GitLab vs Jenkins comparison

GitLab and Jenkins are both solutions in the Build Automation category. GitLab is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.5, while Jenkins is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.2. GitLab holds a 12.6% mindshare in BA, compared to Jenkins’s 9.1% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of GitLab users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 88% of Jenkins users who would recommend it.

GitLab

Read 86 GitLab reviews

19,204 Views
4,417 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

Jenkins

Read 92 Jenkins reviews

3,539 Views
3,468 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

GitLab

Jenkins

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 27, 2025

Jenkins and GitLab both compete in the CI/CD tools category. Jenkins holds an advantage due to its vast library of plugins and strong community support, while GitLab offers an integrated platform with robust security features.

Features: Jenkins is celebrated for its extensive plugin ecosystem that allows for significant flexibility and customization. It provides a wide array of plugins for automating complex tasks across different platforms. GitLab combines source control and CI/CD in one platform, providing a seamless experience with strong security measures. It includes built-in tools that support comprehensive DevOps processes.

Room for Improvement: Jenkins users seek improvements in its outdated interface and plugin stability. Enhancing cloud features and integration capabilities is also desired. GitLab could improve tool integration, expand documentation, and enhance UI for easier navigation. Users would appreciate more flexibility in pipeline configurations and stronger security features.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Jenkins offers versatile deployment options across on-premises, public, and private cloud environments, with strong community support. GitLab matches this versatility but provides more structured support options, which are beneficial for enterprises needing dedicated assistance. Both have supportive communities, with GitLab often commended for its support infrastructure.

Pricing and ROI: Jenkins is primarily open-source and free, with an enterprise version offering additional features at a cost, making it cost-effective for companies avoiding proprietary tools. GitLab operates on a tiered pricing model with a free community edition. Though its premium tiers are costlier, they are appealing for enterprise needs due to their abundant features. Both provide good value, with Jenkins leading in cost efficiency due to its open-source nature.

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

Buyer's Guide

GitLab vs. Jenkins

September 2025

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Helped 867,676 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

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Security Tools (11th), Release Automation (2nd), Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (7th), Rapid Application Development Software (11th), Software Composition Analysis (SCA) (5th), Enterprise Agile Planning Tools (2nd), Fuzz Testing Tools (2nd), DevSecOps (1st)

Jenkins

Ranking in Build Automation

4th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Build Automation category, the mindshare of GitLab is 12.6%, down from 17.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Jenkins is 9.1%, down from 11.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Build Automation Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
GitLab	12.6%
Jenkins	9.1%
Other	78.3%

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 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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Annamalai Pts

DevOps Engineer at Tech Mahindra Limited

Streamlined CI/CD pipelines with powerful integration and an easy setup

I use Jenkins as a CI/CD tool. We create pipelines using Jenkins, with stages for Maven builds, Docker image builds, SonarQube integration, and deploying the image to a Kubernetes cluster, AWS EKS Jenkins has made the developers' work very easy. They commit to the remote repository, and…

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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

"Continuous integration with deployment is very powerful, which is a significant reason for migrating from TFS to GitLab."

"The code merging capability is something that we use very frequently."

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

"The most valuable features of GitLab are the CI/CD pipeline and code management."

"The most valuable features of Gitlab are integration with CIE and the ability to rapidly deploy solutions, projects, and applications. It is very easy to use, and there are no complaints."

"Everything is easy to configure and easy to work with."

"The most valuable features of GitLab are the review, patch repo, and plans are in YAML."

"The tool helps to integrate CI/CD pipeline deployments. It is very easy to learn. Its security model is good."

More GitLab pros

"Jenkins is particularly valuable since it saves time by automating manual tasks."

"Jenkins's automation and orchestration features have significantly improved workflows by automating various processes. Initially, it did not support YAML manifesting or GitOps, but recent versions have introduced these capabilities. Now, the tool supports importing manifest files from Git repositories, enabling the implementation of GitOps pipelines. Compared to other tools like GitLab, it has become a mature tool for running CI/CD pipelines."

"The most valuable aspect of Jenkins is pipeline customization. Jenkins provides a declarative pipeline as well as a scripted pipeline. The scripted pipeline uses a programming language. You can customize it to your needs, so we use Jenkins because other solutions like Travis and Spinnaker don't allow much customization."

"The initial setup is pretty simple."

"It's a powerful tool for CI/CD."

"It offers continuous deployment and continuous testing. It enables us to figure out anything."

"The most valuable features of Jenkins are creating builds, and connecting them with Sonar for Sonar analysis. Additionally, we connect it with other vulnerability tools, such as WhiteSource which is useful."

"The solution is scalable and concurrent users have access to the platform."

More Jenkins pros

Cons

"GitLab can improve its user interface to make conflict resolution more user-friendly."

"As GitLab is not perfect, what needs improvement in the solution is the Wiki feature of the groups or the repertories because currently, it's not searchable by default. You'll need an indexing service such as Elasticsearch to make it searchable, and that requires too much work, so for me, it's the main feature that should be improved in GitLab. In the next version of the solution, from the top of my head, the documentation could be improved. Besides the Wiki, it would be good if there's documentation that would be automatically generated based on the code repository. In other words, there should be some tutorials from GitLab for developers in the next release."

"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."

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

"Reporting could be improved."

"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."

"GitLab could add a plugin to integrate with Kubernetes stuff."

"We'd like to see better integration with the Atlassian ecosystem."

