Is GitLab just a worse version of GitHub?

No. They are fundamentally different products that overlap heavily. GitHub is primarily a code hosting platform with a large third-party ecosystem around it. GitLab is a complete DevOps platform with code hosting as one component, bundling CI/CD, security scanning, package registries, and issue tracking into one integrated system. Which is better depends on whether you want an ecosystem or an integrated suite.

Is GitHub or GitLab cheaper?

GitHub is cheaper for small teams. GitHub Team is $4 per user per month and Enterprise starts around $21. GitLab Premium is $29 per user per month with an annual commit, and Ultimate is $99 self-hosted or $99+ per user. For a team of ten on the free tiers both are $0, so price only matters once you need paid features.

Is self-hosting GitLab cheaper than paying for GitHub?

Rarely. A self-hosted GitLab instance needs a server, a database, backups, an upgrade process, and someone who can maintain it. For a small team, the labour cost of maintaining it exceeds the subscription cost of a managed platform for years. Self-hosting makes sense for specific regulatory requirements, for very large teams that amortise the setup, or when the CI infrastructure is substantial enough to be the dominant cost.

Which has better CI/CD?

It depends on where you want the CI to run. GitHub Actions is deeply integrated with the repository and has an enormous marketplace, and it is the easiest place to run a pipeline for a team already on GitHub. GitLab CI is integrated with everything GitLab does including its own package registries, container registry, and security scanning, which is why large GitLab deployments often move the whole pipeline there.

Is switching from GitHub to GitLab hard?

The code migration is straightforward — both speak Git and both import from the other. The hard parts are CI configuration, which must be rewritten, GitHub Actions workflows that must become GitLab CI YAML, and any GitHub-specific integrations such as secret contexts, packages, or deployment apps. Realistically it is a few days for a small repository and a few weeks for a large monorepo with many integrations.

Yes, and some organisations do. A primary platform with a secondary mirror for archival, or a public open-source repository on GitHub with internal work in GitLab, is a common pattern. Running both as primary is a bad idea because it splits your security, permissions, and CI knowledge across two systems.

GitHub vs GitLab in 2026: Which Should You Choose?

The one distinction that decides most comparisons

Every feature-by-feature comparison of GitHub and GitLab misses the point, because it implies the two are competing at the same thing. They are not.

GitHub is a code hosting platform with an enormous ecosystem around it. The core product is excellent at one thing — hosting Git repositories, reviewing code, and managing issues and pull requests — and everything else is filled in by a third-party marketplace of thousands of integrations. That produces extraordinary flexibility and some genuine gaps.

GitLab is a complete DevOps platform with code hosting as the first component. Source control, CI/CD, security scanning, package registries, container registry, issue tracking, and wiki all ship in one product, on one permission model, in one interface. That produces coherence and a smaller integration surface, at the cost of being locked to GitLab's own implementation.

Dimension	GitHub	GitLab	Which wins
Core philosophy	Best code hosting, bolt on the rest	One integrated platform for the whole lifecycle	Depends on team preference
Source control	Excellent, mature, universally understood	Excellent, comparable	Tie
CI/CD	GitHub Actions, huge marketplace	GitLab CI, tightly integrated	GitHub for flexibility, GitLab for integration
Package registry	GitHub Packages, also npm and others	Built-in Maven, npm, PyPI, generic, plus container	GitLab, noticeably
Container registry	GitHub Container Registry	Built-in, with HA options	GitLab for self-hosted
Security scanning	Dependabot, CodeQL, secret scanning	Built into the platform, SAST, DAST, dependency scanning	GitLab, breadth
Issue and project management	Issues and Projects, lighter	Issues, boards, epics, iterations, heavier	GitLab, markedly
Third-party marketplace	Thousands of apps	Thousands of integrations, fewer apps	GitHub, clearly
Self-hosting	Enterprise Server only, restrictive licence	Community edition, full feature parity available	GitLab, clearly
Data export and portability	Git is standard, archives available	Git is standard, plus full API and bulk export	GitLab, slightly

