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GitLab vs GitLab Premium comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

GitLab
Ranking in Application Security Tools
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
91
Ranking in other categories
Build Automation (1st), Release Automation (2nd), Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (4th), Rapid Application Development Software (11th), Software Composition Analysis (SCA) (4th), Enterprise Agile Planning Tools (2nd), Fuzz Testing Tools (2nd), DevSecOps (1st)
GitLab Premium
Ranking in Application Security Tools
27th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
5.4
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Bharadwaj Deepak Mohapatra - PeerSpot reviewer
DevOps Engineer at ENTERPRISE SYSTEM SOLUTIONS LIMITED
Have managed internal projects efficiently but face challenges with user interface and navigation
When discussing improvements for GitLab Premium, the main area is the GUI. GitHub's GUI is very good, offering many collaboration options and the ability to customize dashboards. GitHub's look and feel is superior, but GitLab Premium's dashboard is very simple. Regarding capabilities lacking in GitLab Premium, the main concern is the GUI. For example, in GitHub, there is a right side profile where settings can be directly accessed, and there is a direct section for developer mode with clear segregation. In GitLab Premium, when accessing users, confusion sometimes arises between root user and main user. There is an option for groups, but it is not direct. When clicking on groups, it goes to another section where groups must be found. This hierarchy could be more straightforward and direct. The biggest drawbacks of GitLab Premium are GUI and configuration. GUI is the primary concern, but other aspects are good.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"They incorporate new features every September, and they have introduced their own code editor and AI features."
"In terms of impact from using GitLab as an all-in-one DevOps platform, it helped with my project development life cycle."
"The solution's service delivery model is fantastic."
"GitLab offers a good interface for doing code reviews between two colleagues."
"The feature I appreciate the most about GitLab is its ease of use and compatibility, which allows for straightforward building and deployment processes."
"The scalability is good."
"The solution's most valuable features are pipelines."
"It is a speedy platform compared to the others I have used, and I have also enjoyed using the platform as this solution offers a good user experience."
"The main benefits from advanced CI/CD capabilities in GitLab Premium include automation to pull and merge the codes together, and it's all done automatically."
"I would give a rating of eleven in that case, because we never had a downtime with GitLab Premium."
"GitLab Premium is much more reliable, quicker, faster, and basically easier to operate compared to GitHub."
"The main benefits I received from GitLab Premium are that I save money and streamline my management process of applications."
"The biggest benefit from GitLab Premium is that both repository management systems are good, as both GitHub and GitLab are valuable, and the main advantage is that GitLab Premium has community support, making it good in all aspects for small organizations."
 

Cons

"GitLab can improve the integration with third-party applications. It could be made easier. Additionally, having API control from my application could be helpful."
"GitLab's Windows version is yet not available and having this would be an 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."
"The licensing model could be improved to be more accommodating in terms of user numbers and costs."
"Based on what I know so far, its integration with Kubernetes is not so good. We have to develop many things to make it work. We have to acquire third-party components to work with Kubernetes."
"There was a problem with the build environment when we were looking at developing iOS applications. iOS build require Mac machines and there are no Mac machines provided by GitLab in their cloud. So to build for mobile iOS application, we needed to use our own Mac machine within our own infrastructure. If GitLab were to provide a feature such that an iOS application could also be built through GitLab directly, that would be great."
"One of my colleagues got in touch with them, and his response was that their technical support was not that great. The details that they provided for the question were not that great."
"GitLab could consider introducing a code-scanning tool. Purchasing such tools from external markets can incur charges, which might not be favorable. Integrating these features into GitLab would streamline the pipeline and make it more convenient for users."
"It is complex. It takes a good amount of time."
"In terms of improvement for GitLab Premium, not necessarily GitLab Premium specifically but GitLab as a whole could enhance features on the project management side."
"The automation part could be improved. Nowadays AI is being actively used, and if we could integrate something like ChatGPT with GitLab Premium, it would be easier for us to check logs and debug faster."
"The biggest drawbacks of GitLab Premium are GUI and configuration. GUI is the primary concern, but other aspects are good."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The open-source version is very good and the commercial version is reasonably priced."
"It is very expensive. We can't bear it now, and we have to find another solution. We have a yearly subscription in which we can increase the number of licenses, but we have to pay at the end of the year."
"GitLab is a free solution to use."
"My company uses the free version of GitLab, which is GitLab Community Edition. There is a licensed version also available for GitLab."
"We are using the free version of GitLab."
"We are currently using the open-source version."
"It seems reasonable. Our IT team manages the licenses."
"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."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Construction Company
43%
Transportation Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business38
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise49
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for GitLab?
The setup cost for GitLab is minimal since the team has its own minimal resource balancing. The costing falls into an intermediate stage and is impactful across all results within the team. It allo...
What needs improvement with GitLab?
There are many improvements that GitLab can implement, such as addressing the issue of caching. Currently, when I have multiple tasks to merge or attempt multiple merges, the CI/CD and overall GitL...
What is your primary use case for GitLab?
My main use case for GitLab is as a version control system that we are using. Currently, I am working on an end-to-end AI pipeline, and I have deployed my whole code using GitLab so that all things...
What needs improvement with GitLab Premium?
It could be better, but now that we have migrated to Siemens Energy, GitLab Premium is being actively looked after by another team. We are just making sure that GitLab Premium administration is bei...
What advice do you have for others considering GitLab Premium?
We were on the desktop, and now GitLab Premium is on cloud. I am not really sure about the purchase process for GitLab Premium. I am a GitLab Premium end-user. I give this product a rating of eight...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for GitLab Premium?
GitLab Premium is affordable in terms of pricing, while GitHub is a bit pricier. If working with a much more complex and vast organization at the enterprise level, GitHub would be the choice. If op...
 

Comparisons

No data available
 

Also Known As

Fuzzit
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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
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Find out what your peers are saying about GitLab vs. GitLab Premium and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,988 professionals have used our research since 2012.