GitLab Vs GitHub …Some technical criteria to compare two giants in the DevSecOps reign.
DevSecOps is becoming de facto as more and more organizations are getting keen to safeguard their business applications from vulnerabilities. When organizations opt to embark on DevSecOps journey, the most critical process is choice of platform. Many organizations prefer end-to-end DevSecOps platforms that are capable of taking care of overall DevSecOps flow. This helps them avoid tool chain sprawling and varied different technical capabilities. Some of the popular choices in the DevSecOps segment are GitLab, GitHub, and Azure.
What are GitLab and GitHub?
GitLaband GitHub are end-to-end DevSecOps platform. Of course, the most used feature of both the platforms if repository but, both Platforms offer much more beyond the repositories, rather they are end-to-end AI enabled DevSecOps platform themselves.
In this article we are presenting some technical criteria to compare GitLab and GitHub that will be helpful to the organizations making better choice.
We have tried to help you understand the similarities and differences between two popular DevSecOps platforms, GitHub and GitLab.
Let’s Delve into the difference between GitLab and GitHub with a few technical criteria.
| Feature | Feature Description | GitLab | GitHub | |
| Generic Features | ||||
| End to End DevSecOps Platform | Does not require other tool integrations to implement DevSecOps | YES | Needs Integration of different tools to create complete DevSecOps flow Like GitHub actions | |
| Community Edition Available? | Free Edition | YES | YES | |
| Saas Version | On Cloud | YES | YES | |
| On-Prem | Installed on Organization’s private server/bare metal | YES | YES | |
| Support for Wikis | Wikis is the documentation of the project for repository | YES | Does not support organization-level wikis. | |
| Public Repository | Repositories accessible to everyone | YES | YES | |
| Private Repository | Repositories accessible the creator and assigned collaborators | YES | YES | |
| Project Management | YES | YES | ||
| Artifactory | Storage for code /binaries packages and dependencies. | YES | YES | |
| Project Management Service Desk | Connect your team to external parties via email for feedback and support, with no additional tools required. | YES | NO | |
| Requirement Management | Collection of business requirements for project | YES | NO | |
| Code Testing & Coverage | Tools for visualizing test cases as well as determining coverage and failure. | YES | Not supported as a part Of Github | |
| Quality Management | Plan and track quality of your project. | YES | NO | |
| Design Management | Upload design , wireframes , mockups etc. | YES | NO | |
| Open Source | Code is available for change | YES | NO | |
| Value Stream Management (End to end visibility on Software Delivery Lifecycle ) | End to end visibility on Software Delivery Lifecycle | YES | NO | |
| DORA Metrics Support | KPIs that assess the performance of Developers | YES | NO | |
| Community Discussion Forum | NO | YES | ||
| Built in Helm Chart Registry | For better, self-managed container (Kubernetes) orchestration. | YES | NO | |
| Security | ||||
| SAST | Identification of Vulnerabilities in the code | YES | YES | |
| DAST | Identification of Vulnerabilities in the running code | YES | NO | |
| Container Scanning | YES | YES (Through CodeQL) | ||
| Software Composition Analysis (SCA) | Identification of Vulnerabilities in the third part code and opensource code used | YES | YES | |
| Secret Detection | If any credentials have been exposed accidently | YES | YES | |
| API Security Scan | To know the impact of code on the running application | YES | NO | |
| IAC Scan | It contains files that have infrastructure specifications for the application | YES | NO | |
| Code Quality Scan | YES | Still Experimental | ||
| Fuzz Testing | Fuzz Testing uses invalid, unexpected or random data as input and then check for exceptions such as crashes and potential memory leaks. | YES | No | |
| Dependency Scanning | Identification of vulnerabilities in the code that has been used from other source/ open source | YES | YES | |
| Observability and Monitoring | Creating and analyzing logs, metrics , traces and giving alerts in case of any discrepancy / problem | YES | NO | |
| Release | ||||
| Continuous Delivery/Deployment | YES | YES | ||
| Incremental Deployment | Code is deployed in chunks and deployment is incremental | YES | NO | |
| Configuration | ||||
| Kubernetes support and Management | YES | YES | ||
| Infrastructure As Code | Infrastructure management through Code | YES | NO | |
| AI ML | ||||
| · Code Explanation
· GitLab Duo Chat for code Queries · Test suggestions for Merge request · Forecasting Deployment frequency in CI/CD Analytics. | · Code Explanation
· Auto code complete · Code write-up from natural language · Test case generation · Helps in Code learning | |||
| Compliance | ||||
| GitLab is GDPR Compliant | GitHub is GDPR Complaint | |||
| GitLab is SOC 2 Type 1 and Type 2 Compliant [How secure is GitLab? | GitLab] | GitLab is SOC 2 Type 1 and Type 2 Compliant | |||
| GitLab is ISO/IEC 27001:2013, ISO/IEC 27017:2015 ,ISO/IEC 27018:2019 and ISO/IEC 20243-1:2018 compliant | Compliant for 27001:2013, 27701:2019 (PII Processor), and 27018:2019. | |||
| GitLab Privacy Compliance | GitLab | GitHub Security · GitHub | |||
| Compliance Management | GitLab provides several features for establishing, managing, and adhering to compliance. | YES | NO | |
By Sonal Kakar.