GitLab vs GoCD comparison

GitLab and Thoughtworks are both solutions in the Build Automation category. GitLab is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.6, while Thoughtworks is ranked #17 with an average rating of 7.3. GitLab holds a 15.4% mindshare in BA, compared to Thoughtworks’s 1.5% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of GitLab users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 88% of Thoughtworks users who would recommend it.

GitLab

Read 84 GitLab reviews

5,347 Views
4,325 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

GoCD

Read 7 GoCD reviews

631 Views
278 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

GitLab

GoCD

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 7, 2025

GoCD and GitLab compete in the continuous integration and delivery space. GitLab seems to hold the advantage due to its comprehensive feature set and strong market appeal.

Features: GoCD provides powerful pipeline management, efficient resource consumption, and value stream mapping to enhance project transparency. In contrast, GitLab offers extensive integrations, robust CI/CD pipelines, and a sophisticated code review system, making it a complete solution for the development lifecycle.

Room for Improvement: GoCD could benefit from a broader range of plugins and enhanced documentation for newcomers. It may also require improvements in user interface customization options. GitLab may improve in refining its complex features for better accessibility, offering more straightforward onboarding guides, and expanding its feature set usage to meet diverse development needs.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: GoCD's lightweight architecture simplifies quick setups, focusing on standard workflow management. GitLab provides versatile deployment options, including cloud and hybrid setups, supported by extensive documentation and superior customer service channels for a seamless implementation experience.

Pricing and ROI: GoCD appeals with low initial costs due to its open-source nature, making it cost-effective. GitLab charges higher prices, justified by its extensive features and integration capabilities, which lead to favorable ROI through decreased need for additional tools.

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

Buyer's Guide

GitLab vs. GoCD

June 2025

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Helped 856,873 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

Ranking in Release Automation

2nd

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Security Tools (9th), 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)

GoCD

Ranking in Build Automation

17th

Ranking in Release Automation

11th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites (15th)

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 GoCD is 1.5%, down from 1.6% 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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Nishant Narayan Singh

DevOps Architect at Cognizant

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"GitLab has better support, and its features are superior compared to Jenkins."

"When a developer checks in code, it is automatically built and deployed, and automated test cases are also run. We have extensive integration with GitLab, which helps us with source code management. We run the static code analysis using SonarQube."

"It's a great toolbox where the CI/CD pipeline is the fundamental component, but there are so many other features that you can pull from, which makes it a very powerful tool. My current client is using AWS, and they can, of course, use AWS CodePipeline, but GitLab is much more mature than that, and it also gives you the freedom to decide to go to another platform or have a multi-cloud strategy and things like that. That freedom for me is also very valuable."

"GitLab's best features are maintenance, branch integration, and development infrastructure."

"I like GitLab from the CI/CD perspective. It is much easier to set up CI/CD and then integrate with other tools."

"The solution's most valuable feature is that it is compatible with GitHub. The product's integration capabilities are sufficient for our small company of 35 people."

"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."

"The most valuable functionality of GitLab, for me, is the DevOps. Besides the normal source control based on Git, I find the Auto DevOps features most important in the solution."

More GitLab pros

"Permission separations mean that we can grant limited permissions for each team or team member."

"GoCD's open-source nature is valuable."

"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."

"The UI is colorful."

Cons

"It has fewer options, and its UI is not so user-friendly."

"The documentation could be improved to help newcomers better understand things like creating new branches."

"GitLab could improve the patch repository. It does not have support for Conan patch version regions. Additionally, better support for Kubernetes deployment is needed as part of the package."

"I don't really like the new Kubernetes integration because it is pretty focused on the on-premise environment, but we're in a hybrid environment."

"We would like to have easier tutorials. Their tutorials are too technical for a user to understand. They should be more detailed but less technical."

"In the free version, when a merge request is raised, there is no way to enforce certain rules. We can't enforce that this merge request must be reviewed or approved by two or three people in the team before it is pushed to the master branch. That's why we are exploring using some agents."

"GitLab's Windows version is yet not available and having this would be an improvement."

"Merge conflicts and repository maintenance could improve. If there is someone new to the system they would not know if there is a conflict."

More GitLab cons

"It is difficult to assign different access levels because it relies on separate keys for developer and admin access, which could be simplified."

"The documentation really should be improved by including real examples and more setup cases."

"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."

"The tool must be more user-friendly."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"My company uses the free version of GitLab, which is GitLab Community Edition. There is a licensed version also available for GitLab."

"On a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive, I rate the pricing a five out of ten."

"The initial setup cost is excellent and you can add the premium features later."

"The price of GitLab could be better, it is expensive."

"GitLab is comparatively expensive, but it provides value because it's feature-rich."

"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."

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

"GitLab's pricing is good compared to others on the market."

More GitLab pricing and cost advice

"This is an open-source solution and it is inexpensive."

"It's an open-source and free tool."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

16%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Computer Software Company

13%

Government

Computer Software Company

19%

Financial Services Firm

14%

Retailer

12%

Real Estate/Law Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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 do you like most about GoCD?

The UI is colorful.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for GoCD?

The product is free of cost.

See all answers

What needs improvement with GoCD?

See all answers

Comparisons

Microsoft Azure DevOps vs GitLab

Compared 24% of the time

GitHub CoPilot vs GitLab

Compared 15% of the time

SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) vs GitLab

Compared 7% of the time

Tekton vs GitLab

Compared 5% of the time

AWS CodePipeline vs GitLab

Compared 5% of the time

More GitLab Competitors

Jenkins vs GoCD

Compared 28% of the time

GitHub Actions vs GoCD

Compared 19% of the time

Tekton vs GoCD

Compared 11% of the time

Microsoft Azure DevOps vs GoCD

Compared 10% of the time

More GoCD Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

GitLab

June 2025

Download GitLab product report

Buyer's Guide

Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites

May 2025

Download GoCD product report

Also Known As

Fuzzit

Adaptive ALM, Thoughtworks Go

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

GoCD is an open source continuous delivery server created by ThoughtWorks. GoCD offers businesses a first-class build and deployment engine for complete control and visibility. It was designed for continuous delivery and the concepts essential to this practice are built in at the core.

Thoughtworks

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

Buyer's Guide

GitLab vs. GoCD

June 2025

Free Report: GitLab vs. GoCD

Find out what your peers are saying about GitLab vs. GoCD and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.

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