GitHub vs GitLab: Which Is Best for You?

Two names are on everybody’s lips when it comes to code management, collaboration, and ironing out the wrinkles of the development cycle: GitHub and GitLab.

Both are built around Git, which equips developers with powerful tools for managing repositories, tracking changes, and, ultimately, collaborating on projects.

However, despite their functional similarities in many aspects, GitHub and GitLab suit different development needs. Your choice of platform will make a big difference in your workflow and your project’s success. 

This article examines GitHub and GitLab in depth, highlighting their features, advantages, and differences to help you decide which best suits your development needs.

Git is a powerful, distributed version control system that has become a standard for developers worldwide. It’s designed to handle source code changes during software development, enabling teams of developers to work on projects of any size or complexity simultaneously. 

Be it a small open-source project or a large enterprise application, Git allows multiple developers to collaborate by ensuring that every contribution is tracked, versioned, and integrated smoothly.

Since its inception in 2005, Git has disrupted how development teams function. Git is a strong framework for effective code management, efficient workflows, and error-free deployments. Its branching, merging, and conflict resolution capabilities have made it the backbone of modern version control, enabling innovation and collaboration across various industries.

A cloud-based Git platform allows multiple developers to easily collaborate on any project or repository. It offers a centralized space where teams can work with different branches; make review, merge, and pull requests; and manage changes from development to production. 

Such platforms capture contributions from various team members and manage how code is eventually integrated into the main project. While cloud-based Git platforms began as places to host code, they have expanded into offering advanced features such as CI/CD pipelines, project management tools, discussion spaces, bug tracking, and interactions with open-source communities.

In this article, we will compare two Git-based cloud platforms: GitHub and GitLab.

Both GitHub and GitLab are powerful platforms built on top of Git technology, enabling developers to manage code changes in a repository and collaborate with fellow contributors. While both tools emphasize version control, their focus extends beyond this, with each platform offering unique features and approaches. 

GitHub is designed primarily for social coding, supporting the largest open-source community and a broad range of integrations. In contrast, GitLab provides an all-in-one DevOps platform that integrates every stage of the software development lifecycle, from planning to production.

GitHub is home to the largest open-source community, has an extensive set of integrations, and has a feature set developed for social coding. On the other hand, GitLab is all-in-one, with a holistic DevOps platform that integrates every stage of the software development lifecycle from planning to production.

GitLab is a powerful, fully integrated DevOps platform that empowers teams to build, secure, and manage their software projects within a single application. With native continuous integration and continuous deployment pipelines, GitLab efficiently accelerates development cycles. 

This makes it easy for teams to offer quality software. GitLab’s open-core model allows the community to freely contribute to maintaining a strong feature set for enterprise and private projects, allowing users to have the best of both worlds in terms of flexibility and functionality.

GitLab was founded in 2011 by Dmitriy Zaporozhets and Valery Sizov. What started as a small open-source project to make Git repository management easier evolved into one of the world’s most popular DevOps platforms, used by millions of developers and enterprises worldwide. 

Over time, GitLab has continued to grow in functionality to support the complete DevOps lifecycle. For organizations that appreciate an end-to-end integrated solution, GitLab has emerged as their tool of choice in the development and operations arena.

GitLab offers a wide range of features that cater to both individual developers and large organizations, such as:

GitLab excels due to its all-in-one approach, offering:

Despite its strengths, GitLab has some limitations:

GitHub is a highly acclaimed web-based Git version control repository hosting service. It allows users to publish, compare, and annotate code as well as to manage open-source projects. GitHub has tremendous popularity as the most demanded cloud-based version control servicel, especially due to its powerful social coding features. 

These features let developers showcase their work and contribute to large projects, and they make GitHub the centerpiece for collaborative coding in the developer world. With millions of repositories, GitHub has been adopted by everyone from independent developers to large organizations worldwide for streamlined software development.

GitHub was founded in 2008 by Tom Preston-Werner, Chris Wanstrath, PJ Hyett, and Scott Chacon. Since then, it has grown into a cornerstone of modern development practices.

In 2018, Microsoft acquired GitHub, expanding its enterprise capabilities and integrating it more deeply into the global tech ecosystem. This acquisition has helped GitHub offer better infrastructure and services, particularly for businesses looking to scale their development efforts.

GitHub offers an array of features to enhance the development experience:

GitHub excels in several key areas, providing advantages such as:

Despite its widespread use, GitHub does have some limitations:

GitHub and GitLab both provide awesome version control services using Git, giving developers the ability to manage changes within their codebases. In addition, they both host public and private repositories that are useful for open-source and private projects.

One of the strong suits of both GitHub and GitLab is collaboration. Both provide code reviews, either in the form of pull requests (GitHub) or merge requests (GitLab), and issue tracking facilitates team communication and cooperation on code development. These tools make GitHub and GitLab indispensable in modern software development workflows.

Both GitHub and GitLab are supportive of continuous integration / continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipelines. GitHub does this through the use of GitHub Actions, while in GitLab, CI/CD is more of a native feature integrated into its core functionality. 

The core difference between GitHub and GitLab lies in their philosophy concerning managing the software development lifecycle. GitHub is mainly a repository hosting service but takes community involvement and collaboration seriously. The platform is recognized as a facilitator of open-source projects that support community-driven development. 

In contrast, GitLab is a more fully featured DevOps platform that manages the whole software development lifecycle from planning to deployment. Thus, it is more versatile for DevOps teams.

GitHub stands out for its community-driven atmosphere, with a strong focus on social coding and collaboration. Its large user base has helped build a vast ecosystem of open-source projects, making it an ideal choice for developers who want to engage with a thriving community and contribute to a variety of collaborative projects.

GitLab is designed as a comprehensive DevOps tool for teams seeking a single platform for source code management, testing, deployment, monitoring, and streamlined automation and integration across the development pipeline.

GitHub and GitLab both offer generous free tiers. For paid plans, GitLab’s pricing starts with the Premium plan at $29 a month per user, while GitHub starts with the Team plan at $4 a month per user, making GitHub more affordable for smaller teams.

However, when going into enterprise-level options, GitLab’s Ultimate plan is $99 per user per month, with a wide range of features built in. GitHub’s Enterprise plan is $21 per user per month, but that price tag comes with some caveats. Advanced Security adds $49 a month for limited scanning types, bringing the total up to $70 a month. 

In contrast, GitLab’s Ultimate plan comes with over eight security scans and governance tools out of the box, making it a better fit  for organizations with complex security needs.

GitHub is the more reasonably priced option and has similar features to GitLab. However, organizations with deep-seated security requirements should consider additional tool and service costs.

When we compare GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket, we find that they serve different types of users, team workflows, and development requirements.

In 2025, the choice between GitHub and GitLab depends on the project’s and team’s needs. The platforms are highly capable, but they prioritize different things within the development workflow.

Each of these services has powerful features but differs in its strengths. GitHub is all about the community-driven approach, whereas GitLab impresses users with its extended feature list for DevOps. Which is best for you will depend on whether you’re an individual developer or part of a large organization.