GitLab vs Travis CI comparison

GitLab and Travis CI are both solutions in the Build Automation category. GitLab is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.5, while Travis CI is ranked #21 with an average rating of 6.0. GitLab holds a 12.6% mindshare in BA, compared to Travis CI’s 1.2% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of GitLab users are willing to recommend the solution.

GitLab

Read 86 GitLab reviews

19,204 Views
4,417 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

Travis CI

Read 2 Travis CI reviews

422 Views
422 Comparison Views

0% willing to recommend

GitLab

Travis CI

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 5, 2025

Travis CI and GitLab compete in the continuous integration and deployment domain. GitLab seems to have the upper hand due to its feature-rich environment, despite potentially higher costs.

Features: Travis CI provides valuable features like easy configuration with YAML, native support for various programming languages, and a quick setup process. GitLab stands out with a complete DevOps lifecycle solution, offering source code management, issue tracking, and application performance monitoring, showcasing its versatility compared to Travis CI's streamlined approach.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: GitLab offers a unified platform with flexible on-premises and cloud deployment options supported by detailed documentation and extensive integration capabilities, although setup might require more effort. Travis CI offers a straightforward cloud-based setup, reducing deployment complexity, but with less flexibility for customization. GitLab's model may be more complex but allows for greater scalability and support.

Pricing and ROI: Travis CI has a straightforward pricing model suitable for smaller teams or projects with budget constraints, potentially leading to quicker ROI due to low maintenance costs. GitLab's pricing is higher but delivers substantial ROI by streamlining the software development lifecycle for larger teams needing an all-in-one solution, providing broader value.

To learn more, read our detailed Build Automation Report (Updated: August 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Build Automation

August 2025

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Helped 867,370 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)

Travis CI

Ranking in Build Automation

21st

Average Rating

6.0

Reviews Sentiment

3.1

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 Travis CI is 1.2%, down from 1.3% 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%
Travis CI	1.2%
Other	86.2%

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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Pravar Agrawal

Senior SRE at IBM

YAML-based configuration and simple deployment but user interface needs modernizing

Travis CI is an okay tool, and I am forced to use it as part of my job. I don't maintain it; it is running somewhere else, and I don't have control over it. The interface is very basic and not user-friendly; it feels like it was stuck in 2010. It is very basic and designed for lightweight CI work, and it cannot handle heavy CI. You cannot do branched flows, and you will have to write shell scripts to send calls here and there. The pipelines are not as detailed as some other CI/CD tools. If Travis is down, you don't have any control over it and need to reach out to their customer support.

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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

"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."

"The best thing is that as the developers work on separate tasks, all of the code goes there and the other team members don't have to wait on each other to finish."

"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 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."

"It scales well."

"Git hosting has an integration with ACD which is why we liked this solution in the first place."

"In our software development lifecycle, GitLab is used as a component for code repository management. We use GitLab for several projects to handle code repositories. For other software projects, we use Bitbucket, but the use case for both is very similar."

"It speeds up our development, it's faster, safer, and more convenient."

More GitLab pros

"The only thing I like about Travis CI is that you have a YAML file to define a Travis flow."

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."

"The initial setup was quite challenging because it takes some time to understand how to pull out or push the code."

"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."

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

"Atlassian offers more products than GitLab. GitLab offers source control management, version control and collaboration between developers. Atlassian offers features on top of this as well as more integration points for developers."

"We do face issues in our company when we run out of disk space."

"I'm new to GitLab, so I would appreciate more documentation about the code and commands."

"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."

More GitLab cons

"The interface is very basic and not user-friendly; it feels like it was stuck in 2010."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The open-source version is very good and the commercial version is reasonably priced."

"GitLab is a free solution to use."

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

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

"GitLab is highly priced for smaller teams, but it's okay if considering a user base of thousands."

"There are different licensing options available, including a free limited-user license."

"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."

"GitLab is cheap."

More GitLab pricing and cost advice

Information not available

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

13%

Government

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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

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.

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

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Travis CI?

I'm not too sure about the pricing of Travis or how the agreement works.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Travis CI?

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Travis CI?

Travis CI is mainly used to run integration tests as part of the deployment, which I do on Kubernetes. The Travis workflows are integrated with any changes in my code. It will have different jobs, ...

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Comparisons

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Compared 34% of the time

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Compared 14% of the time

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Compared 5% of the time

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Compared 5% of the time

SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) vs GitLab

Compared 4% of the time

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Compared 100% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

GitLab

September 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Build Automation

August 2025

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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

Easily sync your GitHub projects with Travis CI and you'll be testing your code in minutes. Travis CI for private repositories has plans for every size project. With Travis CI testing your open source project is 100% free.

Travis CI

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

Facebook, Heroku, Mozilla, Zendesk, twitter, Rails

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