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GitLab vs Spinnaker 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 Release Automation
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
82
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (9th), Build Automation (1st), Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (7th), Rapid Application Development Software (12th), Software Composition Analysis (SCA) (5th), Enterprise Agile Planning Tools (2nd), Fuzz Testing Tools (2nd), DevSecOps (3rd)
Spinnaker
Ranking in Release Automation
9th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Release Automation category, the mindshare of GitLab is 32.1%, down from 34.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Spinnaker is 1.3%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Release Automation
 

Featured Reviews

Gaurav Chandel - PeerSpot reviewer
Boosted productivity with automated pipelines and seamless collaboration
There are some challenges with repository file management as GitLab may struggle to manage larger files. Improvements could be made regarding size management and file partitioning. Also, the UI has remained the same for a couple of years and could benefit from an update with AI features and better customization.
Anurag Bandyopadhyay - PeerSpot reviewer
Useful to create custom pipelines
Regarding areas for improvement, one significant issue is the lack of maker-checker flows to ensure that newly created pipelines are accurate and tested. We currently use an in-house abstraction over Spinnaker to verify pipeline specs, environment variables, etc. It would be beneficial if Spinnaker could offer this functionality within their product.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Key features allow creation of well-presented Wiki that includes ideas, development, and domains."
"A user friendly solution."
"Git hosting has an integration with ACD which is why we liked this solution in the first place."
"They incorporate new features every September, and they have introduced their own code editor and AI features."
"CI/CD and GitLab scanning are the most valuable features."
"GitLab's best feature is Actions."
"It is scalable."
"I like GitLab's security and SAS tools."
"The most valuable feature of Spinnaker is the rollback."
"The tool's most valuable feature is its intuitive interface for converting existing Kubernetes specs into working pipelines. It's easy for anyone to deploy anything on any environment when they need to test or deploy for a specific merchant or use case. Instead of going into the specs and changing different variables, they can do it through the UI, which is very useful."
"There is a good community around the product that makes troubleshooting possible."
"Spinnaker is used for automating a variety of deployment tasks, infrastructure, provisioning tasks, and all kinds of things."
 

Cons

"GitLab can improve the integration with third-party applications. It could be made easier. Additionally, having API control from my application could be helpful."
"GitLab could add a plugin to integrate with Kubernetes stuff."
"GitLab can improve its user interface to make conflict resolution more user-friendly."
"The solution could be faster."
"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."
"GitLab would be improved with the addition of templates for deployment on local PCs."
"We are having a few problems integrating with Jira at the moment, which is something that our IT department is investigating."
"GitLab can improve its user interface to make conflict resolution more user-friendly."
"Every time it goes to run a pipeline, it just generates a lot of data, and its database is not exactly tuned out of the box, meaning it is not tuned for high scalability."
"Log-wise, we need to understand why something has failed so that we can understand and try to fix it the moment the issue is reported. The solution could use more robust monitoring."
"Regarding areas for improvement, one significant issue is the lack of maker-checker flows to ensure that newly created pipelines are accurate and tested. We currently use an in-house abstraction over Spinnaker to verify pipeline specs, environment variables, etc. It would be beneficial if Spinnaker could offer this functionality within their product."
"Spinnaker's configuration setup is too complicated and should be made easy."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"GitLab's pricing is good compared to others on the market."
"The open-source version is very good and the commercial version is reasonably priced."
"GitLab is an open-source solution."
"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."
"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."
"The price is okay."
"My company uses the free version of GitLab, which is GitLab Community Edition. There is a licensed version also available for GitLab."
"I'm not aware of the licensing costs because those were covered by the customer."
"Spinnaker is a free-to-use, open-source solution."
"The solution is open-source."
"Spinnaker is an open-source product. The tool is completely free for users."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
24%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
22%
Computer Software Company
22%
Retailer
14%
Healthcare Company
6%
 

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.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for GitLab?
The pricing of GitLab is reasonable, aligning with what I consider to be average compared to competitors.
What needs improvement with GitLab?
Certain features in Jira are not available in GitLab, such as the functionality to have weights at the milestone and epic levels. Hopefully, these features will be resolved with work items in GitLa...
What do you like most about Spinnaker?
The most valuable feature of Spinnaker is the rollback.
What needs improvement with Spinnaker?
Regarding areas for improvement, one significant issue is the lack of maker-checker flows to ensure that newly created pipelines are accurate and tested. We currently use an in-house abstraction ov...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Fuzzit
No data available
 

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
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Find out what your peers are saying about GitLab vs. Spinnaker and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.