No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

GitLab vs GoCD comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 7, 2025

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
Ranking in Release Automation
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
91
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (7th), 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)
GoCD
Ranking in Build Automation
19th
Ranking in Release Automation
13th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites (17th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Build Automation category, the mindshare of GitLab is 7.2%, down from 16.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of GoCD is 2.7%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Build Automation Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
GitLab7.2%
GoCD2.7%
Other90.1%
Build Automation
 

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.
Nishant Narayan Singh - PeerSpot reviewer
DevOps Architect at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Simplifies the pipeline process, but the access control system needs enhancement
One area of product improvement is the access control system. It is difficult to assign different access levels because it relies on separate keys for developer and admin access, which could be simplified. The folder structure is another aspect that could be enhanced, as all jobs are displayed on a single page without the clear organization seen in Jenkins. Implementing a more structured approach to organizing jobs would improve user experience. AI could simplify job creation. For example, instead of manually editing pipelines as code, an AI tool could allow users to input variables and automatically generate the required jobs. It would help reduce human errors, such as issues that arise from incorrect edits in large code files.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"GitLab has positively impacted my organization because previously we stored code locally on servers, leading to many risks, and since GitLab came into our environment, our integration and deployments became much easier, helping our work become much smoother."
"It speeds up our development, it's faster, safer, and more convenient."
"I like that you can use GitLab as a double-sided solution for both DevOps and version management. It's a good product for working in these two areas, and the user interface makes it easy to understand."
"I like that you can use GitLab as a double-sided solution for both DevOps and version management; it's a good product for working in these two areas, and the user interface makes it easy to understand."
"I have had no problem with the stability of the solution."
"GitLab's best features are maintenance, branch integration, and development infrastructure."
"The most valuable feature of GitLab is its convenience. I am able to trace back most of my changes up to a far distance in time and it helps me to analyze and see the older version of the code."
"It is a speedy platform compared to the others I have used. I have also enjoyed using the platform as this solution offers a good user experience."
"After we switched to GO, each team can set-up their own delivery pipeline and run it themselves."
"Permission separations mean that we can grant limited permissions for each team or team member."
"The UI is colorful."
"The most notable aspect is its user interface, which we find to be user-friendly and straightforward for deploying and comprehending pipelines. We have the ability to create multiple pipelines, and in addition to that, the resource consumption is impressive."
"GoCD's open-source nature is valuable."
"In terms of value added it has more than achieved everything we wanted from it and more."
"It has a user-friendly interface, which for free and open-source tools, the UI is really amazing and simple."
 

Cons

"GitLab could improve by having more plugins and better user-friendliness."
"I'm new to GitLab, so I would appreciate more documentation about the code and commands."
"The self-hosted version of GitLab is not very stable when under load. It slows down and requires restarts every few days."
"GitLab should work on improving their user interface for GitOps as it is lagging behind."
"I would like to have some features to support peer review."
"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."
"The solution does not have many built-in functions or variables so scripting is required."
"GitLab can improve the integration with third-party applications. It could be made easier. Additionally, having API control from my application could be helpful."
"The aspect that requires attention is the user management component. When integrating with BitLabs and authenticating through GitLab, there are specific features we desire. One important feature is the ability to import users directly from GitLab, along with their respective designations, and assign appropriate privileges based on that information. Allocating different privileges to users is a time-consuming process for us."
"GO doesn't come with a lot of out of the box features like other tools, don't expect that you can get it to work by clicking the NEXT button."
"The documentation really should be improved by including real examples and more setup cases."
"It is difficult to assign different access levels because it relies on separate keys for developer and admin access, which could be simplified."
"User management, Documentation, Advanced GUI functionality."
"The documentation really should be improved by including real examples and more setup cases."
"The tool must be more user-friendly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"GitLab is a free solution to use."
"This product is not very expensive but the price can be better."
"GitLab's pricing is good compared to others on the market."
"The price is okay."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"We are currently using the open-source version."
"This is an open-source solution and it is inexpensive."
"It's an open-source and free tool."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Build Automation solutions are best for your needs.
892,943 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Comms Service Provider
8%
University
8%
Retailer
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business37
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise46
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise3
 

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 GoCD?
One area of product improvement is the access control system. It is difficult to assign different access levels because it relies on separate keys for developer and admin access, which could be sim...
What is your primary use case for GoCD?
The solution helps us deploy microservices across multiple environments.
What advice do you have for others considering GoCD?
We integrate the solution with Git, where we store our code. We use Maven to build the code and tools like SonarQube and Checkmarx for code quality checks. We deploy our services in a Kubernetes-ba...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Fuzzit
Adaptive ALM, Thoughtworks Go
 

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
Ancestry.com, Barclay Card, AutoTrader, BT Financial Group, Gamesys, Nike, Vodafone, Haufe Lexware, Medidata, Hoovers
Find out what your peers are saying about GitLab vs. GoCD and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
892,943 professionals have used our research since 2012.