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GitHub vs TeamCity: What are the differences?
Introduction
GitHub and TeamCity are both popular platforms used in software development. While GitHub is primarily a source code management and version control system, TeamCity is a continuous integration and deployment server. Although they have similar goals, there are key differences between GitHub and TeamCity that set them apart.
Hosting and Collaboration Features: One major difference between GitHub and TeamCity is their focus on hosting and collaboration. GitHub provides a complete platform for hosting and managing repositories, allowing developers to conveniently collaborate and contribute to projects. On the other hand, TeamCity, while offering some limited code hosting capabilities, primarily focuses on continuous integration and deployment workflows.
Integration and Build Automation: TeamCity is specifically designed to facilitate the process of building, testing, and deploying software. It offers comprehensive build automation features, allowing developers to run builds on different platforms, control dependencies, and manage complex build workflows. GitHub, while providing some basic build features, does not have the extensive automation capabilities of TeamCity.
Version Control and Code Review: GitHub is renowned for its powerful version control system, Git. It offers advanced branching and merging capabilities, making it easier for developers to manage parallel development efforts. Additionally, GitHub provides built-in code review features, allowing teams to collaborate and provide feedback on code changes. In contrast, TeamCity focuses more on the build and deployment aspects, and does not provide the same level of version control and code review functionality as GitHub.
Developer Community and Open Source Projects: GitHub has a large and active developer community. It serves as a hub for open source projects, allowing developers to contribute, discuss, and collaborate on various projects. TeamCity, while allowing integration with GitHub repositories, does not have the same level of community interaction or support for open source projects.
Extensibility and Customization: GitHub offers a wide range of integrations and plugins, allowing developers to extend its functionality and customize the platform to meet their specific needs. It has a rich ecosystem of third-party tools and services that can be easily integrated with repositories. TeamCity also supports integrations and plugins, but its focus is predominantly on its own build automation and deployment capabilities.
Pricing and Licensing: GitHub offers various pricing plans, including free options for open source projects, while also providing enterprise plans for larger organizations. It follows a subscription-based model and charges based on the number of users and private repositories. TeamCity, on the other hand, follows a perpetual licensing model where organizations can purchase and install it on their own servers. Its pricing is based on the number of build agents and concurrent builds.
In summary, GitHub provides a comprehensive platform for hosting, version control, and collaboration, while TeamCity focuses on continuous integration and deployment workflows with extensive build automation capabilities. GitHub has a strong developer community and offers extensive customization options, while TeamCity offers advanced build management features and a perpetual licensing model.
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 GitHub
- Open source friendly1.8K
- Easy source control1.5K
- Nice UI1.3K
- Great for team collaboration1.1K
- Easy setup867
- Issue tracker504
- Great community486
- Remote team collaboration482
- Great way to share451
- Pull request and features planning442
- Just works147
- Integrated in many tools132
- Free Public Repos121
- Github Gists116
- Github pages112
- Easy to find repos83
- Open source62
- It's free60
- Easy to find projects60
- Network effect56
- Extensive API49
- Organizations43
- Branching42
- Developer Profiles34
- Git Powered Wikis32
- Great for collaboration30
- It's fun24
- Clean interface and good integrations23
- Community SDK involvement22
- Learn from others source code20
- Because: Git16
- It integrates directly with Azure14
- Newsfeed10
- Standard in Open Source collab10
- Fast8
- It integrates directly with Hipchat8
- Beautiful user experience8
- Easy to discover new code libraries7
- Smooth integration6
- Cloud SCM6
- Nice API6
- Graphs6
- Integrations6
- It's awesome6
- Quick Onboarding5
- Remarkable uptime5
- CI Integration5
- Hands down best online Git service available5
- Reliable5
- Free HTML hosting4
- Version Control4
- Simple but powerful4
- Unlimited Public Repos at no cost4
- Security options4
- Loved by developers4
- Uses GIT4
- Easy to use and collaborate with others4
- IAM3
- Nice to use3
- Ci3
- Easy deployment via SSH3
- Good tools support2
- Leads the copycats2
- Free private repos2
- Free HTML hostings2
- Easy and efficient maintainance of the projects2
- Beautiful2
- Never dethroned2
- IAM integration2
- Very Easy to Use2
- Easy to use2
- All in one development service2
- Self Hosted2
- Issues tracker2
- Easy source control and everything is backed up2
- Profound1
Pros of TeamCity
- Easy to configure61
- Reliable and high-quality37
- User friendly32
- On premise32
- Github integration32
- Great UI18
- Smart16
- Free for open source12
- Can run jobs in parallel12
- Crossplatform8
- Chain dependencies5
- Fully-functional out of the box5
- Great support by jetbrains4
- REST API4
- Projects hierarchy4
- 100+ plugins4
- Personal notifications3
- Free for small teams3
- Build templates3
- Per-project permissions3
- Upload build artifacts2
- Smart build failure analysis and tracking2
- Ide plugins2
- GitLab integration2
- Artifact dependencies2
- Official reliable support2
- Build progress messages promoting from running process2
- Repository-stored, full settings dsl with ide support1
- Built-in artifacts repository1
- Powerful build chains / pipelines1
- TeamCity Professional is FREE1
- High-Availability0
- Hosted internally0
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Cons of GitHub
- Owned by micrcosoft53
- Expensive for lone developers that want private repos37
- Relatively slow product/feature release cadence15
- API scoping could be better10
- Only 3 collaborators for private repos8
- Limited featureset for issue management3
- GitHub Packages does not support SNAPSHOT versions2
- Does not have a graph for showing history like git lens2
- No multilingual interface1
- Takes a long time to commit1
- Expensive1
Cons of TeamCity
- High costs for more than three build agents3
- Proprietary2
- User-friendly2
- User friendly2