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Was doing a feature <analysis> of GitLab vs GitHub...
# random
m
Was doing a feature analysis of GitLab vs GitHub. Have used both extensively. But I wonder how did GitHub make such a huge leap regarding public repos?
d
You mean how people started using Github for OSS than Gitlab?
If so, simple - Github predates Gitlab by a few years and came close after Git release that it became synonymous with Git for most even to this day.
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d
UI is also a reason. Github UI is much more beginner friendly.
m
How is the Github UI beginner friendly? Could you elaborate?
Github predates Gitlab by a few years
But I am sure there must be several other reasons as well other than being first to the market
d
How is the Github UI beginner friendly? Could you elaborate?
TBH I don't know how to elaborate. It's just much easier to use than Gitlab and Bitbucket.
But I am sure there must be several other reasons as well other than being first to the market
Brand value is just more than any other platform. As Manoj mentioned. it has similar name to git (I didn't even know they aren't by the same company/org in my early days). No college student get asked their Gitlab/Bitbucket profile. No job application asks for Gitlab/Bitbucket url. They usually ask for Github (and Linkedin).
w
Simply put, Github is the MS Office office among every other known office suite. Now even Github is part of Microsoft 😄
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d
Afaik, Gitlab started as open source GitHub clone that people could use on their servers. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3114447 Check this old HN post. Even in 2012, Gitlab was, and probably still is, seen as a open source clone of GitHub that also has enterprise versions etc https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4687455 GitHub started building the moat with all the surrounding tools and platforms around it. TravisCI for example. Being synonymous with Git and competitors being seen as your clone is a huge moat. Also, GitHub came at right time with how clunky sourceforge and Google code were. Lot of it was Git but in many ways, they both symbiotically grew together.
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It's incredible though, how much Gitlab has grown in last few years as a major player and where we see Gitlab features come to GitHub etc. The Open Source and public repo side of things may not be winnable though
Just got this page from archive: They literally saw themselves as Github that is open source and you can run:
Not to mention that the source itself (see top nav links) was on Github 🙂
g
A couple of years ago, our company moved from GitLab to GitHub — some reasons mentioned here.
f
Let me know if you have any specific questions/suggestions regarding GitLab, I might be able to help. 🙂
@great-potato-90105 How many of those differences/limitations between GitLab and GitHub are still relevant for you guys today?
g
I think one of the primary driving factors of earlier for using GitLab was pricing. Once that factor was out, GitHub became more interesting to some of the engineering leads - especially now not just developers were using it. I think right now, there is not much of a difference between the two in terms of offering. Big fan of GitLab as a company btw, the internal documentation and value system structure is great example of distributed work done right!
f
@damp-coat-97256
The Open Source and public repo side of things may not be winnable though
Sure the number of OSS projects on GitHub far exceeds to that of GitLab, but just for awareness, every major Linux Desktop (GNOME, KDE, Xfce, and etc.) that you can think of use GitLab. Other noteworthy mentions are; • iterm2 • LineageOS • Inkscape • F-droid • Wireshark …and there are plenty others. So yeah, we’re behind but catching up. 🙂
@great-potato-90105 Fair points! I’ll try my best to be as unbiased as possible, but if I strictly speak from third-person PoV. Biggest strength of GitLab is its CI and that it’s a monolith devops platform where you don’t have to juggle between a lot of tools to get work done. Besides, ability to get over 90% of devops done purely using self-managed community edition without paying anything to GitLab is a big win for smaller teams. Sure the UX of GitLab wasn’t quite there yet a couple of years ago, but we’re spending a lot of time and effort in getting that right to get out of that “GitHub clone moniker”, and recent UI advancements reflect that.
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g
But I wonder how did GitHub make such a huge leap regarding public repos?
Talking of the huge leap, I would credit that to the initial adoption and UI plays a big role. I started with Gitorious and the UI was so confusing that it did not take me long to move to Github. A good way to track is the GitSurvey from the initial days 2006-2012(?). Even in 2011, you could clearly see the margin between Github and Gitorious.
m
Github actions has cut down the CI moat quite a bit.
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