GitLab vs. Microsoft Visual Studio

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
GitLab
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
GitLab is an intelligent orchestration platform for DevSecOps, where software teams enable AI at every stage of the software lifecycle to ship faster. The platform enables teams to automate repetitive tasks across planning, building, securing, testing, deploying, and maintaining software.
$0
Visual Studio
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
Visual Studio (now in the 2022 edition) is a 64-bit IDE that makes it easier to work with bigger projects and complex workloads, boasting a fluid and responsive experience for users. The IDE features IntelliCode, its automatic code completion tools that understand code context and that can complete up to a whole line at once to drive accurate and confident coding.
$45
per month
Pricing
GitLabMicrosoft Visual Studio
Editions & Modules
GitLab Free (self-managed)
$0
GitLab Free
$0
GitLab Premium
$29
per month per user
GitLab Premium (self-managed)
$29
per month per user
GitLab Ultimate
Contact Sales
GitLab Ultimate (self-managed)
Contact Sales
Professional
$45.00
per month
Enterprise
$250.00
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
GitLabVisual Studio
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
Additional DetailsGitLab Credits enable flexible, consumption-based access to agentic AI capabilities in the GitLab platform, allowing you to scale AI adoption at your own pace while maintaining cost predictability. Powered by Duo Agent Platform, GitLab’s agentic AI capabilities help software teams to collaborate at AI speed, without compromising quality and enterprise security. If usage exceeds monthly allocations and overage terms are accepted, automated on-demand billing activates without service interruption, so your developers never lose access to AI capabilities they need. Real-time dashboards provide transparency into AI consumption patterns. Software teams can see usage across users, projects, and groups with granular attribution for cost allocation. Automated threshold alerts facilitate proactive planning. Advanced analytics deliver trending, forecasting, and FinOps integration.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
GitLabMicrosoft Visual Studio
Considered Both Products
GitLab
Chose GitLab
GitLab is a cost effective alternative to names like GitHub and others. It provides easy to use interface that is not dissimilar from GitHub and Atlassian Bitbucket. Where GitLab really shines is in its simplicity and ease of use. It's very intuitive and effectively allows a …
Chose GitLab
It is easy to use , devsecops/ dataops / gitops implementation is quite easy and straightforward compared to other tools which we have tested , it provides seamless integration with tools like dbt , talend , snowflake , collibra and python. Merge issues as well as pipeline …
Chose GitLab
Personally I like reviewing on GitLab better than GitHub, but it's not a huge difference.
Chose GitLab
I liked GitLab better than Beanstalk. GitLab had a free option, which Beanstalk did not at the time. From what I have used of Bitbucket, I probably like it better than GitLab, specifically I like the design better. Doing things in Bitbucket seemed a bit slower to me though. Now …
Chose GitLab
GitLab is widely used throughout the developer community and provides all the required features industry wide. Many of the paid features help the team a lot to achieve efficient source code management. Many features like vulnerability management and AI chat while code review in …
Chose GitLab
Gitlab is an industry standard tool for version controlling of the source code with multiple features used by the developers to maintain efficient development process and scalable services integration on the larger code bases. Multiple tools like AI code review helps the …
Chose GitLab
GitLab is an industry standard software and provides alot of features helpful for the developers with a suitable price point. It has most of the features that are provided and are useful. Team management and security for the source code and restrictions helps achieve all the …
Chose GitLab
Why we chose GitLab: we started long ago with free access and it was always good enough, so we never bothered to switch.
Chose GitLab
GitLab is an all-in-one Git and CI/CD platform that also offers generous credits in its free plan. It allows both private and public projects. The pipelines can be fully defined in YAML files put under version control.
Chose GitLab
GitLab is superior to beanstalk but still lacking in some areas in comparison to newer features to Github. However, it's enterprise based approach is very attractive to many of our top tier clients making it and effective solution for us within their organizations. It's well …
Chose GitLab
We have recently migrated from Bamboo to GitLab across our enterprise as part of our tech modernization roadmap. GitLab provides a all-in-one platform for integrated code management. The only advantage that Bamboo had over GitLab was the integration with JIRA. The streamlined …
Chose GitLab
In our case, we opted for an open source solution and complete control of information, meaning we kept critical information and company developments in-house.
