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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
11th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
90
Ranking in other categories
Build Automation (1st), Release Automation (2nd), Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (9th), 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
23rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.6
Number of Reviews
4
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

"GitLab's source control is excellent."
"GitLab is very useful for pipelines, continuous integration, and continuous deployment. It is also stable."
"GitLab is kind of an image of GitHub, so it gives us the flexibility to monitor our changes in the repos."
"The stability of GitLab is impressive."
"A user friendly solution."
"It is very flexible and easy because you can store data on cloud."
"Key features allow creation of well-presented Wiki that includes ideas, development, and domains."
"The dashboard and interface make it easy to use."
"GitLab Premium is much more reliable, quicker, faster, and basically easier to operate compared to GitHub."
"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."
"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."
"The main benefits I received from GitLab Premium are that I save money and streamline my management process of applications."
 

Cons

"We'd always like to see better pricing on the product."
"The licensing model could be improved to be more accommodating in terms of user numbers and costs."
"When deploying the solution on cloud and the CI/CD pipeline, we have to define the steps and it becomes confusing."
"Some of the scripts that we encountered in GitLab were not fully functional and threw up errors."
"It could have more security integrations and the ability to check the vulnerability of the code. I don't think it is a responsibility of Gitlab, but it would be nice to have more options to integrate with."
"The pricing model of GitLab is an issue for me."
"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."
"There is a need to improve or adopt AI into the ecosystem like a co-pilot, which Microsoft has done with GitHub."
"The biggest drawbacks of GitLab Premium are GUI and configuration. GUI is the primary concern, but other aspects are good."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"I don't mind the price because I use the free version."
"As I work in a vast enterprise, I'm unsure about the licensing cost for GitLab. It's the management team that takes care of that."
"In total, I believe we have more than 300 licenses spread over about 100 users, though I can't comment on the costs involved."
"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."
"I think that we pay approximately $100 USD per month."
"In terms of the pricing for GitLab, on a scale of one to five, with one being expensive and five being cheap, I'm rating pricing for the solution a four. It could still be cheaper because right now, my company has a small team, and sometimes it's difficult to use a paid product for a small team. You'd hope the team will grow and scale, but currently, you're paying a high license fee for a small team. I'm referring to the GitLab license that has premium features and will give you all features. This can be a problem for management to approve the high price of the license for a team this small."
"GitLab is an open-source solution."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
11%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business36
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise45
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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?
We are currently using general GitLab, not GitLab Premium.
What needs improvement with GitLab?
GitLab can be improved by being more responsive in the UI and offering better pricing for premium features, which would be useful for small startups. While GitLab's CI/CD is powerful, it is somewha...
What needs improvement with GitLab Premium?
GitLab Premium is quite solid now, though there is always room for improvement. They provide a feature for integrating it with provisioning tools such as Terraform and others, but if they could pro...
What advice do you have for others considering GitLab Premium?
I require clarification on which feedback about the effectiveness of GitLab Premium for audit events you are asking about. Overall, I give GitLab Premium a final rating of nine out of ten for the p...
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

Information not available
 

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
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about GitLab vs. GitLab Premium and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
879,853 professionals have used our research since 2012.