GitLab vs. GitHub: How are they different in 2025?

Git is now the undisputed king of version control — used by over 90% of developers worldwide. It's free to use, open source, and distributed — meaning that every developer has a copy of the code repo locally, allowing you to work offline.

When Git was first invented (to manage the Linux kernel), developers used to have to manually pull code from Linus Torvalds's local repository, make changes, and email him the patch, which he would manually review and then merge into his code. There was no single source of truth, which made the workflow frustrating.

In response to this, GitHub was created — the first web-based platform for hosting Git repositories. A few years later, GitLab was launched as an open-source, self-hosted alternative to GitHub. GitLab was the first to integrate CI/CD directly into its platform, and was marketed as an all-in-one DevOps solution. Both GitHub and GitLab allow developers to store and share their code projects in a centralized location, and collaborate on code projects, using the Git version control system.

But over time, each hosting platform has made improvements in the areas where it was lacking, so we need to take a fresh look now in 2025 at the actual differences remaining between them, and which of the two platforms is better when it comes to enterprise features, ease of use, and self-hosting. 

This post breaks the decision down for you depending on your use case — looking at core features like code collaboration, managing code projects and reviews, and CI/CD integration — to help you find the perfect fit.

How GitLab and GitHub work

Both GitLab and GitHub provide a way to add some centralized structure to Git — which is otherwise a decentralized version control system, storing a full copy of any code repository on each developer's local machine. GitLab and GitHub act as central servers, giving shared coding projects a single source of truth.

Git has a series of commands that you use to manage your code repositories. Some of these commands are local commands, and some can be used to interact with GitHub or GitLab.

Whether you're working with GitHub or GitLab, you'll use the same Git commands, and your Git workflow is identical (for example, pulling a remote repository, then adding and committing a change, then pushing the change back to the remote repository).

Whether you use GitLab or GitHub, your Git workflow remains the same.

When we look deeper at the full lifecycle of a code change in GitHub and GitLab, it becomes even clearer how similar they are in terms of workflow. There are a few minor changes in terminology (like "pull request" in GitHub vs. "merge request" in GitLab) but essentially they follow the same process — a developer puts their code on a new branch, sends it to GitHub/GitLab, and requests their team to review the code and merge it into the main branch. 

So, the differences really come down to the extra tools and integrations that GitLab and GitHub offer, including CI/CD integration, project management features, security add-ons, and self-hosting options — and which of these are offered in their various pricing tiers. 

Differences between GitHub and GitLab — the core features

When it comes to core features, GitHub and GitLab still have some differences, but sometimes the differences are more minor than they initially seem, as both platforms are evolving together to try to achieve similar aims. Let's take a closer look at how they truly differ today.

CI/CD

GitLab was the first to make DevOps a core feature, and GitLab CI/CD has been fully integrated for many years. But in response to this, GitHub introduced GitHub Actions, which does the same job. Both GitLab CI/CD and GitHub Actions are built into the hosting platform, both use YAML files to configure workflows, and both can be run either on hosted or self-hosted runners.

There are some minor differences in how to set up each. Let's consider a monorepo app with Next.js and Node.js code, that needs to be built and have tests run every time there's a push to the main branch.

GitLab CI/CD

Create a .gitlab-ci.yml file with the code below. GitLab's runners typically run inside Docker containers, so in this example there's no need to install Node.js, as that's already baked into the Docker image.

GitHub Actions

Create a  .github/workflows/nextjs.yml file with the code below. There are some extra steps required here that aren't required in GitLab. This is because GitHub runs its workflows on minimal virtual machines (VMs), so you're starting with nothing but the core OS, whereas GitLab uses Docker containers, which have your code and Node.js baked into it.

First, you need to use the checkout GitHub Action to add your code to the VM. A GitHub Action is a reusable piece of code that you can use to save time. There are many Actions hosted by GitHub, but you can also create your own — for example, Contentful has created a GitHub Action for deploying Contentful apps.

You'll also need to install Node.js. However, instead of multiple steps (installing Node Version Manager, setting your installation directory etc.), you can use the setup-node GitHub Action for this.

As you can see, the GitHub YAML is longer than the GitLab YAML, which makes GitLab more enjoyable to work with for many straightforward single-repo projects. GitLab also offers an Auto DevOps feature that lets you automatically build simple repos containing one project without the need for any YAML config file, so it's definitely the easiest to use for straightforward projects. However, as GitHub Actions was designed to be more modular and customizable, this can give you more control when working on larger, complex projects such as multi-language, multi-OS projects.

Developer collaboration 

Both GitHub and GitLab have very similar developer collaboration tools. Where GitLab has merge requests, GitHub has pull requests — they're the same feature but just with different terminology. And both offer code review abilities, each allowing multiple reviewers. Bug tracking is also made easy with GitHub Issues or GitLab Issues, depending on which system you're using. So, any differences here are minor.

Project management

The differences here can be more major, depending on how you like to manage projects. GitLab has more built-in project management features than GitHub — such as roadmaps, epics, story point tracking, and burndown charts. These features can be very useful for developer-heavy teams that want to use their version control system to manage projects.

But if your team has a full-time project manager, it's worth finding out whether they would use these features — as full-time project managers often prefer to use a tool like Jira, Asana, or Trello. As both GitLab and GitHub have good integrations for these tools, the built-in project management features shouldn't be the deciding factor.