More GitLab cons

"The documentation on plugin development could be better: more examples. "

"The documentation is not helpful, as it is not user-friendly."

"The major drawback with Jenkins is the lack of support."

"It could be cheaper."

"Jenkins could improve by adding the ability to edit test automation and make time planning better because it is difficult. It should be easier to do."

"This solution would be improved with the inclusion of an Artifactory (Universal artifact repository manager)."

"Improvement-wise, I would want the solution's user interface to be changed for the better. In short, the solution can be made more user-friendly."

"I would like them to provide space for people to have a central node that stores all the logs of workspace information in a distributed fashion to facilitate backup and restoration. Currently, everything is stored on one node, so you need to set up distributed storage or an endpoint that you can use for backing up your information."

More Jenkins cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 solution's standard license is paid annually. They have changed the pricing model and it used to be better. There is a free version available."

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

"The solution is free."

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

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

"GitLab is an open-source solution."

"We are using the open-source version."

More GitLab pricing and cost advice

"We are using the freeware version of Jenkins."

"We are using the free version of Jenkins. There are no costs or licensing."

"Jenkins is open source and free."

"Jenkins is an open-source tool."

"The solution is one of the lowest costs compared to competitors."

"It is an open source."

"Some of the add-ons are too expensive."

"We use the tool's open-source version which is free. There is an enterprise version which is expensive but comes with better support."

More Jenkins pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user184734

Systems Administrator at Facebook

Jan 22, 2015

I generally find TeamCity a lot more intuitive than Jenkins.

Moving to TeamCity from Jenkins At work, we’re slowly migrating from Jenkins to TeamCity in the hope of ending some of our recurring problems with continuous integration. My use of Jenkins prior to this job has been almost strictly on a personal basis, although I pretty much only use Travis…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

13%

Government

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

21%

Manufacturing Company

13%

Computer Software Company

13%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	35
Midsize Enterprise	9
Large Enterprise	42

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	28
Midsize Enterprise	15
Large Enterprise	56

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?

Regarding improvements, making task management is something that GitLab can potentially make easier, similar to what DevOps or Jira does.

See all answers

How does Tekton compare with Jenkins?

When you are evaluating tools for automating your own GitOps-based CI/CD workflow, it is important to keep your requirements and use cases in mind. Tekton deployment is complex and it is not very e...

See all answers

What do you like most about Jenkins?

Jenkins has been instrumental in automating our build and deployment processes.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Jenkins?

Jenkins is used in many companies to save money, especially within R&D divisions, by avoiding the expenses of proprietary tools.

See all answers

Comparisons

Microsoft Azure DevOps vs GitLab

Compared 34% of the time

GitHub CoPilot vs GitLab

Compared 13% of the time

TeamCity vs GitLab

Compared 5% of the time

Tekton vs GitLab

Compared 5% of the time

Bamboo vs GitLab

Compared 2% of the time

More GitLab Competitors

Harness vs Jenkins

Compared 15% of the time

JFrog Pipeline vs Jenkins

Compared 8% of the time

Bazel vs Jenkins

Compared 8% of the time

TeamCity vs Jenkins

Compared 8% of the time

Tekton vs Jenkins

Compared 8% of the time

More Jenkins Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

GitLab

September 2025

Download GitLab product report

Buyer's Guide

Jenkins

September 2025

Download Jenkins product report

Also Known As

Fuzzit

No data available

Overview

GitLab offers a secure and user-friendly platform for CI/CD pipeline management, code repository control, and collaboration, enhancing development speed and efficiency. It facilitates automation with extensive customization and tool integration, ideal for DevOps processes.

GitLab supports source code management, version control, and collaborative development. It's frequently used in CI/CD processes to automate builds and deployments while integrating DevOps practices. GitLab allows companies to manage repositories, automate pipelines, conduct code reviews, and maintain development lifecycles. The platform supports infrastructure and configuration management, enabling efficient code collaboration, deployment automation, and comprehensive repository handling. Many organizations commit and deploy developed code using GitLab's capabilities.

What are GitLab's most valuable features?

CI/CD Pipeline Management: Streamlines development through automated testing and deployment.
User-Friendly Interface: Ensures ease of collaboration and task automation.
Code Merging and Branching: Facilitates smooth code integration and version control.
Security Platform: Provides strong security features for safe development.
Tool Integration: Enhances functionality with diverse tool integration.

What benefits should users evaluate?

Development Speed: Accelerates processes through automation.
Collaboration Ease: Simplifies team interactions and workflow.
Customization Options: Offers extensive personalization for specific needs.
Comprehensive Documentation: Provides detailed guidance for users.
Secure Platform: Maintains integrity with robust security features.

In specific industries, GitLab serves as a backbone for source code management and CI/CD implementation. Companies leverage its capabilities for infrastructure management and deployment automation, thus streamlining project delivery timelines. Its ability to handle configuration management and code repositories effectively aids in maintaining development lifecycles, making it a preferred choice for organizations committed to enhancing their DevOps practices.

GitLab

Jenkins is an award-winning application that monitors executions of repeated jobs, such as building a software project or jobs run by cron.

Jenkins

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

Airial, Clarus Financial Technology, cubetutor, Metawidget, mysocio, namma, silverpeas, Sokkva, So Rave, tagzbox

Buyer's Guide

GitLab vs. Jenkins

September 2025

Free Report: GitLab vs. Jenkins

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