GitLab vs Jenkins comparison

GitLab and Jenkins are both solutions in the Build Automation category. GitLab is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.3, while Jenkins is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.2. GitLab holds a 12.2% 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 87 GitLab reviews

18,203 Views
4,187 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

Jenkins

Read 92 Jenkins reviews

3,400 Views
3,332 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

GitLab

Jenkins

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

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Room for Improvement: Jenkins users seek improvements in its outdated interface and plugin stability.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

Download the complete report

Helped 872,029 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 (3rd), 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 October 2025, in the Build Automation category, the mindshare of GitLab is 12.2%, down from 17.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Jenkins is 9.1%, down from 11.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Build Automation Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
GitLab	12.2%
Jenkins	9.1%
Other	78.7%

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.

Read full review

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…

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

"I like that it's easy to deploy our services over GitLab. The customer support is also good with a really active community. You have a lot of support that you can get online with your stack. That is probably one of the benefits of using GitLab. It's also really fast."

"The user interface is really good so that helps with huge teams who need to collaborate."

"The stability is good."

"GitLab is a solution for source code management, container registry, pipelines, testing, and deployment."

"CI/CD is very good. The version control system is also good. These are the two features that we use."

"Git merging allows us to track the details of how and who has done what; this is the best feature which is useful for all companies."

"The most important features of GitLab for us are issue management and all the CI/CD tools. Another aspect that I love about GitLab is the UI."

"Git merging allows us to track the details of how and who has done what; this is the best feature which is useful for all companies."

More GitLab pros

"We are using the open-source version and there is a lot of plugins and features that are available and it works on agents for free. In other solutions, it will cost extra to use them with the agent."

"We can schedule anything with Jenkins, which is useful for deployment or anything that requires scheduling. It also has multiple plugins we can use for Maven, JUnit, etc."

"Jenkins is very customizable."

"We have started to integrate Pipelines as a part of a build, and built a library of common functions. It simplified and made our build scripts more readable."

"I can install Jenkins for integration from multiple developers and automate application delivery, staging, and production environments."

"Jenkins is very user-friendly."

"Different types of jobs, such as Pipeline, Build, Freestyle, Maven, etc."

"The solution is scalable and has a large number of plugins that can help you scale it to your needs."

More Jenkins pros

Cons

"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 have encountered issues with the deployment of CI/CD pipelines, especially dealing with variable environments."

"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 doesn't have AWS integration. It would be better to have integration with other container management environments beyond Kubernetes. It has very good integration with Kubernetes, but it doesn't have good integration with, for example, AWS, ETS, etc."

"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."

"It can be free for commercial use."

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

"The self-hosted version of GitLab is not very stable when under load. It slows down and requires restarts every few days."

More GitLab cons

"Upgrading and maintaining plugins can be painful, as sometimes upgrading a plugin can break functionality of another plugin that a job is dependent on."

"Sometimes, random errors of metadata are not there, which causes delays. These are essentially gaps in the information being passed to the job."

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

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

"The learning curve is quite steep at the moment."

"Logging could be improved to offer a clearer view."

"Performance-wise. This needs to be improved. Not only performance-wise, some functionality or some features can be added to Jenkins."

"A more user-friendly UI for creating pipelines would be helpful."

More Jenkins cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"It seems reasonable. Our IT team manages the licenses."

"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."

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

"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."

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

More GitLab pricing and cost advice

"Jenkins is open source and free."

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

"I used the free OSS version all the time. It was enough for all my needs."

"It is a free product."

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

"It is an open source."

"This is an open-source solution for the basic features. However, if an organization wishes to include specific functionality, outside of the basic package, there are extra costs involved."

"There is no cost. It is open source."

More Jenkins pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Build Automation solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

872,029 professionals have used our research since 2012.

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

14%

Government

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

20%

Manufacturing Company

14%

Computer Software Company

12%

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?

We are currently using general GitLab, not GitLab Premium.

See all answers

What needs improvement with GitLab?

GitLab needs to improve the CI/CD functionality because it is not compatible with Jenkins and other tools, as it is not that efficient. Security-wise, we have security features enabled in GitLab fo...

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 40% of the time

GitHub CoPilot vs GitLab

Compared 11% of the time

TeamCity vs GitLab

Compared 4% of the time

Tekton vs GitLab

Compared 4% of the time

Veracode vs GitLab

Compared 2% of the time

More GitLab Competitors

Harness vs Jenkins

Compared 13% of the time

JFrog Pipeline vs Jenkins

Compared 9% of the time

TeamCity vs Jenkins

Compared 8% of the time

Bazel vs Jenkins

Compared 8% of the time

Tekton vs Jenkins

Compared 8% of the time

More Jenkins Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

GitLab

October 2025

Download GitLab product report

Buyer's Guide

Jenkins

October 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

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

DOWNLOAD NOW

872,029 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our GitLab vs. Jenkins report.

See our list of best Build Automation vendors.

We monitor all Build Automation reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.