How GitLab took on GitHub (and won over developers)

[@Chinoman10]

Interesting... someone else who's also focused on building communities online (that isn't a "marketing guru" or the typical 'collab mgr' or whatever the fuck these snake oil people call themselves nowadays). I never built a course (though I do private workshops often) nor have I ever invested much on YT, but I'm happy to see more people doing this too! Keep up the good work sir 🤝

[@jonobacon]

Thanks!

[@nowherebrain]

it didn't "win"..nothing against gitlab, but saying it won is an overstatement to say the least.

[@jonobacon]

Great point - originally my title was "won" but I adjusted it to "won over developers", which I think is definitely the case.

[@autohmae]

If I'm not mistaken, in the open source and host your own world, Gitea might actually be more popular because of it's smaller resource foot print. That said, Gitlab wants to be a business and they definitely won the business developers/companies that want to run something on their terms. The same developers might be running Gitea at home. And that last 'audience'/situation probably can't support any business model. Because they don't want to depend on others, you can't really offer a hosted solution because they want to keep their own data. Maybe at most in theory you can come up with some kind of encrypted version of it, a big if and host that.

[@gweltazlemartret6760]

Its ui goes in my backpain every time I try to use GitLab vertical mode (1080x1920). Its love to please everyone went too far as they un-gendered all down to technical labels in french ("le•la libellé", ahaha). Yeah, GitLab is some kind of spark, waiting to be replaced by whatever new shinier future-inclusive techbros will come. Not saying GitHub is not one of those, but slower development rates may mean more sound development features.

[@aberba]

I wanted GitLab to capture a competitive market share but the UI was slow and complicated unlike GitHub. That was 2018 so it may have improved

[@jonobacon]

Gotcha

[@gotoastal]

Benchmarks show bother are pretty slow

[@sebastianforster7992]

no they havent.

[@MelodicMurder]

I like how I can run my own gitlab server on my ESXI server. This way I get all the advantages of git and full control of my data.

[@jonobacon]

Indeed. The level of control GitLab enables for people is awesome. 🤘

[@kriffos]

I used to do that too, but recently switched to Forgejo (a fork of Gitea). Gitlab is fine (huge amount of features compared to a really clunky UI), but it consumes a huge amount of resources (to put it in perspective, that's at least 4x as much as Forgejo consumes). Maybe I can reduce that by turning off features, but then I can directly choose an efficient alternative instead. I think Gitlab did a great job most of the time, but the UI needs some love (a search does NOT count) and I think they chose the wrong language. Performance and resource usage is not fixable with Ruby.

[@JohnSmith-op7ls]

Mercurial is so much better than Git, and you can run it wherever you want.

[@niter43]

​@@JohnSmith-op7ls...you can't run git wherever you want?

[@wumi2419]

​@@JohnSmith-op7lsgit server you can also run wherever you want. Github and gitlab have other features, like CI/CD, issues, etc.

[@adamweinrich4661]

Hey Jono. Cool differentiating insights on GitLab history and ethos. Would love a follow-up on post IPO evolution and how well sustained are the core principles and other new differentiators like AI and security. As the market changes the community naturally does as well.

[@Ruzgfpegk]

I'd say its core is too bloated (being Ruby), even with all the caching, so for many usages I'd prefer a combo of Gitea for the repos/bugtrack and any good CI/CD (even Jenkins) with Git hooks. The Onmibus package needs a server that is powerful enough, so it's not worth it for many small teams/projects. Since GitLab deprecated the official Ansible role to deploy GitLab (to push people to use their cloud offering instead?), the second best way to deploy it is through containers but Postgres can suffer quite a lot when containerized (according to my DBA colleagues) so it's not ideal either.

[@FearTheLight]

Imagine hearing that GitHub is also a ruby monolith 😮

[@TheoParis]

gitea/forgejo is great

[@wile123456]

How do you think microsoft aquiring GitHub plays into this? A lot of the open source enthusiast moved to gitlab after that I can imagine

[@jonobacon]

I think a small proportion of people used GitLab purely for open source reasons...I think most people used GitLab because it added a richer set of features and was easier to integrate with and deploy in commercial environments.

[@jonobacon]

I don’t think open source is as woke as you say. Yes in parts, but not broadly.

[@roccociccone597]

indeed I'm not touching github anymore.

[@BigOrangeMan]

opposite is the same, more big organizations trust github now with more corporate backing

[@jamilgonzaga7081]

I'm so confused of all these gits that I've only heard of this GitLab the first time in this video.. What are differences of the 3?

[@jonobacon]

Git is an underlying technology that id the same. GitHub and GitLab are the main interface and they offer different features.

[@jamilgonzaga7081]

@@jonobacon Thank you very much for the clarification! Been wondering about that for a long time now

[@jonobacon]

Thanks!