AI

GitHub has Copilot integrated into it, which is using OpenAI's GPT under the hood. GitLab Duo is GitLab's AI offering, which uses a variety of models, including Anthropic's Claude, Google's Vertex, and Fireworks AI's Qwen2.5.

Both can summarize a pull/merge request, assist with code reviews, auto-generate tests, auto-generate code commit messages, and suggest optimizations for your YAML code, and both integrate with IDEs like VSCode and JetBrains. It's worth noting that not all these features are available on the free tiers, but there also isn't a strong difference between GitLab and GitHub when comparing which one has more AI features available on the free tier.

However, the current consensus seems to be that GitHub's Copilot is doing a better job. It's more mature than GitLab's Duo and seems to have fewer complaints — although Duo is newer and may catch up soon.

Differences between GitHub and GitLab free tiers

As many of the core features of GitHub and GitLab are not all that different (or might soon change to be more similar), if you're a small company or startup, your choice might come down to money. For this, it's useful to know what is included for free in GitHub and GitLab and when you might need to start paying for extras. Take a look at this table of common features that reveal how much you get free of charge with GitHub and GitLab.

If you're choosing between free versions, choose GitHub if your builds don't create large artifacts such as Docker images, which can easily cause you to run out of storage after only a couple of builds. In that case, it wouldn't matter if you had more CI/CD minutes, as you won't be able to use them to build anything if you’re out of storage. Choose GitLab if you need to build Docker images or other large artifacts, or if you need to self-host or have better infrastructure-as-code support.

GitHub vs. GitLab: Best for self-hosting?

GitLab has always been associated with self-hosting, but in reality, both GitHub and GitLab can do self-hosting if you're using a paid version. It's only if you're using the free tier that you need to be aware that only GitLab offers self-hosting for free.

GitHub vs. GitLab: Best for enterprise?

GitLab is known for being an all-in-one DevOps platform, and a few years ago it was definitely the best for enterprises that needed to manage all their DevOps in one place. However, GitHub is now catching up on that front, and if you choose GitHub Enterprise with the Advanced Security features, you'll get GitHub Actions, GitHub Container Registry, Azure pipelines integration, IaC support, and code scanning  — all for a cheaper monthly cost than GitLab Ultimate.

However, there are still a few reasons you might want to choose GitLab over GitHub for your enterprise needs:

• Faster pipeline throughput: GitLab's pipelines have the potential to run faster due to smarter caching strategies, such as more granular caching or shared caching across workflows — for example, a shared cache between build and test workflows in the same repository.

• Multi-repository pipeline orchestration: This is easier in GitLab as it's built in, whereas in GitHub more manual orchestration is needed.

• More tightly integrated DevOps features: Features like dynamic application security testing, infrastructure-as-code scanning, and Terraform state management are built into GitLab, whereas GitHub requires third-party integrations to do the same. 

• Ease of self-hosting: Self-hosting is easier to get started with using GitLab. GitHub Enterprise requires more manual configuration to get started.

• Agile planning tools built in: GitHub only includes very basic Agile planning tools, so you need to use third-party tools.

On the other side of the debate, one of the main reasons you might choose GitHub Enterprise is its deep Microsoft integration, which has strong benefits if you're already using the Microsoft ecosystem:

• Deep Azure integration: This makes it much easier to set up things like single sign-on and role-based access control.

• Cheaper licensing deals: You can get price discounts on GitHub Enterprise if you're already a Microsoft customer, making it even cheaper than GitLab Ultimate.

Finally, you might also choose GitHub if you don't want to self-host but you need to control the region your data is in. GitLab's SaaS offering currently doesn't support this but GitHub does.

When to use GitHub

GitHub is great for personal projects, due to its generous free tier with unlimited private repos and a large number of free CI/CD minutes. It also has a large community and is easier to get started with for beginners.

If you're an enterprise that already has a Microsoft contract, you'll get the best price with GitHub Enterprise with Advanced Security. The security features are robust, although they do require some extra manual configuration. However, you'll save time when it comes to integrating with Azure.

GitHub is extremely flexible and has integrations with many third-party systems. So, it's a great choice if you're already relying on a variety of external systems, or if you have any unusual elements to your workflow — GitHub, being a bit more easily configurable, will likely be able to handle them.

When to use GitLab

GitLab is great if you're looking for a more opinionated approach to DevOps — it provides pretty much everything you need without requiring third-party integrations, making features like CI/CD and security a little easier to manage.

It's also great if you work in a developer-centric team, where developers might also be managing a project. If you want built-in project management tools that give developer-led teams an all-in-one management system, GitLab is ideal as it has many more built-in features, such as roadmaps, epics, and burndown charts.

GitHub and GitLab are to code what Contentful is to content

Now that you understand how GitHub and GitLab help teams collaborate on code — by helping to keep changes in sync, track versions, automate testing, and deploy updates — this will help you appreciate the value Contentful brings to content.

Just as GitLab and GitHub give developers a robust, agile solution for collaborating on code, Contentful offers the same thing for managing content. You get a single source of truth for your content, with version control, permissions and roles, and custom workflows using API and webhooks. Whether you're pushing code or publishing content, the goal is the same: fast and secure collaboration.

It's worth noting that Contentful uses DevOps principles and applies them to content management, by offering flexibility and scalability. For enterprises looking to follow solid DevOps principles, integrating Contentful into your DevOps process is an effective choice. 

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