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GitLab vs Jenkins comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 12, 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

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)
Jenkins
Ranking in Build Automation
3rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
93
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the Build Automation category, the mindshare of GitLab is 16.9%, down from 18.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Jenkins is 10.6%, down from 14.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Build Automation
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Dinesh-Patil - PeerSpot reviewer
A highly-scalable and stable solution that reduces deployment time and produces a significant return on investment
The dashboard needs to be improved. Though the access management and authentication functionalities are present, the dashboard and UI could be more user-friendly. The product has many plug-ins. Users have to go through the documentation to be able to use the product. The UI must be more user-friendly. The information should be available in the dashboard itself. The users shouldn’t have to refer to the documentation. When a user hovers over the elements on the dashboard, it should reveal information about them.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"GitLab is very well-organized and easy to use. Also, it offers most features that customers need."
"I like that it's easy to deploy our services over GitLab. The customer support is also good with a really active community. You have a lot of support that you can get online with your stack. That is probably one of the benefits of using GitLab. It's also really fast."
"I like GitLab from the CI/CD perspective. It is much easier to set up CI/CD and then integrate with other tools."
"The CI/CD pipeline with Helm has significantly improved deployment speed and efficiency."
"The most valuable features of GitLab are the review, patch repo, and plans are in YAML."
"GitLab is a solution for source code management, container registry, pipelines, testing, and deployment."
"This product is always evolving, and they listen to the customers."
"I have found the most valuable feature is security control. I also like the branching and cloning software."
"Jenkins is a very mature product."
"It offers continuous deployment and continuous testing. It enables us to figure out anything."
"Jenkins is stable, user-friendly, and helps with continuous integration. As of today, I can't see any tool that's better than Jenkins."
"The most valuable aspect of this solution is that there are multiple features. We can abstract certain variables and then build our deployment routine while being able to do some abstraction onto the SSH connections."
"I am not aware of the available options in the market right now compared to Jenkins, but I am pretty much happy with the service that Jenkins is providing our company."
"The initial setup is pretty simple."
"Also, the ability to customize these plugins is valuable. Its user-friendliness stands out, especially in its user interface which allows easy installation and configuration."
"It is a stable solution."
 

Cons

"I'm new to GitLab, so I would appreciate more documentation about the code and commands."
"We would like to generate document pages from the sources."
"Perhaps the integration could be better."
"The solution could be faster."
"For as long as I have used GitLab, I haven't encountered any major limitations. However, I think that perhaps the search functionality could be better."
"I would like to see AI support in GitLab."
"We'd always like to see better pricing on the product."
"GitLab could add a plugin to integrate with Kubernetes stuff."
"This solution would be improved with the inclusion of an Artifactory (Universal artifact repository manager)."
"Jenkins takes a long time to create archive files."
"Jenkins could improve by allowing more scripting languages. We need to use Groovy scripting and it is difficult to debug and it is not ideal for creating file scripts. We tried to search for assistance but we did not find much help."
"Jenkins is not an easy solution to use and the configuration is not simple. They can improve the solution by adding a graphical interface that is more user-friendly."
"Logging could be improved to offer a clearer view."
"Jenkins could improve in areas related to Kubernetes and Docker container integration, like machine allocation of nodes and Marshaling integration improvements."
"Jenkins can improve by continuing to add additional plugins for all the new solutions that are coming out within the cloud sphere."
"The documentation could be more friendly, and more examples of how to use it."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution's pricing is acceptable."
"The solution is based on a subscription model and is reasonably priced."
"GitLab is highly priced for smaller teams, but it's okay if considering a user base of thousands."
"My company uses the free version of GitLab, which is GitLab Community Edition. There is a licensed version also available for GitLab."
"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 a free solution to use."
"The solution is free."
"The open-source version is very good and the commercial version is reasonably priced."
"Some of the add-ons are too expensive."
"Jenkins is open-source, so it is free."
"It could be cheaper because there are many solutions available in the market. We are paying yearly."
"Jenkins is not expensive and reasonably priced."
"Jenkins is an open-source tool."
"We are using the free version of Jenkins. There are no costs or licensing."
"Jenkins is a free solution, it is open source."
"We are using the free version of Jenkins. There is not a license required to use the solution because it is open-source."
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Comparison Review

it_user184734 - PeerSpot reviewer
Jan 22, 2015
I generally find TeamCity a lot more intuitive than Jenkins.
Moving to TeamCity from Jenkins At work, we’re slowly migrating from Jenkins to TeamCity in the hope of ending some of our recurring problems with continuous integration. My use of Jenkins prior to this job has been almost strictly on a personal basis, although I pretty much only use Travis…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
26%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
22%
Computer Software Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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...
How does Tekton compare with Jenkins?
When you are evaluating tools for automating your own GitOps-based CI/CD workflow, it is important to keep your requirements and use cases in mind. Tekton deployment is complex and it is not very e...
What do you like most about Jenkins?
Jenkins has been instrumental in automating our build and deployment processes.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Jenkins?
Jenkins is used in many companies to save money, especially within R&D divisions, by avoiding the expenses of proprietary tools.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Fuzzit
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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
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Find out what your peers are saying about GitLab vs. Jenkins and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
842,388 professionals have used our research since 2012.