Tier	GitHub price	GitLab price	Key differences	Who needs it
Free	$0, unlimited public and private repos	$0, unlimited public and private repos	GitHub gives more Actions minutes; GitLab gives more CI minutes	Solo developers, most small teams
Team	$4/user/mo	$29/user/mo (Premium, annual)	GitLab bundles security scanning and more CI minutes	Teams needing protected branches and better CI
Enterprise	$21/user/mo	$99/user/mo (Ultimate)	GitHub: SAML, audit log, larger LFS. GitLab: everything in Premium plus compliance	Larger teams with compliance needs
Enterprise Advanced	$39/user/mo	Higher tiers available	Advanced audit, compliance reports	Regulated industries
Self-hosted	Not a general option, restrictive licence	Community edition free, paid tiers available	You run the infrastructure	Regulatory requirements, very large scale
Storage (LFS)	Included, billing from 50 GB	Included, billing from 10 GB with tier limits	Repos with large binaries cost real money on both	Game, media, and ML repositories
CI minutes	2,000 included on Free, 3,000 on Pro	400 included on Free, generous on paid tiers	GitHub is more generous on free	Heavy CI users should compare carefully

The price gap at the Team-to-Premium tier is real and it is the strongest argument for GitHub on cost. The strongest argument against it is that GitLab bundles security scanning, dependency scanning, and a package registry that you would otherwise assemble from several paid third-party tools — which frequently closes the gap.

The cost of self-hosting, which is rarely counted honestly

Self-hosted GitLab is the most common reason organisations pick GitLab, and the most common source of unpleasant surprises. The licence is free. Everything else is not.

Cost line	Small team, 10-30 users	Mid-size, 100-300 users	Large, 1000+	Notes
Server or cloud VM	$200-$800/mo	$1,500-$6,000/mo	$10,000-$50,000/mo	GitLab recommends significant resources even for small installs
Database and object storage	$50-$300/mo	$500-$2,500/mo	$5,000-$25,000/mo	Backups and object storage are frequently underestimated
Runner machines for CI	$200-$1,000/mo	$2,000-$10,000/mo	$20,000-$80,000/mo	Runs concurrently with users, so scale accordingly
Initial setup and configuration	$5,000-$25,000	$25,000-$100,000	$100,000+	Mostly labour, and labour is the expensive part
Annual maintenance and upgrades	$5,000-$20,000/yr	$20,000-$75,000/yr	$75,000+/yr	Upgrades on a 12-month cadence, roughly
Administrator time	4-8 hrs/week	1-2 FTE	Dedicated team	The cost people forget entirely
Security patching	Included above	Included above	Included above	Unpatched GitLab instances are a known incident source
Total first year	$15,000-$60,000	$80,000-$250,000	$250,000+	Against a managed equivalent of $3,500-$35,000/yr

Read that last row carefully. For a team of 20, self-hosted GitLab costs $15,000-$60,000 in year one against roughly $7,000 a year for GitHub Team or $7,000 for GitLab Premium managed. Self-hosting pays back only with very specific requirements — data residency you cannot compromise, air-gapped environments, or CI volume high enough that the runner infrastructure dominates.

Which one is right for whom

Your situation	Choose	Because
Solo developer or open-source maintainer	GitHub	Free tier is generous, the ecosystem and visibility are unmatched
Small startup, 2-15 people, cost-sensitive	GitHub	Team at $4/user is the cheapest credible option
Team already has CI on another platform	Either	The deciding factor disappears when pipelines already live elsewhere
Team wanting issue boards, epics, iterations	GitLab	Project management is meaningfully better and included
Team with security scanning requirements	GitLab	SAST, DAST, and dependency scanning are bundled
Team with private package and container registries	GitLab	First-party registries, no third-party tool needed
Enterprise with compliance requirements	GitLab	Compliance reporting is in the product rather than bolted on
Regulated, air-gapped, or data-residency constrained	GitLab	Community edition is genuinely self-hostable with feature parity available
Team that wants to pick best-of-breed tools	GitHub	Marketplace lets you assemble exactly the stack you want
Very large monorepo with heavy CI	GitLab	Integrated CI with caching and registry locality is a genuine advantage

What migration actually involves

The perception is that migrating is risky. In practice the code moves easily and everything around it is the work.