Chose GitLab
GitLab has all the features at one place and also provides plenty of customization for runners
Chose GitLab
As mentioned earlier, the features like chart visualization sets it apart from the others. Other than that, GitLab is open source while other are not and comparatively more secure that its other counterparts. Also, GitLab supports adding other types of attachments which is not …
Chose GitLab
When i was using the other platform, Some time i face down time, But GitLabs its not happening for single time. GitLab is having easy user interference as compared to other platforms. Pull Request, Code review, Issue tracking, Merging, Access control and User Roles is having a …
Chose GitLab
GitLab is miles ahead of the competition. In so many words, having a simple UI with robust security and the ability to conduct Git actions takes the cake. The competitions like to say they can do these things easily but their products are more confusing and hard to use.
Chose GitLab
Because it has the latest features, it is perfect for collaboration, has the best integrations available, and is super secure. Basically, it covers all my needs and the companies. I love its pipelines because of its secrets and agents. I also love that you can manage the …
Chose GitLab
GitLab allows a self-hosted version that is easy to setup and configure. It is also open-source as compared to GitHub. The integrated CI/CD tools is a plus, since we do not have to worry about those tools, unlike Github. The All-in-one solution of GitLab made sense for our …
Chose GitLab
Gitlab offers the best support for CI/CD pipelines and the highest degree of customisation for workflows, permissions, and integrations. The integration of BitBucket with JIRA is better than GitLab but CI/CD features are limited in comparison. GitLab's built-in Container …
Chose GitLab
Gitlab provides basic functionality like any other git tool. Some features of push and pull requests , clone and merge is handled equally well. It lacks in AI features which are there in GitHub and setup processes are difficult. Cost difference is the only concern while …
Chose GitLab
GitHub is an inferior product from most points of view. We had to use it and the teams finds no positives about it. Everything is a downgrade from our previous GitLab solution.

GitLab CI\CD is vastly superior to workflows, for example doing a manual node is just "when : manual" …
Chose GitLab
It's much simpler than the competitors. The one important feature Gitlab stand out is the CI/CD pipeline. GitHub required integration with external CI tools but Gitlab has this feature built-in. Compare to Jenkins and Teamcity, It's easy to use without any additional Plugins. …
Chose GitLab
Gitlab seems more cutting-edge than GitHub; however, its AI tools are not yet as mature as those of CoPilot. It feels like the next-generation product, so as we selected a tool for our startup, we decided to invest in the disruptor in the space. While there are fewer …
Chose GitLab
I tried Github in the past, and it was really similar as GitLab. But we prefer use GitLab for the cicd part, easier to handle
Visual Studio
Chose Visual Studio
It has free community version which make it to use vastly and no budget needed. Good UI to work on and Add-on we can use add and use what ever we need. The extensions that helps to use it.
Chose Visual Studio
For performance and community reach, Microsoft Visual Studio is by far the best. It's the most used and allows us to be efficient and productive without being guinea pigs and having to test new, potentially breaking features.
Chose Visual Studio
A few years ago, Microsoft Visual Studio felt behind Rider in many features, these days, I'd say they go hand in hand.
Chose Visual Studio
I like that you don't have to install a heap of plugins before you can start coding as I am never sure which plugins are ok/safe/standard. We have had issues with painful licensing in some other products.
Chose Visual Studio
Microsoft Visual Studio works well with the Windows operating system an there is less need to install other third party packages to work with the above IDE's. You don't need to install a separate C compiler.
Chose Visual Studio
VS is intuitive and easy to understand. The compiling, notes, debugging, and testing make it easy to build your app. With the integrated repository, it makes it a breeze to stage and commit/update your files. You don't have to go to the OS folders to do it.
Chose Visual Studio
Eclipse is primarily used for Java development, and Android Studio is used for Android app development. Since our work is mainly focused on .NET applications, we use Microsoft Visual Studio to develop our software solutions. Microsoft Visual Studio IDE is way above the rest of …
Chose Visual Studio
Compared with Delphi it is night and day, but that is perhaps because my experience was coming from a Microsoft coding environment to having to setup a development machine for Delphi coding.

What made the alternative such a difficult process was having to download and install …
Chose Visual Studio
I have not developed with other products since a lot of years because this is the official development application in our company. I think other applications could be similar as I was developing in other but this was a lot of years ago, so it is not a good question to answer.
