FOSSA vs GitLab comparison

FOSSA and GitLab are both solutions in the Software Composition Analysis (SCA) category. FOSSA is ranked #9 with an average rating of 8.0, while GitLab is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.6. FOSSA holds a 3.6% mindshare in SCA, compared to GitLab’s 4.3% mindshare. Additionally, 92% of FOSSA users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of GitLab users who would recommend it.

FOSSA

Read 15 FOSSA reviews

2,154 Views
1,438 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

GitLab

Read 82 GitLab reviews

2,072 Views
1,728 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

FOSSA

GitLab

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 5, 2024

GitLab and FOSSA compete in the software development and deployment category. GitLab seems to have the upper hand in CI/CD pipeline management and integration, while FOSSA stands out in open-source license compliance and legal collaboration.

Features: GitLab offers effective continuous integration, code review, and branch management, facilitating collaborative development. It integrates DevOps and version control, providing user-friendly deployment and security features. FOSSA specializes in open-source management and compliance, with a robust policy engine automating license scanning and offering quick feedback on security issues.

Room for Improvement: GitLab faces integration challenges, especially with non-Kubernetes environments, and seeks advancements in metrics and third-party tool integration. Users also express concerns over pricing and cloud-native features. FOSSA needs to enhance user experience, dashboard functionalities, security scans, and project categorization, with improved policy documentation as frequently requested.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: GitLab supports various deployment options, including public, private, on-premises, and hybrid clouds, with community-based support needing improved responsiveness. FOSSA, primarily deploying in public and on-premises settings, has knowledgeable support but could improve onboarding and documentation for better user experiences.

Pricing and ROI: GitLab offers free and premium tiers, with the higher tiers seen as costly for smaller teams. Users consider the pricing reasonable but note significant cost jumps between tiers. FOSSA's competitive pricing, although not cheap, provides significant ROI, reducing compliance workloads and offering a licensing model that aligns with user utilization patterns.

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

Buyer's Guide

FOSSA vs. GitLab

January 2025

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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

FOSSA

Ranking in Software Composition Analysis (SCA)

9th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.9

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 (8th), Build Automation (1st), Release Automation (2nd), Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (8th), 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 FOSSA is 3.6%, down from 4.4% 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

Hanumanth Ramsetty

Software Engineer at Tech Mahindra Limited

Proactively mitigate deployment vulnerabilities with seamless dependency tracking

Before using FOSSA, we could only identify issues after deployment in the Cloud Run. Now, with FOSSA, we identify dependency issues or vulnerabilities during the CI phase itself. This proactive approach has eliminated the need to search the internet for solutions, as FOSSA provides updated recommendations automatically. This has made the process more efficient and mitigated risks before deployment.

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

"Policies and identification of open-source licensing issues are the most valuable features. It reduces the time needed to identify open-source software licensing issues."

"The most valuable feature is its ability to identify all of the components in a build, and then surface the licenses that are associated with it, allowing us to make a decision as to whether or not we allow a team to use the components. That eliminates the risk that comes with running consumer software that contains open source components."

"The most valuable feature is definitely the ease and speed of integrating into build pipelines, like a Jenkins pipeline or something along those lines. The ease of a new development team coming on board and integrating FOSSA with a new project, or even an existing project, can be done so quickly that it's invaluable and it's easy to ask the developers to use a tool like this. Those developers greatly value the very quick feedback they get on any licensing or security vulnerability issues."

"What I really need from FOSSA, and it does a really good job of this, is to flag me when there are particular open source licenses that cause me or our legal department concern. It points out where a particular issue is, where it comes from, and the chain that brought it in, which is the most important part to me."

"FOSSA provided us with contextualized, easily actionable intelligence that alerted us to compliance issues. I could tell FOSSA exactly what I cared about and they would tell me when something was out of policy. I don't want to hear from the compliance tool unless I have an issue that I need to deal with. That was what was great about FOSSA is that it was basically "Here's my policy and only send me an alert if there's something without a policy." I thought that it was really good at doing that."

"FOSSA allows us to keep track of all dependencies to ensure they are up to date and not causing any vulnerabilities."

"I found FOSSA's out-of-the-box policy engine to be accurate and that it was tuned appropriately to the settings that we were looking for. The policy engine is pretty straightforward... I find it to be very straightforward to make small modifications to, but it's very rare that we have to make modifications to it. It's easy to use. It's a four-category system that handles most cases pretty well."

"One of the things that I really like about FOSSA is that it allows you to go very granular. For example, if there's a package that's been flagged because it's subject to a license that may be conflicts with or raises a concern with one of the policies that I've set, then FOSSA enables you to go really granular into that package to see which aspects of the package are subject to which licenses. We can ultimately determine with our engineering teams if we really need this part of the package or not. If it's raising this flag, we can make really actionable decisions at a very micro level to enable the build to keep pushing forward."

More FOSSA pros

"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."

"The solution's most valuable features are pipelines."

"We like that we can have an all-encompassing product and don't have to implement different solutions."

"This is a scalable solution. We had around 200 users working with it."

"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."

"The solution's service delivery model is fantastic."

"I like that you can use GitLab as a double-sided solution for both DevOps and version management. It's a good product for working in these two areas, and the user interface makes it easy to understand."

"GitLab's source control is excellent."

