Skip to main content Link Menu Expand (external link) Left Arrow Right Arrow Document Search Copy Copied

CI/CD

One of the biggest differentiators between GitHub and GitLab is their DevOps functionalities. CI/CD (Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment & Delivery) tools are incredibly beneficial to software developers since they allow them to easily make small releases that are deployed frequently, which eliminates the need to aggregate features and bug fixes into big releases. Continuous Integration automatically tests out changes every time they are committed or merged to a branch, which allows potential bugs, vulnerabilities, and security risks to be identified early in the development process. CI includes common code validation processes to assess the quality of the code using static analysis in addition to automated testing. Continuous Delivery and Deployment ensure that the code is always packaged and ready to be deployed to any environment as needed. Continuous Deployment can even automatically run unit, integration and regression tests and deploy the software to production without the need of human intervention.

GitLab is a single application for the entire DevOps lifecycle, meaning it fulfils all the fundamentals for CI/CD in one environment. GitLab’s CI/CD features are more advanced than the ones available in GitHub and eliminate the need for maintaining an additional complicated CI/CD toolchain using multiple third-party solutions. GitHub offers several CI tools in the form of GitHub Actions that allow developers to write tasks that automate and customize the development workflow. However, GitHub lacks a full automated deployment tool and needs third-party tools to perform CD functions that are native to GitLab.