Chose Visual Studio
Much superior integrations, better UI, and overall development experience. Debugging and testing in other tools was a frustrating experience, but proved much more satisfying in Visual Studio.
Chose Visual Studio
Eclipse is also very good but it's more suitable for Java development. Our requirement is more towards .Net, C# and hence Microsoft Visual Studio works well for us. If your primary requirement is Java and cross platform, Eclipse works well. But our specific requirement makes …
Chose Visual Studio
For beginners, the other tools are easier to set up and run. It is also entirely customizable, but Visual Studio Code has more plugins that allow you to streamline your work.
Chose Visual Studio
MATLAB and QT are way more different than Visual Studio. Despite of being famous as per their IDE environment, they would not stand much comparison with VS Visual Studio IDEs. because, MATLAB and QT are limited edition and feature related Visual Studio IDEs, and they stick to …
Chose Visual Studio
We choose Visual Studio IDE because it is easier to set up with C# and more stable. Each time we use Eclipse to make a program, we had bad behavior. Maybe that was our computer setup but we finally go with something more stable and more useful for our company.
Chose Visual Studio
Visual Studio is somewhat different from LiveCode. LiveCode is a coding platform that is unique and implemented most often by colleges, universities, and other academic institutions. It is more of a coding language than a team-collaboration resource. However, the LiveCode …
Chose Visual Studio
It contains everything a developers wants--starting from a basic terminal to millions of extensions. It's the best solution for developers.
Chose Visual Studio
I personally feel Visual Studio IDE has [a] better interface and [is more] user friendly than other IDEs. It has better code maintainability and intellisense. Its inbuilt team foundation server help coders to check on their code then and go. Better nugget package management, …
Chose Visual Studio
It's a well [maintained], mature IDE, which has the benefit of being a [software] which only the most skilled developers works on, instead of being open source. It has a lot of very useful features, which most free IDE-s don't. Also, it has many options from commercial …
Chose Visual Studio
Some of the editors are suitable for a particular programming language . For example pyCharm is suited for Python .
Visual Studio has support for many languages and Visual Studio is comparatively light weight from most of the IDE . The ability to get extensions and use them is …
Chose Visual Studio
Eclipse, PyCharm, Netbeans I have used during my internship for smaller applications but to have a full end-to-end application with ease to connect to database and deployment I believe Visual Studio is way better than other available IDE in this space.
Although your options get …
Chose Visual Studio
I can't compare the NetBeans or PhpStorm with Visual Studio IDE due to entirely different use. All software development IDEs holds their importance, but Visual Studio IDE is the best among its competitors--the IntelliSense and standardization of development, in particular,are …
Chose Visual Studio
Visual Studio IDE is on par with Rider. There are some code insights and package management that Rider does better, but it's the debugger and profiling I find more powerful in Visual Studio IDE. I also consider the UI in Visual Studio IDE to be more appealing and intuitive to …
Best Alternatives
GitLabMicrosoft Visual Studio
Small Businesses
GitGuardian
GitGuardian
Score 9.0 out of 10
PyCharm
PyCharm
Score 9.2 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Veracode
Veracode
Score 8.6 out of 10
PyCharm
PyCharm
Score 9.2 out of 10
Enterprises
Veracode
Veracode
Score 8.6 out of 10
PyCharm
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Score 9.2 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
GitLabMicrosoft Visual Studio
Likelihood to Recommend
8.3
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.0
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.5
(0 ratings)
9.3
(0 ratings)
Performance
9.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(0 ratings)
8.8
(0 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
GitLabMicrosoft Visual Studio
Likelihood to Recommend
It is well-suited for any project that needs VCS. It's an excellent choice for teams that might be remote or have to collaborate across teams. Plenty of features allow for async working. With its dashboards and reporting features, it is also suitable for nontechnical PMs or stakeholders. It allows for very bespoke customization and can most often do much more than you need it to.
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When working with base C# code for desktop and web projects, then Microsoft Visual Studio is ideal as it provides the libraries and interfaces needed to quickly create, test and deploy solutions. It is when slightly more complex scenarios are required that issues can arise. The built-in integration for things like PowerBI Paginated Reports and dashboards is far from ideal.
