GNU Make vs GitLab comparison

GitLab and GNU are both solutions in the Build Automation category. GitLab is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.6, while GNU is ranked #16 with an average rating of 9.0. GitLab holds a 15.4% mindshare in BA, compared to GNU’s 0.6% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of GitLab users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 83% of GNU users who would recommend it.

GitLab

Read 84 GitLab reviews

5,347 Views
4,325 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

GNU Make

Read 6 GNU Make reviews

239 Views
135 Comparison Views

83% willing to recommend

GitLab

GNU Make

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 5, 2025

GNU Make and GitLab operate in the build automation and DevOps platform categories. GitLab has a strategic advantage attributed to its modern feature set and robust capabilities, offering greater value despite GNU Make's simplicity and efficiency in specific tasks.

Features: GNU Make automates build activities in software development, facilitating complex build rule definitions with straightforward script syntax. GitLab provides a robust suite of features beyond just build automation, including continuous integration, continuous deployment, project management tools, and collaborative tools like code review capabilities.

Room for Improvement: GNU Make could improve by offering more support options and user-friendly configuration tools. GitLab can be enhanced by extending its feature set to make full use of its existing functionalities and by optimizing user workflows.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: GitLab ensures a streamlined deployment process with comprehensive documentation and responsive customer service. GNU Make, on the other hand, requires more manual configuration and lacks extensive support options, making GitLab more user-friendly.

Pricing and ROI: GNU Make is open-source and free, providing immediate cost-effectiveness for build automation. GitLab, although offering free options, includes premium paid tiers with additional features that generate significant value by enhancing collaboration, efficiency, and reducing time to market.

To learn more, read our detailed GNU Make vs. GitLab Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

GNU Make vs. GitLab

June 2025

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Helped 857,162 peers since 2012

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 Build Automation

1st

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Security Tools (9th), Release Automation (2nd), Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (6th), Rapid Application Development Software (11th), Software Composition Analysis (SCA) (5th), Enterprise Agile Planning Tools (2nd), Fuzz Testing Tools (3rd), DevSecOps (1st)

GNU Make

Ranking in Build Automation

16th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Build Automation category, the mindshare of GitLab is 15.4%, down from 18.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of GNU Make is 0.6%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Build Automation

Featured Reviews

Rohit Kesharwani

Manager, Engineering at 7-Eleven

Improved agility and time to market with CI/CD enhancements

The CI/CD pipelines in GitLab ( /products/gitlab-reviews ) are highly valuable. Another important feature is the single source of repository, allowing efficient repository management and source code management. GitLab provides manageability by allowing us to manage source code effectively through separate repositories. Additionally, GitLab enables the creation of individual CI/CD pipelines for each repository, making software more agile. By integrating GitLab as a DevOps platform, we have enhanced agility, improved our time to market, and different teams can work collaboratively on various projects.

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reviewer2561757

Software at a computer software company with 201-500 employees

Enhances productivity with efficient dependency handling and a straightforward setup

GNU Make is used as a build system tool. Most people don't use GNU Make directly but utilize other systems like CMake to generate Make files, which are then run by GNU Make. This is common for tasks like compiling C++ code. In the industry, AI developers, for example, use GNU Make in their work…

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The best thing is that as the developers work on separate tasks, all of the code goes there and the other team members don't have to wait on each other to finish."

"It is user-friendly, easy to use, and easy to administer."

"We use the Git repository and tagging feature. We are a product-based company and use this solution to move to a forward or backward tag."

"As a developer, this solution is useful as a repository holder because most of the POC projects that we have are on GitLab."

"The most valuable features of GitLab are ease of use and highly intuitive UI and performance."

"GitLab is kind of an image of GitHub, so it gives us the flexibility to monitor our changes in the repos."

"If you want to maintain your issues in GitLab and raise your book of work and features, then GitLab is a great tool for collaboration and integration with code deployment and CICD pipelines."

"By integrating GitLab as a DevOps platform, we have enhanced agility, improved our time to market, and different teams can work collaboratively on various projects."

More GitLab pros

"Setup is extremely straightforward."

"The initial setup of GNU Make is straightforward."

