AWS CodeArtifact vs. GitLab

We have a small team with limited resources and it worked well for us. Hence I can conclude that AWS Code Artifact are well suited for organizations which have limited resources in terms of hardware and access to administrators for setting up artifact repository in-house. AWS Code Artifact is also suited particularly well for organization(s) which are already using AWS Services/Infrastructure (eg. EC2) . It works quite well with existing AWS services and completes the gap which existed in AWS offering for quite some time. Organizations can move their entire DevOps toolchain and infrastructure to Amazon. It is less appropriate for organization(s) which rely on artifacts like Debian, C/C++, Go etc as AWS does not support those fully.

Incentivized

We started to use GitLab for hosting git source code repositories of our projects only but slowly we started to use it to store container images, packages, dependency proxy as well infrastucture registry and it is now well suited for Continuous Integration in our projects, It wasn't that good in Continuous Deployment before 12.0 version but after 12.0 it is amazingly good for Continuous Deployment as well since it keeps deployment information in a well organized manner which can be configure in ci yaml configuration.

Incentivized

• Code Artifact is a cloud based artifact repository so there is no installation required.
• Code Artifact comes with out of the box security. Using RBAC and encryption
• Total cost of usage is less than setting up in-house servers
• It is accessible from any where.. so no additional network setup is required.

Incentivized

• GitLab excels in managing code versions, allowing easy tracking of changes, branch management, and merging contributions.
• It helps maintain code stability and reliability, saving time and effort in the development or research workflow.
• Powerful code review features, enabling collaboration and feedback among team members.
• Robust project management features, including issue tracking, kanban boards, and milestones.

Incentivized

• CodeArtifact does not support packages like debian. It will be nice to see them support that.
• Does not provide security scanning of the packages
• Lacks support for third party CI/CD toolchain like Jenkins

Incentivized

• CI variables management is sometimes hard to use, for example, with File type variables. The scope of each variable is also hard to guess.
• Access Token: there are too many types (Personal, Project, global..), and it is hard to identify the scope and where it comes from once created.
• Runners: auto-scaled runners are for the moment hard to put in place, and monitoring is not easy.

Incentivized

Gitlab is the best in its segment. They have a free version, they have open-source software, they provide a good service with their SaaS product, they are a fully-remote company since the beginning (which means they are fully distributed and have forward-thinking IMO). I would certainly recommend them to everyone.

Incentivized

I find it easy to use, I haven't had to do the integration work, so that's why it is a 9/10, cause I can't speak to how easy that part was or the initial set up, but day to day use is great!

Incentivized

At this point, I do not have much experience with Gitlab support as I have never had to engage them. They have documentation that is helpful, not quite as extensive as other documentation, but helpful nonetheless. They also seem to be relatively responsive on social media platforms (twitter) and really thrived when GitHub was acquired by Microsoft

Incentivized

AWS CodeArtifact is an excellent choice for organization(s) which are looking to move their infrastructure and devops toolchain to Amazon. It is very useful for teams/organizations on limited budget or do not want to take on infrastructure and maintenance costs associated with the artifact repository. Other software solutions require resources for setting up and need ongoing maintenance.

Incentivized

GitLab is easily the preferred tool when it comes to versioning and source control. With other tools the UI often feels outdated and clunky leading to inefficiency and confusion. With some of the sleeker tools such as GitKraken, while the aesthetic is pleasing, the experience is plagued by a lack of support, lack of optional plugins, and a plethora of bugs that cause unnecessary legwork to resolve. GitLab is the best of both aesthetic and functionality

Incentivized

• Overall CodeArtifact has positive ROI on the our team. We had limited budget for procurement of server/administrators. With CodeArtifact we were able to get some savings.
• We were able to deliver faster hence customers were quite happy. That led to customer satisfaction
• We didnt have to invest on maintaining network infrastructure/uptime and security. That saved us quite a bit of hassle and funds.

Incentivized

• We were able to streamline our project's codebase which made us very organised and laid out a proper plan for development.
• Our deployment and infra pipelines are well structured now making our process 10x faster.
• We are more focused into project building rather infra, as infra is totally on autopilot mode. Which has enabled us to grow our ROI by records.

Incentivized