Likelihood to Recommend If you're looking for a VS Code-like online environment with containers to spin up a dev environment or execute code and scripts it is a good fit. The environments are very customizable, and, all said and done, the price is fair. If you're looking for a remote code editor that allows you to connect via SFTP/SSH and edit the remote files, it isn't quite as seamless as it used to be. I still haven't found any all-cloud alternative, but it could be better.
Read full review 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.
Read full review Pros Run development containers with backend and frontend access. Allow for multiple users to collaborate and share containers and connections. Manage multiple connections to different servers. Read full review 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. Read full review Cons Since some updates a couple of years ago, using Codeanywhere as a remote code editor rather than a container-based development environment has been more cumbersome and difficult. The modular nature of connections and containers seems like a good idea, but they don't always work properly. It's difficult sometimes to share a connection or container together with a collaborator. Read full review 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. Read full review Likelihood to Renew 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.
Read full review Usability 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!
Read full review Support Rating 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
Read full review Alternatives Considered I've used CodeTasty, which is much more of a straight remote code editor, but their dev team is entirely unresponsive, and I became uncomfortable storing credentials with them, so I pulled everything from them and went back to Codeanywhere. VS code is similar but not fully online. While I know that they've released a fully online version, I haven't had the time or wherewith-all to make it work in the capacity I need. Codeanywhere is still the best solution I've found.
Read full review 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
Read full review Return on Investment Helped me make mission critical edits remotely and on-the-fly. Spent a bit of time figuring out the change in user interfaces. Read full review 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. Read full review ScreenShots