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GitLab vs WakaTime: What are the differences?
## Introduction
GitLab and WakaTime are two popular tools that serve different purposes in the software development process. Here are key differences between GitLab and WakaTime:
1. **Primary Functionality**: GitLab is a comprehensive DevOps platform that provides a repository manager, CI/CD pipelines, issue tracking, and more, all in one integrated solution. It facilitates collaboration among development teams and helps manage the entire software development lifecycle. On the other hand, WakaTime is a code time tracking tool that integrates with various code editors to track time spent coding, provide insights into productivity, and help developers improve their coding habits.
2. **Focus on Collaboration vs. Individual Productivity**: GitLab focuses on enabling collaboration and coordination among team members by providing tools for version control, issue tracking, code review, and project management. It emphasizes team productivity and streamlining workflows. In contrast, WakaTime is more geared towards individual productivity, offering insights into personal coding habits, time management, and helping developers stay focused on their tasks.
3. **Scope of Integration**: GitLab offers a wide range of integrations with other tools and services commonly used in the software development process, such as Docker, Kubernetes, Slack, and Jira. It aims to provide a seamless experience by connecting various tools and streamlining workflows. WakaTime, on the other hand, primarily focuses on integrating with code editors like Visual Studio Code, Sublime Text, and PyCharm to track coding time and provide productivity metrics directly within the developer's workflow.
4. **Pricing Model**: GitLab offers a range of pricing plans, including a free tier for small teams and a paid tier for larger organizations with additional features and support. The pricing is based on the number of users and storage requirements. WakaTime also offers a free tier with basic features but follows a subscription-based model for advanced features such as detailed reports, goal tracking, and integrations with project management tools.
5. **Support and Community**: GitLab has a large and active community of developers and contributors who actively participate in improving the platform, sharing knowledge, and providing support. It also offers comprehensive documentation and support resources for users. In comparison, WakaTime focuses more on providing direct support to individual users through its customer support channels, with a smaller emphasis on community interaction.
6. **Customizability and Extensibility**: GitLab allows for extensive customization and configuration options, enabling users to tailor the platform to their specific needs and workflows. It supports self-hosted deployment for organizations that require complete control over their infrastructure. WakaTime, on the other hand, offers fewer customization options as it primarily focuses on providing a streamlined experience for tracking coding time and productivity insights within code editors.
In Summary, GitLab and WakaTime differ in their primary functionality, focus on collaboration vs. individual productivity, scope of integration, pricing model, support and community, and customizability and extensibility.
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 GitLab
- Self hosted508
- Free431
- Has community edition339
- Easy setup242
- Familiar interface240
- Includes many features, including ci137
- Nice UI113
- Good integration with gitlabci84
- Simple setup57
- Has an official mobile app35
- Free private repository34
- Continuous Integration31
- Open source, great ui (like github)23
- Slack Integration18
- Full CI flow15
- Free and unlimited private git repos11
- All in one (Git, CI, Agile..)10
- User, group, and project access management is simple10
- Intuitive UI8
- Built-in CI8
- Full DevOps suite with Git6
- Both public and private Repositories6
- Integrated Docker Registry5
- So easy to use5
- CI5
- Build/pipeline definition alongside code5
- It's powerful source code management tool5
- Dockerized4
- It's fully integrated4
- On-premises4
- Security and Stable4
- Unlimited free repos & collaborators4
- Not Microsoft Owned4
- Excellent4
- Issue system4
- Mattermost Chat client4
- Great for team collaboration3
- Free private repos3
- Because is the best remote host for git repositories3
- Built-in Docker Registry3
- Opensource3
- Low maintenance cost due omnibus-deployment3
- I like the its runners and executors feature3
- Beautiful2
- Groups of groups2
- 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
- It includes everything I need, all packaged with docker2
- The dashboard with deployed environments2
- HipChat intergration2
- Many private repo2
- Kubernetes Integration2
- Published IP list for whitelisting (gl-infra#434)2
- Wounderful2
- Native CI2
- Supports Radius/Ldap & Browser Code Edits1
Pros of WakaTime
- Automatic time tracking per project17
- It's a great way to manage my time12
- Time log next to each commit on GitHub8
- Big choice of supported IDEs5
- Productivity5
- Vim integration4
- Eclipse integration1
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Cons of GitLab
- Slow ui performance28
- Introduce breaking bugs every release9
- Insecure (no published IP list for whitelisting)6
- Built-in Docker Registry2
- Review Apps feature1
Cons of WakaTime
- Slow down the IDE1