These days, so many are confused between GitLab and GitHub because of their similarities. So we are here to solve that. We will walk you through this blog on GitLab vs GitHub. And also discuss some similarities as well. Along with the advantages and disadvantages of GitHub and GitLab.
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What is GitLab?
GitLab is a web-based Git repository that offers open and private repositories for free, as well as problem tracking and wikis. It’s a full DevOps platform that allows developers to handle all aspects of a project, from project planning to source code management to monitoring and security. It also enables teams to collaborate and create better apps.
GitLab enables teams to shorten product lifecycles and boost efficiency, resulting in more value for consumers. Users are not required to handle authorizations for each tool in the application. Everyone in the organization has access to every component if permissions are set once.
What is GitHub?
A graphical web-based Git repository hosting service is called GitHub. It is the largest coding group on the planet. When you publish a piece of code or a project on GitHub, it gets a lot of attention. Programmers can find source codes in a variety of languages and make and monitor changes using Git, a command-line interface.
GitHub allows anyone on a team to collaborate on a project from anywhere while promoting collaboration. You can also look at previous versions that were developed at different times.
Now let’s discuss the difference between GitHub and GitLab.
GitLab vs GitHub: Differences
In this section, we are going to discuss the difference between GitLab and GitHub. We have listed the top 10 differences between them as mentioned in the tabular form.
| Features | GitLab | GitHub |
| Open Source | Free and open source | Not an open-source |
| Continuous Integration and Delivery | Built-in CI/CD with third-party | No Built-in CI/CD |
| Inner Source | Intersourcing is allowed | Intersourcing is not allowed |
| Importing and Exporting | offers more comprehensive instructions | More restrictive |
| Authentication | Access is given according to the role. | According to the read or write task, access is given |
| Confidentiality | Highly confidential | Isn’t highly confidential |
| Deployment | Built-in deployment | Third-party apps are required |
| Milestone | Has milestones | Lacks milestones |
| Track comments | No tracking comments | Can view and edit comment history |
| Community | Huge community and Gathers contributors by hosting events. | Highly popular and has developers all over the world. |
These are the key differences between GitLab and GitHub. Now let’s discuss these differences more in detail. Go ahead and read.
Open Source
GitLab is both a free and open-source self-hosting service (Community Edition) and a closed-source service (Professional Edition) (Enterprise Edition). on the other hand, GitHub is not open-source and offers free repositories, but private repositories, which are widely used to host open-source web projects, may include a premium plan.
Continuous Integration and Delivery
CI and CD are the software practices that you apply to all continuous methods (Continuous Integration, Delivery, and Deployment). You can test, develop, and upload your software with GitLab CI/CD without the need for a third-party framework or integration. These two testing automation solutions are some of the most useful free features GitLab has to offer. Whereas GitHub does not have built-in continuous integration and relies on third-party technologies to accomplish this. These practices make testing simpler, which is one of the most important aspects of software development.
Inner Source
Inner sourcing is the process of implementing open-source culture within an organization. This is another advantage of GitLab. GitLab’s internal projects allow you to facilitate the inner sourcing of your repositories. However, GitHub doesn’t allow inner sourcing.
Importing and Exporting
When it comes to data import and export, GitLab offers more comprehensive instructions for importing and exporting data from third-party sources. GitLab enables users to export their projects, project repositories, webhooks and resources, achievements, snippets, problems, and other organizations, among other things.
On the other hand, GitHub lacks comprehensive documentation and is more restrictive. It does, however, include a tool called GitHub Importer that can be used for this purpose.
Authentication
Permissions are handled differently on these two platforms. GitLab has a functioning scheme that determines which forms of access are given. GitLab allows stakeholders to assign different access levels based on the project and task. You can grant issue tracker access without granting source code access, which is ideal for large organizations with role-based contributors. On the other hand, Team members or company stakeholders will grant read or write access to different repositories in GitHub. Users may also be invited to work on a private repository.
