CAST Highlight vs GitLab comparison

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CAST Highlight

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 5, 2024

GitLab and CAST Highlight are both strong competitors in the DevOps and code analysis categories, respectively. GitLab holds an advantage due to its comprehensive development features, offering a broad range, including CI/CD and code review capabilities.

Features: GitLab provides a robust CI/CD pipeline, extensive code repository management, and seamless code review processes. It supports a variety of development and automation operations. In contrast, CAST Highlight focuses on code readiness for the cloud, requiring no direct codebase access, integrating well with Azure DevOps, and emphasizing quick solutions for automation and speed.

Room for Improvement: GitLab could improve integration with third-party tools like Jira, enhance AWS and container management, and offer better reporting features. CAST Highlight is noted for its high cost, difficulty in configuration, and less comprehensive dashboards compared to CAST AIP. Both platforms could benefit from broader integration capabilities and more user-friendly interfaces.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: GitLab shines with flexible deployment options across various clouds and on-premises environments. Although its open-source nature supports community help, official support needs quicker response times. CAST Highlight mainly operates on-premises with some cloud options, but lacks dedicated support unless purchased separately. Both solutions could improve their official support offerings.

Pricing and ROI: GitLab offers a range from a free edition to costly premium options, providing substantial feature richness which contributes to a positive ROI. CAST Highlight is seen as expensive, and its cost could be a limitation for some users. Despite this, both solutions are acknowledged for enhancing productivity and delivering good ROI, with GitLab typically presenting more value for integration of development lifecycles.

To learn more, read our detailed CAST Highlight vs. GitLab Report (Updated: January 2025).

CAST Highlight vs. GitLab

January 2025

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Helped 832,138 peers since 2012

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

CAST Highlight

Ranking in Software Composition Analysis (SCA)

15th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

GitLab

Ranking in Software Composition Analysis (SCA)

5th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Security Tools (10th), Build Automation (1st), Release Automation (2nd), Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (9th), Rapid Application Development Software (12th), Enterprise Agile Planning Tools (2nd), Fuzz Testing Tools (2nd), DevSecOps (3rd)

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Software Composition Analysis (SCA) category, the mindshare of CAST Highlight is 0.9%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of GitLab is 4.3%, down from 5.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Software Composition Analysis (SCA)

Featured Reviews

Chris Van Poele

Owner at a comms service provider with 501-1,000 employees

Offers efficient portfolio management through enhanced application insights

One of the advantages of using CAST Highlight is that it provides a clear overview of the entire portfolio. It allows me to see the overall quality of my environment and determine where improvements are needed. It also aids in the early detection of trends and can be useful in managing applications within the organization.

Read full review

Gaurav Chandel

AWS DevOps/ Site Reliability Engineer at Tata Consultancy

Boosted productivity with automated pipelines and seamless collaboration

There are some challenges with repository file management as GitLab may struggle to manage larger files. Improvements could be made regarding size management and file partitioning. Also, the UI has remained the same for a couple of years and could benefit from an update with AI features and better customization.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"The most valuable features of CAST Highlight are automation and speed."

"CAST Highlight is easy to use and has a good dashboard."

"CAST Highlight provides a clear overview of the role portfolio and allows users to assess the overall quality of the environment. Users can see where improvements are needed and follow up on trends of the application."

"It offers good performance."

"The way it tells you which codebase is more ready for the cloud and which codebase is less ready is very valuable. It works seamlessly with most languages."

"In cloud migration, I use CAST highlight to identify blockers, which are the negative road patterns, and also the boosters, which are positive code patterns."

"The solution provides agnostic blockers for platforms as well as for containerization."

"The most valuable features of the CAST Highlight are the interface and there are three notations that are very simple to understand and communicate with."

"It's a great toolbox where the CI/CD pipeline is the fundamental component, but there are so many other features that you can pull from, which makes it a very powerful tool. My current client is using AWS, and they can, of course, use AWS CodePipeline, but GitLab is much more mature than that, and it also gives you the freedom to decide to go to another platform or have a multi-cloud strategy and things like that. That freedom for me is also very valuable."

"A user friendly solution."

"We have seen a couple of merge requests or pull requests raised in GitLab. I see the interface, the way it shows the difference between the two source codes, that it is easy for anyone to do the review and then accept the request; the pull request is the valuable feature."

"I like GitLab's security and SAS tools."

"GitLab is scalable and works well with multiple environments."

"The most valuable features of GitLab are ease of use and highly intuitive UI and performance."

"The scalability is good."

"CI/CD is very good. The version control system is also good. These are the two features that we use."

More GitLab pros

Cons

"Its price should be better. It is a pretty costly tool. They have two products: CAST Highlight and CAST AIP. I would expect CAST Highlight to have the Help dashboard and the Engineering dashboard. These dashboards are currently a part of CAST AIP, and if these are made available in CAST Highlight, customers won't have to use two different products all the time."

"There's a bit of a learning curve at the outset."

"There could be potential improvements or additional features added to CAST Highlight to make it better."

"If I received categorization in containerization blockers, it would save time."

"CAST Highlight could improve to allow us to comment and do a deep analysis by ourselves."

