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BrowserStack vs GitLab: What are the differences?
- BrowserStack vs. GitLab: BrowserStack is a cloud-based platform that provides instant access to 2000+ real mobile and desktop browsers while GitLab is a web-based DevOps lifecycle tool that provides a Git repository manager providing wiki, issue-tracking, and CI/CD pipeline features out of the box.
- Development vs. Testing: GitLab is primarily focused on the development aspect of software engineering, providing tools for version control, issue tracking, code review, and continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipelines, while BrowserStack is used more for testing purposes, allowing developers to test their applications on a wide range of browsers, devices, and operating systems.
- Scope of Usage: BrowserStack is specifically designed for cross-browser compatibility testing and mobile app testing, whereas GitLab is an integrated tool for the entire software development life cycle, including planning, development, testing, and deployment.
- Pricing Models: BrowserStack operates on a subscription-based pricing model, where users pay for the number of parallel sessions or minutes used, while GitLab offers different pricing tiers based on the number of users and features required, with a free tier available for small teams.
- Collaboration Features: GitLab shines in terms of collaboration features, offering robust merge request functionalities, issue tracking, project management tools, and built-in chat functionality, whereas BrowserStack focuses more on providing a seamless testing environment for individual developers or testing teams.
- Support and Community: GitLab has a strong open-source community and extensive documentation to support users, whereas BrowserStack provides dedicated customer support and onboarding assistance to help users navigate their testing platform effectively.
In Summary, BrowserStack and GitLab differ in their primary focus on testing versus development, scope of usage, pricing models, collaboration features, and support offerings.
I am looking to purchase one of these tools for Mobile testing for my team. It should support Native, hybrid, and responsive app testing. It should also feature debugging, parallel execution, automation testing/easy integration with automation testing tools like Selenium, and the capability to provide availability of devices specifically for us to use at any time with good speed of performing all these activities.
I have already used Perfecto mobile, and Sauce Labs in my other projects before. I want to know how different or better is AWS Device farm in usage and how advantageous it would be for us to use it over other mentioned tools
A SaaS offering like Sauce Labs (or BrowserStack or LambdaTest, etc) will provide a remote Selenium/Appium Grid including the ability to run test automation in parallel (up to the amount based your subscription level) an a wide array of browsers and mobile devices.
These tools can be expensive, but if you can afford them, the expertise and effort of maintaining the grid, browser updates, etc. is worth it.
AWS Device Farm can be significantly cheaper, but is much more work to setup and run. It will not give you as many devices, or the reporting and screen/video capture you get with the the services. And there is no support for AWS Device Farm, and very poor documentation. I have used it, but do not recommend it. Running your own grid and physical device lab is better, but I'd stick with a service like Sauce Labs or Perfecto which will save you time and give you better services despite the higher price tag.
Stability - Just works. Availability - More than 15 datacenters. Enterprise features like SSO, local testing and SOC2/GDPR compliant.
BitBar's Dedicated Devices would be a great option for you. It allows you to dedicate (reserve) devices for your use only which also having access to all of the devices in the shared cloud. BitBar has the features and integrations that you are looking for as well.
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 BrowserStack
- Multiple browsers134
- Ease of use75
- Real browsers63
- Ability to use it locally43
- Good price26
- Great web interface20
- IE support18
- Official mobile emulators16
- Instant access14
- Cloud-based access14
- Real mobile devices11
- Selenium compatible7
- Screenshots7
- Multiple Desktop OS7
- Can be used for Testing and E2E6
- Pre-installed developer tools5
- Video of test runs4
- Webdriver compatible3
- Many browsers3
- Supports Manual, Functional and Visual Diff Testing3
- Favourites3
- Cypress Compatible2
- Test automation dashboard2
- Unify and track test cases2
- Free for Open Source2
- Test Management2
- Cross-browser testing2
- Bi-directional Jira Sync2
- Speed is fast1
- Real devices1
- Web accessibility0
- Test WCAG Compliance0
- Visual testing and review0
Pros of GitLab
- Self hosted507
- Free429
- Has community edition339
- Easy setup242
- Familiar interface240
- Includes many features, including ci137
- Nice UI113
- Good integration with gitlabci84
- Simple setup57
- Free private repository34
- Has an official mobile app34
- Continuous Integration31
- Open source, great ui (like github)22
- Slack Integration18
- Full CI flow14
- Free and unlimited private git repos11
- User, group, and project access management is simple10
- All in one (Git, CI, Agile..)9
- Built-in CI8
- Intuitive UI8
- Full DevOps suite with Git6
- Both public and private Repositories6
- Integrated Docker Registry5
- Build/pipeline definition alongside code5
- So easy to use5
- CI5
- It's powerful source code management tool5
- Unlimited free repos & collaborators4
- Security and Stable4
- On-premises4
- It's fully integrated4
- Excellent4
- Issue system4
- Mattermost Chat client4
- Dockerized4
- Great for team collaboration3
- Free private repos3
- Because is the best remote host for git repositories3
- Low maintenance cost due omnibus-deployment3
- Not Microsoft Owned3
- Built-in Docker Registry3
- Opensource3
- I like the its runners and executors feature3
- Multilingual interface2
- Powerful software planning and maintaining tools2
- Review Apps feature2
- Kubernetes integration with GitLab CI2
- One-click install through DigitalOcean2
- Powerful Continuous Integration System2
- Native CI2
- HipChat intergration2
- Many private repo2
- Kubernetes Integration2
- Published IP list for whitelisting (gl-infra#434)2
- Wounderful2
- Beautiful2
- Groups of groups2
- The dashboard with deployed environments2
- It includes everything I need, all packaged with docker2
- Supports Radius/Ldap & Browser Code Edits1
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Cons of BrowserStack
- Very limited choice of minor versions2
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