Push the repositories. Both import from the other natively, and both speak standard Git. Mirrors work. This takes hours.
Rewrite CI configuration. GitHub Actions YAML becomes GitLab CI YAML. This is a genuine rewrite, not a conversion, and it is where most of the effort goes. Secrets, runners, and caching all move to different concepts.
Move secrets and variables. Repository secrets become CI/CD variables, and organisation-level secrets map differently. Anything hardcoded in Actions needs a proper variable.
Rebuild integration hooks. Webhooks, deployment apps, and status checks all have different shapes. Anything that posts to Slack, opens tickets, or triggers a deploy needs updating.
Move the package registry. If you publish packages, plan a dual-publish period or a version transition. Consumers need to know before the registry moves.
Update developer workflow. Clone URLs, branch protection defaults, merge rules, and code review requirements all change. Document the new defaults or people will work around them.
Run both in parallel briefly. A few weeks with the old platform read-only catches anything that only surfaces in production.

Task	Small repo	Large monorepo	Who does it
Repository transfer	1-2 hours	4-8 hours for dozens of repos	Any engineer
CI rewrite	Half a day	1-3 weeks	Engineers who own the pipelines
Secrets and variables	2-4 hours	2-5 days	Platform team
Integration hooks	Half a day	1-2 weeks	Platform team
Registry transition	Skip if unused	2-6 weeks with deprecation period	Platform team plus comms
Branch protection and permissions	Half a day	3-5 days	Admin
Documentation and training	Half a day	2-4 weeks	Whoever owns developer experience
Total elapsed	2-3 days	6-12 weeks	Partly parallelisable

The decision in one page

If your priority is	Choose	The reason in one line
Lowest cost for a small team	GitHub Team at $4/user	Cheapest credible paid tier by a wide margin
Best third-party tooling	GitHub	Thousands of marketplace apps with a large developer community
Everything in one product	GitLab	CI, security, registries, and planning are one system
Self-hosting for compliance	GitLab	Community edition is a genuine self-hostable option
Issue boards and iterations	GitLab	Agile planning is genuinely better and included
Maximum ecosystem maturity	GitHub	Everyone's tooling targets it first
Bundled security scanning	GitLab	SAST, DAST, dependency scanning included rather than add-on
Open-source project visibility	GitHub	Far larger audience and discoverability
Avoiding vendor lock-in	Either, with effort	Both speak Git; export quality differs, GitLab is better

The defensible default for most teams in 2026 is GitHub Team, because it is the cheapest, the ecosystem is where the tooling is, and the cost of the alternative only pays off when you have a specific requirement — self-hosting, integrated security scanning, or built-in project management. Choose GitLab when one of those three is a hard requirement rather than a preference.

The short version

Pick GitHub Team at $4/user/month unless you have a specific requirement that GitLab meets better — self-hosting for compliance, bundled security scanning, or genuine need for issue boards and epics. Migrating later is a 2-3 day job for a small repository and 6-12 weeks for a large monorepo, so this decision is reversible enough that starting on the cheaper option is a reasonable default.

GitHub vs GitLab in 2026: Which Should You Choose?

The one distinction that decides most comparisons

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Try It in the Browser

Pricing, in detail

The cost of self-hosting, which is rarely counted honestly

Which one is right for whom

What migration actually involves

The decision in one page

The short version

DevSecOps vs DevOps - Which Path Should You Pick?