"The reports that describe the issues of concern are rather abstract and the issues should be more clearly described to the user."

"The ease of configuration and customization could be improved in CAST Highlight."

"GitLab can improve its user interface to make conflict resolution more user-friendly."

"We are having a few problems integrating with Jira at the moment, which is something that our IT department is investigating."

"Even if I say I want some improvement, they will say it is already planned in the first quarter, second quarter, or third quarter. That said, most everything is quite improved already, and they're improving even further still."

"As a partner, sometimes it's difficult to get support. They have a really complicated procedure for their support."

"There was a problem with the build environment when we were looking at developing iOS applications. iOS build require Mac machines and there are no Mac machines provided by GitLab in their cloud. So to build for mobile iOS application, we needed to use our own Mac machine within our own infrastructure. If GitLab were to provide a feature such that an iOS application could also be built through GitLab directly, that would be great."

"The solution could improve by providing more integration into the CI/CD pipeline, an autocomplete search tool, and more supporting documentation."

"There are missing search features, particularly when searching repositories or applying filters. Additionally, I have encountered issues with the deployment of CI/CD pipelines, especially dealing with variable environments."

"It should be used by a larger number of people. They should raise awareness."

More GitLab cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is a pretty costly tool. A lot of customers are resistant to using it."

"CAST Highlight is an expensive solution."

"Basic support is included with the standard licensing feed but it can be upgraded for an additional cost."

"CAST Highlight is an expensive solution. However, CAST Highlight is less expensive than the CAST AIP, but it remains too expensive and the professional services from CAST are also too expensive. The high price is part of the problem with the CAST solutions."

"The price is okay."

"My company uses the free version of GitLab, which is GitLab Community Edition. There is a licensed version also available for GitLab."

"It seems reasonable. Our IT team manages the licenses."

"The price of GitLab could be better, it is expensive."

"As I work in a vast enterprise, I'm unsure about the licensing cost for GitLab. It's the management team that takes care of that."

"The open-source version is very good and the commercial version is reasonably priced."

"The solution is free."

"I'm not aware of the licensing costs because those were covered by the customer."

More GitLab pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Software Composition Analysis (SCA) solutions are best for your needs.

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832,138 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

22%

Computer Software Company

17%

Insurance Company

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

29%

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about CAST Highlight?

The most valuable features of CAST Highlight are automation and speed.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for CAST Highlight?

The pricing of CAST Highlight was not considered expensive or cheap, and no specific comment was made about the setup cost.

What needs improvement with CAST Highlight?

There could be potential improvements or additional features added to CAST Highlight to make it better.

What do you like most about GitLab?

I find the features and version control history to be most valuable for our development workflow. These aspects provide us with a clear view of changes and help us manage requests efficiently.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for GitLab?

The pricing of GitLab is reasonable, aligning with what I consider to be average compared to competitors.

What needs improvement with GitLab?

There are missing search features, particularly when searching repositories or applying filters. Additionally, I have encountered issues with the deployment of CI/CD pipelines, especially dealing w...

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Product Reports

Download CAST Highlight product report

CAST Highlight

February 2025

Download GitLab product report

January 2025

Also Known As

No data available

Fuzzit

Overview

CAST Highlight is a SaaS software intelligence product for performing rapid application portfolio analysis. It automatically analyzes source code of hundreds of applications in a week for Cloud Readiness, Software Composition Analysis (Open Source risks), Resiliency, and Technical Debt. Objective software insights from automated source code analysis combined with built-in qualitative surveys for business context enable more informed decision-making about application portfolios.

CAST is the software intelligence category leader. CAST technology can see inside custom applications with MRI-like precision, automatically generating intelligence about their inner workings - composition, architecture, transaction flows, cloud readiness, structural flaws, legal and security risks. It’s becoming essential for faster modernization for cloud, raising the speed and efficiency of Software Engineering, better open source risk control, and accurate technical due diligence. CAST operates globally with offices in North America, Europe, India, China. Visit www.castsoftware.com.

CAST

GitLab is a complete DevOps platform that enables teams to collaborate and deliver software faster.

It provides a single application for the entire DevOps lifecycle, from planning and development to testing, deployment, and monitoring.

With GitLab, teams can streamline their workflows, automate processes, and improve productivity.

Sample Customers

Wells Fargo, Bank of NY Mellon, Northern Trust, Microsoft, Amazon, IBM, BMW, AT&T, US Army, US Air Force, US Navy, John Hancock, Marsh & McLennan, Ernst & Young, PwC, Volkswagen, Boston Consulting Group, London Stock Exchange, Telefonica, Saur France, Total Energies France, SNCF

1. NASA 2. IBM 3. Sony 4. Alibaba 5. CERN 6. Siemens 7. Volkswagen 8. ING 9. Ticketmaster 10. SpaceX 11. Adobe 12. Intuit 13. Autodesk 14. Rakuten 15. Unity Technologies 16. Pandora 17. Electronic Arts 18. Nordstrom 19. Verizon 20. Comcast 21. Philips 22. Deutsche Telekom 23. Orange 24. Fujitsu 25. Ericsson 26. Nokia 27. General Electric 28. Cisco 29. Accenture 30. Deloitte 31. PwC 32. KPMG