Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!
Bitbucket Pipelines vs GitLab CI: What are the differences?
Introduction
In this Markdown document, we will discuss the key differences between Bitbucket Pipelines and GitLab CI. Both Bitbucket Pipelines and GitLab CI are popular continuous integration and deployment platforms used in software development projects. While they have similar goals, there are several distinct differences that set them apart.
1. Pricing Model:
Bitbucket Pipelines is a part of Bitbucket, a platform owned by Atlassian. Bitbucket Pipelines offers a free tier for small teams and has a flexible pricing structure for larger teams. On the other hand, GitLab CI is a part of GitLab, an open-source platform that offers a free community edition and a subscription-based enterprise edition with additional features. The pricing model of GitLab CI is more focused on providing the enterprise edition with advanced functionalities.
2. Hosted vs Self-hosted:
Bitbucket Pipelines is a hosted service, meaning it is hosted by Atlassian, and users do not have control over the underlying infrastructure. GitLab CI, on the other hand, provides the option of self-hosting, allowing users to have full control over their deployment infrastructure. This allows organizations to have more flexibility and security in managing their CI/CD processes.
3. Integration with Version Control Systems:
Bitbucket Pipelines is tightly integrated with Bitbucket, a popular Git version control system also owned by Atlassian. This integration provides seamless access to code repositories and simplifies the setup process. GitLab CI, on the other hand, is built within the GitLab platform, which is a complete DevOps platform with integrated version control. GitLab CI offers native support for Git repositories and has built-in features specifically designed for code collaboration and version control.
4. Runner Architecture:
Bitbucket Pipelines relies on hosted runners managed by Atlassian for executing CI/CD pipelines. While this provides a convenient solution, it limits the customization options for users. GitLab CI, on the other hand, uses a distributed runner architecture that allows users to deploy their own runners on their infrastructure. This flexibility enables organizations to have control over the resources used for running their pipelines and can improve the performance of CI/CD processes.
5. Extensibility and Customization:
Bitbucket Pipelines offers a limited set of predefined steps and integrations, limiting the extensibility and customization options for CI/CD pipelines. GitLab CI, on the other hand, provides a wide range of features and customizability options. Users can define their own build scripts, leverage a large number of predefined CI/CD templates, and integrate with various third-party tools and services to build complex pipelines tailored to their specific requirements.
6. Community and Ecosystem:
GitLab CI has a large and vibrant community due to its open-source nature. This community actively contributes to the development and enhancement of GitLab CI, providing support, sharing resources, and creating a broader ecosystem. Bitbucket Pipelines, although popular, may have a comparatively smaller community. The availability of a thriving community and ecosystem around GitLab CI provides users with an extensive knowledge base, plugins, and integrations to enhance their CI/CD workflows.
Summary
In summary, Bitbucket Pipelines and GitLab CI differ in their pricing models, hosting options, integration with version control systems, runner architecture, extensibility, and community size. These differences make each platform suitable for different use cases and organizational requirements.
We are a mid-size startup running Scala apps. Moving from Jenkins/EC2 to Spinnaker/EKS and looking for a tool to cover our CI/CD needs. Our code lives on GitHub, artifacts in nexus, images in ECR.
Drone is out, GitHub actions are being considered along with Circle CI and GitLab CI.
We primarily need:
- Fast SBT builds (caching)
- Low maintenance overhead (ideally serverless)
- Everything as code
- Ease of use
I think I've tried most of the CI tools out there at some point. It took me a while to get around to Buildkite because at first I didn't see much point given it seemed like you had to run the agent yourself. Eventually it dawned on me why this approach was more ingenious than I realised:
Running my app in a production (or production-like) environment was already a solved problem, because everything was already in some form of "everything as code". Having a test environment where the only difference was adding the Buildkite agent was a trivial addition.
It means that dev/test/prod parity is simple to achieve and maintain. It's also proven to be much easier to support than trying to deal with the problems that come with trying to force an app to fit into the nuances and constraints that are imposed by the containers/runtime of a CI service. When you completely control all of the environment the tests are running in you define those constraints too. It's been a great balance between a managed service and the flexibility of running it yourself.
And while none of my needs have hit the scale of Shopify (I saw one of their engineers speak about it at a conference once, I can't find the video now though 😞) it's good to know I can scale out my worker nodes to hundreds of thousands of workers to reduce the time it takes for my tests to run.
I would recommend you to consider the JFrog Platform that includes JFrog Pipelines - it will allow you to manage the full artifact life cycle for your sbt, docker and other technologies, and automate all of your CI and CD using cloud native declarative yaml pipelines. Will integrate smoothly with all your other toolset.
more configurable to setup ci/cd: * It can provide caching when build sbt, just add this section to yml file * Easy to use, many documentation
Weakness: * Need use gitlab as repository to bring more powerful configuration
Buddy is one of the most easy-to-use tools for CI I ever met. When I needed to set up the pipeline I was really impressed with how easy it is to create it with Buddy with only a few moments. It's literally like: 1. Add repo 2. Click - Click - Click 3. You're done and your app is on prod :D The top feature that I've found is a simple integration with different notification channels - not only Slack (which is the one by default), but Telegram and Discord. The support is also neat - guys respond pretty quickly on even a small issue.
Pros of Bitbucket Pipelines
Pros of GitLab CI
- Robust CI with awesome Docker support22
- Simple configuration13
- All in one solution9
- Source Control and CI in one place7
- Integrated with VCS on commit5
- Free and open source5
- Easy to configure own build server i.e. GitLab-Runner5
- Hosted internally2
- Built-in Docker Registry1
- Built-in support of Review Apps1
- Pipeline could be started manually1
- Enable or disable pipeline by using env variables1
- Gitlab templates could be shared across logical group1
- Easy to setup the dedicated runner to particular job1
- Built-in support of Kubernetes1
Sign up to add or upvote prosMake informed product decisions
Cons of Bitbucket Pipelines
Cons of GitLab CI
- Works best with GitLab repositories2
