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CircleCI vs GitLab comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 5, 2025

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

CircleCI
Ranking in Build Automation
14th
Average Rating
6.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
GitLab
Ranking in Build Automation
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
82
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (8th), Release Automation (2nd), Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (7th), Rapid Application Development Software (12th), Software Composition Analysis (SCA) (5th), Enterprise Agile Planning Tools (2nd), Fuzz Testing Tools (2nd), DevSecOps (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the Build Automation category, the mindshare of CircleCI is 3.3%, down from 4.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of GitLab is 16.9%, down from 18.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Build Automation
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer0972521 - PeerSpot reviewer
Unhelpful support, unclear billing, and has offers ability to track usage
We've had occasional connectivity issues with cloud resources and build failure due to its own internal system setup and environment. That costs us credits. Support engineers do not thoroughly read and understand issues when emailing them. They reply to me with a totally different context about the problem. Just yesterday, my web applications failed to 'yarn build' after I downgraded the resource class from extr-large to large. I contacted support and got no reply. Billing is a mess. There is duplicate information in the bill downloaded from their website and when I asked for a consolidated bill, they just answered that they didn't have it. There is no transparency on how many billed minutes and credits I spent each day both on their website and the monthly bill which makes it difficult to understand when the monthly bill contains many refill item charges. It is difficult or impossible to track usage and burndown of my subscription and to gain total outstanding refill amounts on a daily basis. Their website doesn't provide sufficient information on credits allocated/calculated for my extra-large resource class.
Gaurav Chandel - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's a stable product."
"The automation workflow in CircleCI related to third-party applications is very good and allows standardization of applications."
"The ability to automate the build process in a seamless way and run workflows effortlessly. It supports parallel builds so it can scale well. Also, it covers the basics of any build and integration tool, including email notifications (especially when tests are fixed), project insights, etc."
"The solution offers continuous integration and continuous delivery."
"Enables us to detect exactly which build failed and why, and to push multiple builds to our production environment at a very fast rate."
"Some of the most valuable features include container-based builds, integration with Bit Bucket and being able to store artifacts."
"The most valuable functionality of GitLab, for me, is the DevOps. Besides the normal source control based on Git, I find the Auto DevOps features most important in the solution."
"The initial setup of GitLab is pretty simple, with no complications."
"The SaaS setup is impressive, and it has DAST solutioning."
"CI/CD is valuable for me."
"CI/CD is very good. The version control system is also good. These are the two features that we use."
"GitLab is kind of an image of GitHub, so it gives us the flexibility to monitor our changes in the repos."
"I like GitLab's security and SAS tools."
"This product is always evolving, and they listen to the customers."
 

Cons

"There needs to be some improvement in the user interface of CircleCI."
"The solution’s pricing could be better."
"Integration with Microsoft Azure is one area for improvement. Azure is growing in its user base, and supports various cloud infrastructure components such as Service Fabric, App Service, etc. Some of Azure’s deployment models (like Kudu) require a steep learning curve, but if CircleCI would come up with such features (deployment to App Service) out of the box, it would be amazing."
"Billing is a mess."
"GitLab could improve the patch repository. It does not have support for Conan patch version regions. Additionally, better support for Kubernetes deployment is needed as part of the package."
"I would like to see static analysis also embedded in GitLab. That would also help us. If there's something that it does internally by GitLab and then that is already tied up with your pipeline and then it can tell you that you're coding is good or your code is not great. Based on that, it would pass or fail. That should be streamlined. I would think that would help to a greater extent, in terms of having one solution rather than depending on multiple vendors."
"We do face issues in our company when we run out of disk space."
"It could have more security integrations and the ability to check the vulnerability of the code. I don't think it is a responsibility of Gitlab, but it would be nice to have more options to integrate with."
"I'm new to GitLab, so I would appreciate more documentation about the code and commands."
"I rate the support from GitLab a four out of five."
"The only thing our company is really waiting on in terms of features is the development of metrics."
"I used Spring Cloud config and to connect that to GitLab was so hard."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of CircleCI could be less expensive."
"I think that we pay approximately $100 USD per month."
"The solution is based on a licensing model that includes technical support and is paid annually."
"I'm not sure if they have some kind of discount. I've been negotiating with them on prices before, and I believe they weren't too happy to give discounts, but list prices are $19 per user, per month for Premium and $99 per user, per month for Ultimate. So, the difference between Premium and Ultimate is a bit bigger, and in most companies, you need to build some type of business case."
"Regarding pricing, I would rate GitLab as moderately priced, maybe around a seven or eight out of ten. It could be more flexible for clients but generally offers good value."
"This is an open-source solution."
"It is very expensive. We can't bear it now, and we have to find another solution. We have a yearly subscription in which we can increase the number of licenses, but we have to pay at the end of the year."
"In total, I believe we have more than 300 licenses spread over about 100 users, though I can't comment on the costs involved."
"The solution's standard license is paid annually. They have changed the pricing model and it used to be better. There is a free version available."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Educational Organization
28%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about CircleCI?
The solution offers continuous integration and continuous delivery.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for CircleCI?
Beware of skyrocketing bills as CircleCI does not provide transparency into how they charge refills. Their monthly billing statement is almost unreadable and their online dashboard doesn't provide ...
What needs improvement with CircleCI?
We've had occasional connectivity issues with cloud resources and build failure due to its own internal system setup and environment. That costs us credits. Support engineers do not thoroughly read...
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?
Certain features in Jira are not available in GitLab, such as the functionality to have weights at the milestone and epic levels. Hopefully, these features will be resolved with work items in GitLa...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
Fuzzit
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Shopify, Zenefits, Concur Technologies, CyberAgent
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
Find out what your peers are saying about CircleCI vs. GitLab and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
841,004 professionals have used our research since 2012.