More GitLab pros

Cons

"One thing that can sometimes be difficult with FOSSA is understanding all that it can do. One of the ways that I've been able to unlock some of those more advanced features is through conversations with the absolutely awesome customer success team at FOSSA, but it has been a little bit difficult to find some of that information separately on my own through FAQs and other information channels that FOSSA has. The improvement is less about the product itself and more about empowering FOSSA customers to know and understand how to unlock its full potential."

"On the dashboard, there should be an option to increase the column width so that we can see the complete name of the GitHub repository. Currently, on the dashboard, we see the list of projects, but to see the complete name, you have to hover your mouse over an item, which is annoying."

"For open-source management, FOSSA's out-of-the-box policy engine is easy to use, but the list of licenses is not as complete as we would like it to be. They should add more open-source licenses to the selection."

"I wish there was a way that you could have a more global rollout of it, instead of having to do it in each repository individually. It's possible, that's something that is offered now, or maybe if you were using the CI Jenkins, you'd be able to do that. But with Travis, there wasn't an easy way to do that. At least not that I could find. That was probably the biggest issue."

"I want the product to include binary scanning which is missing at the moment. Binary scanning includes code and component matching through dependency management. It also includes the actual scanning and reverse engineering of the boundaries and finding out what is inside."

"I would like more customized categories because our company is so big. This is doable for them. They are still in the stages of trying to figure this out since we are one of their biggest companies that they support."

"Security scanning is an area for improvement. At this point, our experience is that we're only scanning for license information in components, and we're not scanning for security vulnerability information. We don't have access to that data. We use other tools for that. It would be an improvement for us to use one tool instead of two, so that we just have to go through one process instead of two."

"The technical support has room for improvement."

More FOSSA cons

"There are some challenges with repository file management as GitLab may struggle to manage larger files."

"It can be free for commercial use."

"It would be better if there weren't any outages. There are occasions where we usually see a lot of outages using GitLab. It happens at least once a week or something like that. Whatever pipelines you're running, to check the logs, you need to have a different set of tools like Argus or something like that. If you have pipelines running on GitLab, you need a separate service deployed to view the logs, which is kind of a pain. If the logs can be used conveniently on GitLab, that would be definitely helpful. I'm not talking about the CI/CD pipelines but the back-end services and microservices deployed over GitLab. To view the logs for those microservices, you need to have separate log viewers, which is kind of a pain."

"We do face issues in our company when we run out of disk space."

"GitLab should enhance its GitOps capability as they are currently using FluxCD, however, Argo CD is better and offers more features. GitLab should work on improving their user interface for GitOps as it is lagging behind."

"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."

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

"The licensing model could be improved to be more accommodating in terms of user numbers and costs."

More GitLab cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"FOSSA is not cheap, but their offering is top-notch. It is very much a "you get what you pay for" scenario. Regardless of the price, I highly recommend FOSSA."

"Its price is reasonable as compared to the market. It is competitively priced in comparison to other similar solutions on the market. It is also quite affordable in terms of the value that it delivers as compared to its alternative of hiring a team."

"FOSSA is a fairly priced product. It is not either cheaper or expensive. The pricing lies somewhere in the middle. The solution is worth the money that we are spending to use it."

"The solution's cost is a five out of ten."

"The solution's pricing is good and reasonable because you can literally use a lot of it for free."

"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."

"The solution is free."

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

"We are currently using the open-source version."

"GitLab is cheap."

"The solution is based on a licensing model that includes technical support and is paid annually."

"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."

"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."

More GitLab pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

28%

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Educational Organization

29%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about FOSSA?

I am impressed with the tool’s seamless integration and quick results.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for FOSSA?

The solution's pricing is good and reasonable because you can literally use a lot of it for free. You have to pay for the features you need, which I think is fair. If you want to get value for free...

See all answers

What needs improvement with FOSSA?

FOSSA does not show the exact line of code with vulnerabilities, which adds time to the process as we have to locate these manually. Some other tools like Check Point or SonarQube provide exact lin...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 43% of the time

Snyk vs FOSSA

Compared 18% of the time

Mend.io vs FOSSA

Compared 12% of the time

JFrog Xray vs FOSSA

Compared 7% of the time

Sonatype Lifecycle vs FOSSA

Compared 4% of the time

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Microsoft Azure DevOps vs GitLab

Compared 34% of the time

GitHub CoPilot vs GitLab

Compared 9% of the time

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

Buyer's Guide

FOSSA

February 2025

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Buyer's Guide

GitLab

February 2025

Download GitLab product report

Also Known As

No data available

Fuzzit

Overview

Up to 90% of any piece of software is from open source, creating countless dependencies and areas of risk to manage. FOSSA is the most reliable automated policy engine for legal teams to maintain license compliance, security to fix vulnerabilities, and engineering to improve code quality across the entire software supply chain. As the only developer-native open source management platform, FOSSA fully integrates with your existing CI/CD pipeline to provide complete visibility and context earlier in the software development lifecycle. For the first time, teams can collaboratively shift left and audit, analyze, control, and remediate license issues and vulnerabilities right in their existing workflows.

FOSSA

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.

GitLab

Sample Customers

AppDyanmic, Uber, Twitter, Zendesk, Confluent

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

Buyer's Guide

FOSSA vs. GitLab

January 2025

Free Report: FOSSA vs. GitLab

Find out what your peers are saying about FOSSA vs. GitLab and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.

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