kept in the cloud, it is safe and nobody can tamper with it. When it comes to safety, that is a major thing. Automation features allow the code to be accessed from any tools we use, so the jobs we run are helping tremendously and doing their work perfectly. For pipeline tasks, we have created a significant amount of pipelines, which are all hosted in GitLab. Running the pipelines has become much easier, and they are doing a perfect job, helping tremendously in our day-to-day activities. GitLab has positively impacted my organization because previously we stored code locally on servers, leading to many risks. Since GitLab came into our environment, our integration and deployments became much easier, helping our work become much smoother. Improvements from GitLab have led to better team collaboration because when several people are working, they can all edit the code and submit it as a merge request, and once approved, it reflects directly to the main branch. Many can work at the same time. When it comes to deployments, deploying has become much faster since we started using GitLab, and even if errors occur, we can spot them easily and troubleshoot, which has helped tremendously.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"CAST Highlight is easy to use and has a good dashboard."
"The most valuable features of the CAST Highlight are the interface and there are three notations that are very simple to understand and communicate with."
"The way it tells you which codebase is more ready for the cloud and which codebase is less ready is very valuable. It works seamlessly with most languages."
"The most valuable features of CAST Highlight are automation and speed."
"In cloud migration, I use CAST highlight to identify blockers, which are the negative road patterns, and also the boosters, which are positive code patterns."
"The way it tells you which codebase is more ready for the cloud and which codebase is less ready is very valuable, and it works seamlessly with most languages."
"It offers good performance."
"The solution provides agnostic blockers for platforms as well as for containerization."
"For us, Gitlab's most valuable feature is the integration with Cypress. We're using Cypress as an automation tool, so we're using GitLab as a tool for running in parallel."
"It is very flexible and easy because you can store data on cloud."
"GitLab has positively impacted my organization by being faster than other platforms and providing the best user interface and features."
"It is very flexible and easy because you can store data on cloud."
"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."
"GitLab's best features are continuous integration and fast deployment."
"I like GitLab's security and SAS tools."
"In our software development lifecycle, GitLab is used as a component for code repository management. We use GitLab for several projects to handle code repositories. For other software projects, we use Bitbucket, but the use case for both is very similar."
 

Cons

"There could be potential improvements or additional features added to CAST Highlight to make it better."
"The reports that describe the issues of concern are rather abstract and the issues should be more clearly described to the user."
"CAST Highlight could improve to allow us to comment and do a deep analysis by ourselves."
"Technical support could be better."
"If I received categorization in containerization blockers, it would save time."
"The ease of configuration and customization could be improved in CAST Highlight."
"Its price should be better. It is a pretty costly tool. They have two products: CAST Highlight and CAST AIP. I would expect CAST Highlight to have the Help dashboard and the Engineering dashboard. These dashboards are currently a part of CAST AIP, and if these are made available in CAST Highlight, customers won't have to use two different products all the time."
"It is a pretty costly tool. A lot of customers are resistant to using it."
"Perhaps the integration could be better."
"I've noticed an area for improvement in GitLab, particularly needing to go through many steps to push the code to the repository. Resolving that issue would make the product better. My team quickly fixed it by writing a small script, then double-clicking or enabling the script to take care of the issue. However, that quick fix was from my team and not the GitLab team, so in the next release, if an automatic deployment feature would be available in GitLab, then that would be good because, in Visual Studio, you can do that with just one click of a button."
"For as long as I have used GitLab, I haven't encountered any major limitations. However, I think that perhaps the search functionality could be better."
"However, I think that perhaps the search functionality could be better."
"The price of GitLab could improve, it is high."
"This solution could be improved by adding modifications such as slack notifications."
"The solution should expand features to match other tools such as Coverity, Veracode, or SonarQube with its static code analysis tool so third-party integrations are not required."
"The licensing model could be improved to be more accommodating in terms of user numbers and costs."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is a pretty costly tool. A lot of customers are resistant to using it."
"CAST Highlight is an expensive solution."
"Basic support is included with the standard licensing feed but it can be upgraded for an additional cost."
"CAST Highlight is an expensive solution. However, CAST Highlight is less expensive than the CAST AIP, but it remains too expensive and the professional services from CAST are also too expensive. The high price is part of the problem with the CAST solutions."
"The solution's standard license is paid annually. They have changed the pricing model and it used to be better. There is a free version available."
"GitLab is cheap."
"GitLab is comparatively expensive, but it provides value because it's feature-rich."
"I'm not sure if they have some kind of discount. I've been negotiating with them on prices before, and I believe they weren't too happy to give discounts, but list prices are $19 per user, per month for Premium and $99 per user, per month for Ultimate. So, the difference between Premium and Ultimate is a bit bigger, and in most companies, you need to build some type of business case."
"Its price is fine. It is on the cheaper side and not expensive. You have to pay additionally for GitLab CI/CD minutes. Initially, we used the free version. When we ran out of GitLab minutes, we migrated to the paid version."
"We are using the free version of GitLab."
"The open-source version is very good and the commercial version is reasonably priced."
"In total, I believe we have more than 300 licenses spread over about 100 users, though I can't comment on the costs involved."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business37
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise46
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for CAST Highlight?
The pricing of CAST Highlight was not considered expensive or cheap, and no specific comment was made about the setup cost.
What needs improvement with CAST Highlight?
The solution provides agnostic blockers for platforms as well as for containerization. Within that containerization, it offers generic blockers. However, my project might require it to provide Wind...
What is your primary use case for CAST Highlight?
For CAST, I use it in cloud migration roadmap and in open source safety issues. These are my two main use cases.
What do you like most about 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.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for GitLab?
The setup cost was moderate and not very high. For GitLab SaaS, the initial setup cost was minimal, while self-managed GitLab involved infrastructure, VM storage backups, runner configuration, and ...
What needs improvement with GitLab?
A pain point I have encountered with GitLab is that large GitLab-ci.yml files become hard to read and maintain. YAML syntax is strict, and errors are easy to make, while debugging pipeline logic ca...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
Fuzzit
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Wells Fargo, Bank of NY Mellon, Northern Trust, Microsoft, Amazon, IBM, BMW, AT&T, US Army, US Air Force, US Navy, John Hancock, Marsh & McLennan, Ernst & Young, PwC, Volkswagen, Boston Consulting Group, London Stock Exchange, Telefonica, Saur France, Total Energies France, SNCF
1. NASA  2. IBM  3. Sony  4. Alibaba  5. CERN  6. Siemens  7. Volkswagen  8. ING  9. Ticketmaster  10. SpaceX  11. Adobe  12. Intuit  13. Autodesk  14. Rakuten  15. Unity Technologies  16. Pandora  17. Electronic Arts  18. Nordstrom  19. Verizon  20. Comcast  21. Philips  22. Deutsche Telekom  23. Orange  24. Fujitsu  25. Ericsson  26. Nokia  27. General Electric  28. Cisco  29. Accenture  30. Deloitte  31. PwC  32. KPMG
Find out what your peers are saying about CAST Highlight vs. GitLab and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
885,264 professionals have used our research since 2012.