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Bitrise vs GitLab: What are the differences?
Developers describe Bitrise as "Automate your mobile app development from building through testing to deployment". In short Bitrise is a Continous Integration and Delivery (CI/CD) Platform as a Service (PaaS) with a main focus on mobile app development (iOS, Android). You can automate the testing and deployment of your apps with just a few clicks. When you trigger a build a Virtual Machine is assigned to host your build and your defined Workflow (series of Steps scripts) will be executed, step by step. On the other hand, GitLab is detailed as "Open source self-hosted Git management software". GitLab offers git repository management, code reviews, issue tracking, activity feeds and wikis. Enterprises install GitLab on-premise and connect it with LDAP and Active Directory servers for secure authentication and authorization. A single GitLab server can handle more than 25,000 users but it is also possible to create a high availability setup with multiple active servers.
Bitrise can be classified as a tool in the "Mobile Continuous Integration" category, while GitLab is grouped under "Code Collaboration & Version Control".
Some of the features offered by Bitrise are:
- Continuous Delivery
- Hosted Environment
- Customizable Workflows
On the other hand, GitLab provides the following key features:
- Manage git repositories with fine grained access controls that keep your code secure
- Perform code reviews and enhance collaboration with merge requests
- Each project can also have an issue tracker and a wiki
"Easy setup" is the top reason why over 10 developers like Bitrise, while over 451 developers mention "Self hosted" as the leading cause for choosing GitLab.
GitLab is an open source tool with 20.1K GitHub stars and 5.33K GitHub forks. Here's a link to GitLab's open source repository on GitHub.
Ticketmaster, Citrix, and Electronic Arts are some of the popular companies that use GitLab, whereas Bitrise is used by ZeeMee, Bitrise, and Multunus. GitLab has a broader approval, being mentioned in 1219 company stacks & 1431 developers stacks; compared to Bitrise, which is listed in 30 company stacks and 14 developer stacks.
Do you review your Pull/Merge Request before assigning Reviewers?
If you work in a team opening a Pull Request (or Merge Request) looks appropriate. However, have you ever thought about opening a Pull/Merge Request when working by yourself? Here's a checklist of things you can review in your own:
- Pick the correct target branch
- Make Drafts explicit
- Name things properly
- Ask help for tools
- Remove the noise
- Fetch necessary data
- Understand Mergeability
- Pass the message
- Add screenshots
- Be found in the future
- Comment inline in your changes
Read the blog post for more detailed explanation for each item :D
What else do you review before asking for code review?
Using an inclusive language is crucial for fostering a diverse culture. Git has changed the naming conventions to be more language-inclusive, and so you should change. Our development tools, like GitHub and GitLab, already supports the change.
SourceLevel deals very nicely with repositories that changed the master branch to a more appropriate word. Besides, you can use the grep linter the look for exclusive terms contained in the source code.
As the inclusive language gap may happen in other aspects of our lives, have you already thought about them?
One of the magic tricks git performs is the ability to rewrite log history. You can do it in many ways, but git rebase -i
is the one I most use. With this command, It’s possible to switch commits order, remove a commit, squash two or more commits, or edit, for instance.
It’s particularly useful to run it before opening a pull request. It allows developers to “clean up” the mess and organize commits before submitting to review. If you follow the practice 3 and 4, then the list of commits should look very similar to a task list. It should reveal the rationale you had, telling the story of how you end up with that final code.
Out of most of the VCS solutions out there, we found Gitlab was the most feature complete with a free community edition. Their DevSecops offering is also a very robust solution. Gitlab CI/CD was quite easy to setup and the direct integration with your VCS + CI/CD is also a bonus. Out of the box integration with major cloud providers, alerting through instant messages etc. are all extremely convenient. We push our CI/CD updates to MS Teams.
Gitlab as A LOT of features that GitHub and Azure DevOps are missing. Even if both GH and Azure are backed by Microsoft, GitLab being open source has a faster upgrade rate and the hosted by gitlab.com solution seems more appealing than anything else! Quick win: the UI is way better and the Pipeline is way easier to setup on GitLab!
At DeployPlace we use self-hosted GitLab, we have chosen GitLab as most of us are familiar with it. We are happy with all features GitLab provides, I can’t imagine our life without integrated GitLab CI. Another important feature for us is integrated code review tool, we use it every day, we use merge requests, code reviews, branching. To be honest, most of us have GitHub accounts as well, we like to contribute in open source, and we want to be a part of the tech community, but lack of solutions from GitHub in the area of CI doesn’t let us chose it for our projects.
Pros of Bitrise
- Easy setup18
- Bitbucket Integration9
- Advanced Workflow configuration8
- Slack integration7
- Github Integration7
- Great tools for iOS and Android development5
- Friendly & Easy to use5
- Great support4
- Pricing by concurrency, not team size3
- Open Source2
- Discounts for contributors2
- Fast Updates2
- Developer centric1
- Fast Builds1
Pros of GitLab
- Self hosted505
- Free428
- Has community edition338
- Easy setup241
- Familiar interface239
- Includes many features, including ci136
- Nice UI112
- Good integration with gitlabci83
- Simple setup56
- Has an official mobile app34
- Free private repository33
- Continuous Integration30
- Open source, great ui (like github)21
- Slack Integration17
- Full CI flow13
- Free and unlimited private git repos11
- User, group, and project access management is simple9
- Intuitive UI8
- All in one (Git, CI, Agile..)8
- Built-in CI7
- Full DevOps suite with Git5
- Both public and private Repositories5
- CI5
- Build/pipeline definition alongside code4
- Integrated Docker Registry4
- Mattermost Chat client4
- Issue system4
- It's powerful source code management tool4
- So easy to use4
- Excellent4
- Dockerized3
- Low maintenance cost due omnibus-deployment3
- On-premises3
- Security and Stable3
- I like the its runners and executors feature3
- It's fully integrated3
- Unlimited free repos & collaborators3
- Great for team collaboration3
- Free private repos3
- Because is the best remote host for git repositories3
- One-click install through DigitalOcean2
- Review Apps feature2
- Built-in Docker Registry2
- Powerful software planning and maintaining tools2
- Multilingual interface2
- Groups of groups2
- Beautiful2
- Wounderful2
- Opensource2
- Not Microsoft Owned2
- Published IP list for whitelisting (gl-infra#434)2
- Kubernetes Integration2
- Many private repo2
- HipChat intergration2
- The dashboard with deployed environments2
- Native CI2
- It includes everything I need, all packaged with docker2
- Kubernetes integration with GitLab CI2
- Powerful Continuous Integration System2
- Supports Radius/Ldap & Browser Code Edits1
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Cons of Bitrise
Cons of GitLab
- Slow ui performance28
- Introduce breaking bugs every release8
- Insecure (no published IP list for whitelisting)6
- Built-in Docker Registry2
- Review Apps feature1