Confidentiality
Confidential Issues will keep your details secure. You may establish private issues in GitLab that are only available to project participants with the Reporter access level or higher. Whereas GitHub does not support any confidential issues.
Deployment
When it comes to a deployment platform, GitLab has a more streamlined solution with a dedicated service built-in. GitLab makes use of Kubernetes to provide a unified deployment experience in a single app. However, GitHub does not have a deployment framework. Third-party platforms such as Heroku are needed by GitHub to deploy applications.
Milestone
In GitLab, milestones are a way to keep track of problems and merge requests that have been generated to accomplish a larger target in a certain amount of time. We can create and monitor milestones at the project at any stage, as well as display all problems for the milestone you’re working on, which represents an Agile program increment or release. In a single problem, you can set several deadlines. It also helps the estimation process. This is another function that GitHub is currently lacking.
Unlike GitLab, GitHub provides complete support of the history of comment updates. You can view and edit a comment history. As well as delete or remove sensitive details from a comment’s edit history.
GitHub made a name for itself in the developer world. Developers from all over the world use GitHub. And the highly active GitHub group of millions of developers who are involved and willing to talk about issues are primarily responsible for its success. GitLab, on the other hand, did some fantastic things like hosting community events and gatherings that bring open source contributors together.
GitLab vs GitHub: Similarities
GitLab and GitHub have both dissimilarities and similarities as well. So, this section is to let you know about few similarities between GitLab and GitHub.
Integrations of third-party services
GitHub and GitLab both come with a large number of third-party integrations. You will improve the productivity of your programmers and other workers involved in the software development process by integrating the version control system with other applications.
Issues
Problem statuses, assignees, and milestones can be quickly set up in both GitHub and GitLab, and they can be easily sorted based on various assets.
Labels
GitHub and GitLab employ a clear labeling scheme that enables software development teams to quickly categorize problems, merge requests, and epics based on descriptive titles such as documentation or bug, which are incredibly useful for monitoring.
Similarities in tracking
Keeping an eye on things. Both GitHub and GitLab have robust issue tracking features that let you appoint members to solve issues and update their status as required. Both use bug trackers like Usersnap, where quality assurance (QA) engineers can test and provide feedback on applications. Additionally, if you use GitHub or GitLab, bug reports and user reviews can be forwarded instantly.
Enterprises
Web development companies and teams may use GitHub and GitLab to get enterprise-level features. Both perform admirably in the enterprise, although many consider GitLab to be somewhat better suited to the enterprise than GitHub.
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Advantages and Disadvantages of GitLab
Advantages
- GitLab is a free and open-source license.
- Self-hosting is available on all plans.
- It provides package distribution services.
- The CI/CD lifecycle is supported.
- Here, Codes are simple to maintain.
Disadvantages
- The interface is relatively slow.
- There are a lot of bugs in it.
- Upgrade procedure that is problematic
- Some enterprise-level features are missing.
- Repositories have a number of common issues.
Advantages and Disadvantages of GitHub
Advantages
- GitHub is Easy-to-use and also makes sharing easy.
- The open-source codebase has an amazing structure.
- In the repository framework, a quick search is possible.
- It is easy to integrate with third-party providers.
- TFS, HG, and SVN are also supported.
- GitHub has both free and paid services.
Disadvantages
- It doesn’t have a great API development.
- For those looking for a private repository, GitHub is a little expensive.
- GitHub does not contain many functions.
- It isn’t completely free.
- And GitHub also has space limitations, as single files cannot reach 100MB, and repositories are restricted to 1GB in the free version.
Conclusion:
Therefore, I think you have come to the conclusion of what are the differences between GitHub and GitLab. Many consider GitLab to be a clone of GitHub, but it is often seen as an enhanced version of GitHub. Finally, the choice between GitLab and GitHub would come down to the objectives you want to achieve for your open-source programming project. You can also try different tools similar to Github & Gitlab like AWS Amplify, Azure mobile Apps & Parse.