Digital.ai Release vs GitLab comparison

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Digital.ai Release

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 7, 2025

Digital.ai Release and GitLab are competing in the agile delivery and DevOps domain. GitLab has the upper hand due to its extensive features and integration capabilities, considered worthy of its pricing.

Features: Digital.ai Release offers effective release management and deployment automation, suitable for enterprise-scale releases. Additionally, it integrates well with different deployment systems and tools like Jira and Bamboo, making it efficient for managing workflows. GitLab stands out with its all-in-one DevOps platform that encompasses code repository management and CI/CD pipelines, along with a user-friendly interface, making it a comprehensive tool for DevOps processes.

Room for Improvement: Digital.ai Release could enhance its adaptability for non-enterprise settings and simplify its learning curve. Improvements in UI and onboarding processes can make it more accessible. GitLab could enhance its advanced features usage and streamline its comprehensive documentation for easier access. It could also focus on expanding its feature set to avoid drop-off in usage complexity.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Digital.ai Release is known for its structured deployment procedures and proactive customer support, catering to complex enterprise environments. GitLab offers flexible deployment models combined with extensive documentation and community support, enhancing convenience for various organizations.

Pricing and ROI: Digital.ai Release involves a higher initial setup cost that offers long-term ROI in large enterprises with its customizability. GitLab offers competitive pricing with a lower initial investment, providing a compelling ROI through its efficient, integrated platform, appealing to organizations seeking comprehensive DevOps solutions.

To learn more, read our detailed Digital.ai Release vs. GitLab Report (Updated: February 2025).

Digital.ai Release vs. GitLab

February 2025

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Helped 842,767 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

Digital.ai Release

Ranking in Build Automation

17th

Ranking in Release Automation

12th

Ranking in DevSecOps

12th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

GitLab

Ranking in Build Automation

1st

Ranking in Release Automation

2nd

Ranking in DevSecOps

3rd

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Security Tools (9th), 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)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Build Automation category, the mindshare of Digital.ai Release is 0.8%, down from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of GitLab is 16.6%, down from 18.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Build Automation

Featured Reviews

Navanath Gajare

DevOps Tech Lead at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees

Effectively automates deployments and applies one template across applications

Our company uses the solution to handle deployments for new releases. Whenever there is a new release, the solution creates a new provision template for deployment. We also orchestrate and manage all users. We integrate with other tools like GitHub, Jenkins, or Digital.ai Deploy to manage…

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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 orchestration, building the release, and then just executing it and managing that pipeline — the orchestration capabilities are great for that."

"The solution can apply one template across multiple applications."

"The most valuable feature of Digital.ai Release is its ability to communicate with various deployment systems, such as XLD and batch deployments, as well as integrate with tools, such as Flyway and Bamboo. We use Bamboo as our build orchestrator, and Digital.ai Release also integrates with Jira, another Atlassian solution. These capabilities make it a powerful tool for managing workflow, test automation, and other processes."

"The time is also reduced because the manual work has tremendously decreased. We just have to click one button, and it will create everything for us."

"We like that we can create branches and then the branches can be reviewed and you can mesh those branches back. You can independently work with your own branch, you don't need to really control the core of other people."

"I have found the most valuable feature is security control. I also like the branching and cloning software."

"The SaaS setup is impressive, and it has DAST solutioning."

"GitLab is very useful for pipelines, continuous integration, and continuous deployment. It is also stable."

"The most valuable feature of GitLab is the automatic merging of code."

"Their CI/CD engine is very mature. It's very comprehensive and flexible, and compared to other projects, I believe that GitLab is number one right now from that perspective."

"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."

"The scalability is good."

More GitLab pros

Cons

"Currently, we put artifact details manually. What we could improve, in our case, is the deployment instruction base. Developers input all the information, including which artifact and where it needs to be deployed. What Digital.ai could do is automatically go to the deployment instruction page, take those artifact details, and implement them."

"The solution is a little bit expensive."

"The backfill could be improved, we could automate that. Right now it's subjective — it's up to the lead developer's memory to remember to backfill."

"Digital.ai Release could improve by having a better plugin that works with Guardian that we use for mainframe migrations. If there could be an interface or plugin for Guardian that would be beneficial."

"GitLab doesn't have AWS integration. It would be better to have integration with other container management environments beyond Kubernetes. It has very good integration with Kubernetes, but it doesn't have good integration with, for example, AWS, ETS, etc."

"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."

"Reporting could be improved."

"I would like to have some features to support peer review."

"As GitLab is not perfect, what needs improvement in the solution is the Wiki feature of the groups or the repertories because currently, it's not searchable by default. You'll need an indexing service such as Elasticsearch to make it searchable, and that requires too much work, so for me, it's the main feature that should be improved in GitLab. In the next version of the solution, from the top of my head, the documentation could be improved. Besides the Wiki, it would be good if there's documentation that would be automatically generated based on the code repository. In other words, there should be some tutorials from GitLab for developers in the next release."

"The pricing has been substantially increased, which is a major concern."

"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."

"Based on what I know so far, its integration with Kubernetes is not so good. We have to develop many things to make it work. We have to acquire third-party components to work with Kubernetes."

More GitLab cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution's license includes all features."

"Overall, the price is just too high; especially considering we're in the middle of a pandemic."

"The solution is based on a subscription model and is reasonably priced."

"Its price is fine. It is on the cheaper side and not expensive. You have to pay additionally for GitLab CI/CD minutes. Initially, we used the free version. When we ran out of GitLab minutes, we migrated to the paid version."

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

"This is an open-source solution."

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

"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."

"GitLab is cheap."

"In terms of the pricing for GitLab, on a scale of one to five, with one being expensive and five being cheap, I'm rating pricing for the solution a four. It could still be cheaper because right now, my company has a small team, and sometimes it's difficult to use a paid product for a small team. You'd hope the team will grow and scale, but currently, you're paying a high license fee for a small team. I'm referring to the GitLab license that has premium features and will give you all features. This can be a problem for management to approve the high price of the license for a team this small."

More GitLab pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

52%

Financial Services Firm

22%

Computer Software Company

Healthcare Company

Educational Organization

26%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Digital.ai Release ?

The time is also reduced because the manual work has tremendously decreased. We just have to click one button, and it will create everything for us.

What needs improvement with Digital.ai Release ?

There are many areas of improvement. Currently, we put artifact details manually. What we could improve, in our case, is the deployment instruction base. Developers input all the information, inclu...

What is your primary use case for Digital.ai Release ?

It helps with creating documentation, release processes, deploying to lower environments, scheduling meetings, and sending emails to stakeholders. The goal is to reduce manual work and save time.

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...

Jenkins vs Digital.ai Release

Comparisons

Compared 65% of the time

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SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) vs GitLab

Compared 8% of the time

AWS CodePipeline vs GitLab

Compared 6% of the time

Tekton vs GitLab

Compared 5% of the time

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Product Reports

Download Digital.ai Release product report

Digital.ai Release

March 2025

Download GitLab product report

March 2025

Also Known As

XL Release, XebiaLabs XL Release

Fuzzit

Overview

Automate, orchestrate, and gain visibility into your release pipelines at scale using Digital.ai Release, a release management tool that is designed for enterprises. Control and track releases, standardize processes, and bake compliance and security into your software release pipelines.

Digital.ai

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

3M, GE, John Deere, Deutsche Telekom, Cable & Wireless, Xerox, and Société Générale, Liberty Mutual, EA, Rabobank

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