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GitLab vs Kong: What are the differences?
Hosting and Version Control: GitLab is primarily a hosting platform for code repositories and provides version control functionalities, enabling teams to collaborate on code projects. On the other hand, Kong is an API management platform that helps organizations manage their APIs effectively, enabling authentication, traffic control, and monitoring of APIs.
Purpose: GitLab is designed for software development teams to work collaboratively on code, manage project timelines, and streamline the development process. Kong, on the other hand, is focused on helping businesses in managing their APIs, ensuring security, performance, and scalability of API endpoints.
Features: GitLab offers features such as issue tracking, continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD), code review, and project management tools. Kong, on the other hand, provides functionalities like API gateway, load balancing, authentication, logging, and analytics for APIs.
Community: GitLab has a large and active community of developers contributing to its open-source platform, offering extensive documentation and support resources. Kong also has a community edition but is mainly known for its enterprise offerings with additional features and support.
Integration: GitLab can be integrated with various third-party tools and services for enhancing its functionality, including project management tools, CI/CD pipelines, and cloud services. Kong can also integrate with various plugins, databases, and monitoring tools to extend its capabilities in API management.
Target Users: GitLab is commonly used by software development teams, DevOps engineers, and project managers looking for an all-in-one solution for version control, collaboration, and project management. Kong, on the contrary, is usually used by API developers, architects, and administrators aiming to streamline API management and improve API performance and security.
In Summary, GitLab is a platform for hosting code repositories and facilitating version control, while Kong is an API management tool designed for efficiently managing APIs in organizations.
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!
Istio based on powerful Envoy whereas Kong based on Nginx. Istio is K8S native as well it's actively developed when k8s was successfully accepted with production-ready apps whereas Kong slowly migrated to start leveraging K8s. Istio has an inbuilt turn-keyIstio based on powerful Envoy whereas Kong based on Nginx. Istio is K8S native as well it's actively developed when k8s was successfully accepted with production-ready apps whereas Kong slowly migrated to start leveraging K8s. Istio has an inbuilt turn key solution with Rancher whereas Kong completely lacks here. Traffic distribution in Istio can be done via canary, a/b, shadowing, HTTP headers, ACL, whitelist whereas in Kong it's limited to canary, ACL, blue-green, proxy caching. Istio has amazing community support which is visible via Github stars or releases when comparing both.
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 GitLab
- Self hosted508
- Free430
- 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
- Both public and private Repositories6
- Full DevOps suite with Git6
- Build/pipeline definition alongside code5
- CI5
- So easy to use5
- Integrated Docker Registry5
- It's powerful source code management tool5
- Issue system4
- Dockerized4
- Unlimited free repos & collaborators4
- Security and Stable4
- On-premises4
- It's fully integrated4
- Mattermost Chat client4
- Excellent4
- Great for team collaboration3
- Built-in Docker Registry3
- Low maintenance cost due omnibus-deployment3
- I like the its runners and executors feature3
- Free private repos3
- Because is the best remote host for git repositories3
- Not Microsoft Owned3
- Opensource3
- Groups of groups2
- Powerful software planning and maintaining tools2
- Review Apps feature2
- Kubernetes integration with GitLab CI2
- It includes everything I need, all packaged with docker2
- Multilingual interface2
- HipChat intergration2
- Powerful Continuous Integration System2
- One-click install through DigitalOcean2
- The dashboard with deployed environments2
- Native CI2
- Many private repo2
- Kubernetes Integration2
- Published IP list for whitelisting (gl-infra#434)2
- Wounderful2
- Beautiful2
- Supports Radius/Ldap & Browser Code Edits1
Pros of Kong
- Easy to maintain37
- Easy to install32
- Flexible26
- Great performance21
- Api blueprint7
- Custom Plugins4
- Kubernetes-native3
- Security2
- Has a good plugin infrastructure2
- Agnostic2
- Load balancing1
- Documentation is clear1
- Very customizable1
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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