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Pros
  • 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.
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  • Since Microsoft offers a free Community Edition of the IDE many of our new developers have used it at home or school and are very familiar with the user interface, requiring little training to move up to the paid, enterprise-friendly editions we use.
  • The online community support for Visual Studio is outstanding, as solid or better than any other commercial or open-source project software.
  • Microsoft continuously keeps the product up to date and has maintained a history of doing so. They use it internally for their own development so there is little chance it will ever fall out of favor and become unsupported.
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Cons
  • 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.
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  • Would be great if there was a better way to save and restore open tabs.
  • The built-in test runner can be improved, for example, by adding the ability to save a set of commonly run tests, etc.
  • Better integration for Microsoft SQL server would be great.
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Likelihood to Renew
I really feel the platform has matured quite faster than others, and it is always at the top of its game compared to the different vendors like GitHub, Azure pipelines, CircleCI, Travis, Jenkins. Since it provides, agents, CI/CD, repository hosting, Secrets management, user management, and Single Sign on; among other features
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VS is the best and is required for building Microsoft applications. The quality and usefulness of the product far out-weight the licensing costs associated with it.
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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!
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Using the Microsoft Visual Studio environment is very easy. You have many options to find what you need in the moment, or you can ask a question in the community and find an answer there to solve your problem. It is very interesting to learn about the community, as many people are developing with MS Visual Studio around the world.
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Reliability and Availability
I've never had experienced outages from GItlab itself, but regarding the code I have deployed to Gitlab, the history helps a lot to trace the cause of the issue or performing a rollback to go back to a working version
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No answers on this topic
Performance
GItlab reponsiveness is amazing, has never left me IDLE. I've never had issues even with complex projects. I have not experienced any issues when integrating it with agents for example or SSO
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No answers on this topic
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
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There are many resources available supporting Visual Studio IDE. Microsoft whitepapers, forum posts, and online Visual Studio documentation. There are countless demonstration videos available, as well. If users are having issues, they can call Microsoft Support, but depending on the company's agreement with Microsoft, the number of included support calls will vary from organization to organization. I've found that Microsoft support calls can be hit or miss depending on who you get, but they can usually get you with the right support person for your issue.
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In-Person Training
No answers on this topic
IT is very complicated to understand all the functions that the environment has if you are not familiar with this type of development environments. It is important to select a good in-person training to achieve to understand all the possibilities and the capacity of the application. In this case, you will be able to develop a lot type of different applications.
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Online Training
No answers on this topic
If you are not accustomed to develop in this type of development environments it would be complicated to follow all the parts of the course because if the course does not include a great tour with all the concepts to develop you will not have the option to understand all the functions.
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Alternatives Considered
GitHub is an inferior product from most points of view. We had to use it and the teams finds no positives about it. Everything is a downgrade from our previous GitLab solution. GitLab CI\CD is vastly superior to workflows, for example doing a manual node is just "when : manual" in GitLab while you have to do clickops in GitHub to achieve the same. No overview of code in branches is a minus when we tried to figure out what our colleagues are trying to merge as it looked off.
Read full review
Eclipse is primarily used for Java development, and Android Studio is used for Android app development. Since our work is mainly focused on .NET applications, we use Microsoft Visual Studio to develop our software solutions. Microsoft Visual Studio IDE is way above the rest of the development tools by miles due to its ease of use and ease of software development.
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Scalability
I think is very well designed, and like any VCS it works as intended
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No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
  • GitLab cut down our spent on container, package and infrastructure registry
  • Best thing is we can now have everything in single platform which cost effective too
  • Quality of support is really good and they do have emergency support team as well which is great
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  • One of the most important components of Visual Studio IDE is team collaboration, which improves team productivity.
  • It supports a wide range of languages. It's simple to add a library and have the IDE display autocomplete, suggestions, and errors while you code.
  • Visual Studio has a lot of shortcuts, which helps me a lot by saving a lot of time. Its dark theme appeals to me. Intellisense has been quite beneficial.
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ScreenShots

GitLab Screenshots

Screenshot of What is Intelligent Orchestration for DevSecOps?Screenshot of an overview of GitLab Duo Agent PlatformScreenshot of a new agent creation screen