"I have not encountered any scalability issues with GNU Make. It is as scalable as the project's structure is, and then some."

"GNU Make is such an essential tool that it is almost impossible to imagine working without it. Not having it, developers would probably have to resort to doing everything manually or via shell scripts."

"Makefiles are extremely easy to work with using any preferred editor. GNU Make can be run directly from the terminal, not requiring any time wasted on clicking."

"Full-featured syntax allows building strategies as simple or as complex as one wishes, and declarative approach fits the task really well. Wide adoption also means that everybody knows what GNU Make is and how to use it."

Cons

"The tool should include a feature that helps to edit the code directly."

"I would like more Agile features in the Premium version. The Premium version should have all Agile features that exist in the Ultimate version. IBM AOM has a complete Agile implementation, but in GitLab, you only have these features if you buy the Ultimate version. It would be good if we can use these in the Premium version."

"This solution could be improved by adding modifications such as slack notifications."

"I would like to see better integration with project management tools such as Jira."

"It's more related to the supporting layer of features, such as issue management and issue tracking. We tend to always use, for example, Jira next to it. That doesn't mean that GitLab should build something similar to Jira because that will always have its place, but they could grow a bit in those kinds of supporting features. I see some, for example, covering ITSM on a DevOps team level, and that's one of the things that I and my current client would find really helpful. It's understandably not going to be their main focus and their core, and whenever you are with a company that needs a bit more advanced features on that specific topic, you're probably still going to integrate with another tool like Jira Service Management, for example. However, some basic features on things like that could be really helpful."

"Expand features to match other tools such as a static code analysis tool so third-party integrations are not required."

"I rate the support from GitLab a four out of five."

"I would like to see security increased in the future. A secure environment is very important."

More GitLab cons

"GNU Make does not provide traditional customer support."

"Vanilla GNU Make does not support any kind of colored output. A wrapper named colormake exists to work around this, but native (opt-in) support would be welcome."

"GNU Make requires using the Tab symbol as the first symbol of command line for execution. In some text editors this can be problematic, as they automatically insert spaces instead of tabs."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The open-source version is very good and the commercial version is reasonably priced."

"The solution is based on a subscription model and is reasonably priced."

"We are using the open-source version."

"The solution is free."

"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 a free solution to use."

"In total, I believe we have more than 300 licenses spread over about 100 users, though I can't comment on the costs involved."

"Regarding pricing, I would rate GitLab as moderately priced, maybe around a seven or eight out of ten. It could be more flexible for clients but generally offers good value."

More GitLab pricing and cost advice

"GNU Make is free and open source software."

"There is no price for this product. No licensing. It’s open-source."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

15%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Computer Software Company

13%

Government

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for GitLab?

The pricing and cost are on par with other tools and are neither too expensive nor cheap.

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What needs improvement with GitLab?

One significant feature we lack is the configuration that enforces code reviews, which simplifies the development life cycle. Unfortunately, this is available only at a higher license level than we...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for GNU Make?

GNU Make is a free solution that comes with Linux, which positively impacts operational costs by eliminating licensing fees.

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What needs improvement with GNU Make?

I am not familiar enough with it to suggest any specific new features or areas for improvement. It occupies its niche well.

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What is your primary use case for GNU Make?

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Comparisons

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Compared 24% of the time

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Compared 7% of the time

Tekton vs GitLab

Compared 5% of the time

AWS CodePipeline vs GitLab

Compared 5% of the time

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Jenkins vs GNU Make

Compared 100% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

GitLab

June 2025

Download GitLab product report

Buyer's Guide

Build Automation

June 2025

Download GNU Make product report

Also Known As

Fuzzit

No data available

Overview

GitLab is a complete DevOps platform that enables teams to collaborate and deliver software faster.

It provides a single application for the entire DevOps lifecycle, from planning and development to testing, deployment, and monitoring.

With GitLab, teams can streamline their workflows, automate processes, and improve productivity.

GitLab

Make is a tool which controls the generation of executables and other non-source files of a program from the program's source files.

GNU

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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Buyer's Guide

GNU Make vs. GitLab

June 2025

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