[@gotoastal]

Git is a decentralized versions control system. GitLab is a code forge for Git which provides hosting, clerical things like a Kanban, & continuous integration/deployment options for the source code. The “main interface” for Git is the `git` command line interface it ships with. There are alternative VCSs as well as lots of alternatives to code forges offering different feature sets.

[@kriffos]

Some comments magically disappear …

[@jonobacon]

Which comments?

[@kriffos]

@@jonobacon I replied to someone commenting about self hosting Gitlab or Gitea. I cannot find it anymore. Must have been on 14. Juli or maybe before.

[@CentreMetre]

I think its a KZbin thing. Ive seen it mentioned on lots of videos from different channels

[@vitoanania6042]

ah that's what happens to Mister Beast

[@yorickpeterse]

The photo of DZ at 0:30 isn't the right photo, it's of somebody else (but I suppose with the same name).

[@jonobacon]

Oops!

[@jackelofnar]

Has it really won though as from what im seeing people are switching back to github

[@jonobacon]

I said they won over developers, not won entirely.

[@Michallote]

Yeah my previous company was in GitLab and they decided entirely to roll back to GitHub. And to be honest I GitHub is such an amazing platform. The CI/CD that is now in place is very very robust in my experience. Also it is a no brainer if you are going public for your repo. The free-public tier is extremely generous. Even with private repos I have never ever needed more than what they already have. I don't see much going for GitLab because GitHub has catched up quickly and has the larger community.

[@vahan6500]

Gitlab : better ci, self hosted, ui is great

[@jonobacon]

Nice!

[@BigOrangeMan]

Gitlab users - 30M 20M which came after MS bought Github

[@jonobacon]

Wow, really?

[@BigOrangeMan]

@@jonobacon i think so

[@phojie6868]

Wondering if gitlab have a UI/UX designer .lel

[@jonobacon]

I am sure they do

[@xgui4-studios]

i still use github for my project .... cause i find the ui way better and easy to use

[@jonobacon]

Nice :-)

[@HjalmarEkengren]

The github ui is pretty bad tbh. I think we are just used to it at this point. The whole nested tab groups when doing prs is not great, and going between actions and a pr is a mess.

[@aberba]

Exactly. Gitlab was also too slow last time I tried. UI was good either.

[@gotoastal]

You should try a system that is not based on the “pull request model” if you wanted to try something new, else it’s more of the same in a slightly different UI.

[@Michallote]

​@@gotoastalpull requests are goooood man. Care to provide your take on the matter? I don't know alternatives

[@eddyr1041]

Hence greatbto hv some choice competition in the .matket

[@jonobacon]

Competition is good :-)

[@fredhair]

They're not Microsoft.

[@jonobacon]

This is true

[@Nobody-eg4bi]

Meanwhile GitLab block devs depend on their IP😆

[@jonobacon]

Do they?

[@Nobody-eg4bi]

@@jonobacon There is a list of over 25 countries where Gitlab blocks developers by their IP addresses. Github does not block developers by their IP addresses and has never done so. Additionally, Gitlab may delete your account and your repos at any time without notice, especially if you move to a country where Gitlab blocks its IP addresses. With Github has never had such issues in the past.

[@Nobody-eg4bi]

@@jonobacon There is a list of over 20 countries where Gitlab blocks developers by their IP addresses. Github does not block developers by their IP addresses and has never done so. Additionally, Gitlab may block your account and your repos at any time without notice, especially if you move to a country where Gitlab blocks its IP addresses.

[@Nobody-eg4bi]

@@jonobacon looks like YT shadowbanned my comment

[@DannyTube69]

Something something use a VPN... No more IP ban for me.

[@greob]

I'm always stunned by the quality of the work that goes into Gitlab, the teams working in the open are so inspiring.

[@jonobacon]

Agreed!

[@joaquimley]

Asking for likes and plugging your community in the middle of the interesting part is very off putting, only watched about half, do what you will with this feedback.

[@jonobacon]

I disagree. Asking for a like is a pretty small thing that takes minimal time in the video and really helps the channel. Mentioning the Community Leadership Core takes minimal time in the video and really helps me generate money to make videos like this.

[@medilies]

You are wrong.

[@jonobacon]

Well, if this is a problem, you are free to not watch my videos.

[@aberba]

Video is free. All the best finding a channel without sponsorship

[@isenewotheophilus6485]

I've been seeing a lot of people like you recently on youtube yapping sh*t if you don't like the video just don't watch it

[@pomademahal]

Hey Jono, been a while since I saw you. What are you doing now? I think last time I have been watching you, when you were with Canonical.

[@jonobacon]

Thanks - doing great! Been busy building out the Community Leadership Core. Lots of fun and amazing members to work with. :-)