Robust solution for multiple developers on the same team

Item: GitLab
Rating: 7
Author: Verified User

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

GitLab was used by our Information Technology team and we tried it for a few months as we're trying to improve our Git workflow since we were getting more extensive projects, so it requires a better coding organization between different developers and teams (we even worked with our clients IT department as well).

Pros and Cons

Branches management
Repository organization
Code review

Steep learning curve.
User interface is not that friendly to new users.
Could improve on integration with external applications.

Return on Investment

Increased costs since we've been using a free tool for git management for a small team.
Requires some time to learn it's features.
Improved team collaboration.

Alternatives Considered

Bitbucket

Since we use Bitbucket for a few years, we're very used to work with this service, besides using the Sourcetree app, a free solution provided by Atlassian that improves our workflow. Though GitLab has more features for advanced users and it's clear that it improved our remote work on projects that required more than one developer.

Security

We didn't experience any security issues with GitLab, but it helped us feel more confident by working with different teams from other organizations. Also, it offers some features to help improve our code and APIs to be more secure as we were providing access to external applications. So this kind of feature is very welcome to our team.

Continuous Integration

As we work with multiple developers and other companies, this kind of feature helped us keep things organized as we were able to maintain current projects and develop new code on different branches at the same time. Also, in case there were any conflicts, it helped us find issues and solve them rapidly.

Key Insights

Do you think GitLab delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with GitLab's feature set?

Yes

Did GitLab live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of GitLab go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy GitLab again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Bitbucket, GitHub

Likelihood to Recommend

As we tested this service, I think it has a lot of great features but it could be better integrated with external coding tools like VSCode, since our team was using a plugin to that specific app that made the whole git workflow much simpler. Also, the user interface can be confusing for new users since it has a ton of features from the get-go.