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Comment by cwhiz | Hacker News Reader

Wow. Almost feels like a bait and switch. GitLab is now completely uncompetitive with GitHub in terms of price structure. 4-5x on monthly cost.

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Hasn't Gitlab just been a copying Github machine too from the start? I don't mean to start a fight but I've only ever seen praise from its launch as a wanted competitor, but no one seems to have mentioned the obvious? I know git wasn't invented by Github but from what I remember Github was a pretty clear roadmap for Gitlab.

I thought GitLab was ahead of GitHub features?

They may be now but that's not surprising if you have a solid foundation of a highly successful business to copy efficiently and then can allocate more resources to additional features to differentiate?

I thought they nearly always were. I remember using runners with GitLab years ago.

Prior to the MS acquisition Gitlab had a much better CI story. MS has been grafting all of its DevOps tooling onto Github since the purchase so it is a bit more even now

Their original product was a pretty shameless carbon copy of github even down to the logo.

But their CI and other tools expanding, they seem to have come into their own.

For a few years, it seems like GitHub had completely stagnated and was riddled with politics and infighting. But they seem to have found their momentum again. We might switch back to GitHub because GitLab feels just messy and less polished right now.

Absolutely any feature present in a mainline product that isn't present in a prospective competitor will become a gigantic and unresolvable issue for any detractors.

"gitlab can't X"

"You can just do Y in gitlab to accomplish that, it's fine"

"but it's not X, it can't do X"

If a competing product is anything short of a reskin of whatever the current service, it is unacceptable and unworkable.

Having personally watched this dynamic play out in my co-workers, I don't feel inclined to criticize gitlab for re-implementing lots of github features.

Not really. It was at the beginning when they both only had core features for version control. But, if you compare them today and the last few years, Github is adding features that Gitlab had for a while. Mostly on CI/CD, Security, and Project Management.

Used git lab for the first time today and was shocked at how closely the ui resembled github’s - seemed like the exact same layout with the same buttons and content in the same places

I don’t see that level of carbon copying in Saas very often

Github is deeply subsidized by Azure's marketing budget and benefits from larger scale. Gitlab can't compete head-to-head; they'll have to pivot or partner soon.

They just last week announced a partnership with IBM: https://www.ibm.com/products/gitlab-ultimate

GitHub was acquired by Microsoft in 2018. Microsoft implemented a more generous free tier in 2020, but even before the acquisition the pricing structure was $7 - $21 per user, per month.

GitLab is now $19 - $99. If I wanted to move my organization to GitLab it would now cost me an additional $78 per user, per month. A total nonstarter, even if I desperately hated GitHub.

I don't understand the suddenness to this maneuver by GitLab. My guess is it is driven by the CI/CD minutes, but they have really thrown out the baby with the bathwater with their pricing structure.

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