7 ms·

To me, Gitlab's UI is a hybrid of Github and Bitbucket. Best of both worlds. IMO it's just a matter of time until it surpasses Github in terms of usability. Now

by caiob 9y ago

To me, Gitlab's UI is a hybrid of Github and Bitbucket. Best of both worlds. IMO it's just a matter of time until it surpasses Github in terms of usability. Now, you raise a good point noting that Github's been operating on losses. How will Github make enough money to sustain growth as it becomes THE go-to place for developers of all kinds and levels?

sytse 9y ago
We have an open core model where some features are only available in the proprietary version. We make 90% of our money selling subscriptions for https://about.gitlab.com/products/ https://about.gitlab.com/products/ GitLab.com subscriptions https://about.gitlab.com/gitlab-com/ https://about.gitlab.com/gitlab-com/ are more recent but this is growing rapidly.
- carussell 9y ago
  Any plans to go back to selling subscriptions for managed instances? I'm leeching on gitlab.com today, but not enthused about it, if only because I've become disillusioned with GitLab itself. I pay for email, and I'd be willing to pay for code hosting, too, on the following conditions: - it's running something like Gogs/Gitea instead of GitLab - whatever software's on the backend, my subscription needs to allow me to choose the community edition, not some enterprise version - priced at XX/yr instead of X/mo
  - keganunderwood 9y ago
    > priced at XX/yr instead of X/mo I understand I risk looking like an idiot but did you mean X per user per month? If not, what's the difference?
    - carussell 9y ago
      No. The difference between XX/yr and X/mo is that the latter is a tactic that relies on perceptual psychology to downplay the cost, same as when you see something priced at $3.99 instead of $4. It might be important to clarify that when I say XX/yr what I mean by XX is ~50USD. That's a reasonable price for a small instance (especially since the current going rate for something comparable is $0). Something priced at $8–9/mo, however, costs twice as much, even though the monthly pricing scheme helps to hide it. If you're buying hosting for your code, you don't really need the flexibility of monthly pricing. (What're you gonna do, spin up some short-lived instances for as long as you need them and then shut them down when you're "done" with them? No. The expected user model for code hosting is one that's cumulative.) Side note: charging per user per month for a hosted instance would be pretty arbitrary, anyway. Put a cap on instance size, workload, number of simultaneous requests, and daily or hourly data in and data out, not on number of users. Charging by the user for a hosted instance is very nearly unashamed rent-seeking. The only reason it makes sense for GitLab EE is because it's on-prem.
      - keganunderwood 9y ago
        Thank you for explaining it to me. It totally makes sense. I can't help but think of the old "what are you trying to optimize for?" question though. Gitlab.com is OK for me because I don't make money writing code so I'm OK just getting free private repositories and any ci stuff I get is just gravy. I used to think "how will they ever make money?" and this makes sense. I read this other story about how a DNS service was getting rid of its free tier because the free tier users can't convert. I think gitlab and github have found a good opportunity by giving away free service to free and open source software which means people will have experience using the service and might just keep using it at work (haven't checked but I'm sure github enterprise is not cheap).
    - atsaloli 9y ago
      GitLab is priced at XX per user per month. It can be paid annually. See https://about.gitlab.com/products/ https://about.gitlab.com/products/ I am a GitLab reseller and offer a 10% discount to HN users.
  - sytse 9y ago
    We don't have plans to sell subscriptions for managed instances. We found that it was not a great experience for customers unless we would do lots of development to make it work better. And then still you always have spend time making modifications that a customers request.
  - tinus_hn 9y ago
    You're asking GitLab people for a subscription to a code hosting service on the condition it's not GitLab. Did I miss something?
    - carussell 9y ago
      You may have missed the fact that GitLab had an employee working on Gogs/Gitea full time. Even ignoring that, telling someone their product isn't what you want and to please offer a different product isn't an outlandish thing to say.
      - sytse 9y ago
        We no longer have someone working on Gogs nor Gitea. Kim is now on the Gitaly team.
        carussell 9y ago
        Hey, Sid. This is what I meant by my message that said you'd "had an employee working on Gogs/Gitea". Sorry if it was confusing.
        sytse 9y ago
        Ah, I didn't note the past tense. Sorry for my oversight.

by caiob 9y ago

sytse 9y ago

We have an open core model where some features are only available in the proprietary version. We make 90% of our money selling subscriptions for https://about.gitlab.com/products/ https://about.gitlab.com/products/ GitLab.com subscriptions https://about.gitlab.com/gitlab-com/ https://about.gitlab.com/gitlab-com/ are more recent but this is growing rapidly.

carussell 9y ago
Any plans to go back to selling subscriptions for managed instances? I'm leeching on gitlab.com today, but not enthused about it, if only because I've become disillusioned with GitLab itself. I pay for email, and I'd be willing to pay for code hosting, too, on the following conditions: - it's running something like Gogs/Gitea instead of GitLab - whatever software's on the backend, my subscription needs to allow me to choose the community edition, not some enterprise version - priced at XX/yr instead of X/mo
- keganunderwood 9y ago
  > priced at XX/yr instead of X/mo I understand I risk looking like an idiot but did you mean X per user per month? If not, what's the difference?
  - carussell 9y ago
    No. The difference between XX/yr and X/mo is that the latter is a tactic that relies on perceptual psychology to downplay the cost, same as when you see something priced at $3.99 instead of $4. It might be important to clarify that when I say XX/yr what I mean by XX is ~50USD. That's a reasonable price for a small instance (especially since the current going rate for something comparable is $0). Something priced at $8–9/mo, however, costs twice as much, even though the monthly pricing scheme helps to hide it. If you're buying hosting for your code, you don't really need the flexibility of monthly pricing. (What're you gonna do, spin up some short-lived instances for as long as you need them and then shut them down when you're "done" with them? No. The expected user model for code hosting is one that's cumulative.) Side note: charging per user per month for a hosted instance would be pretty arbitrary, anyway. Put a cap on instance size, workload, number of simultaneous requests, and daily or hourly data in and data out, not on number of users. Charging by the user for a hosted instance is very nearly unashamed rent-seeking. The only reason it makes sense for GitLab EE is because it's on-prem.
    - keganunderwood 9y ago
      Thank you for explaining it to me. It totally makes sense. I can't help but think of the old "what are you trying to optimize for?" question though. Gitlab.com is OK for me because I don't make money writing code so I'm OK just getting free private repositories and any ci stuff I get is just gravy. I used to think "how will they ever make money?" and this makes sense. I read this other story about how a DNS service was getting rid of its free tier because the free tier users can't convert. I think gitlab and github have found a good opportunity by giving away free service to free and open source software which means people will have experience using the service and might just keep using it at work (haven't checked but I'm sure github enterprise is not cheap).
  - atsaloli 9y ago
    GitLab is priced at XX per user per month. It can be paid annually. See https://about.gitlab.com/products/ https://about.gitlab.com/products/ I am a GitLab reseller and offer a 10% discount to HN users.
- sytse 9y ago
  We don't have plans to sell subscriptions for managed instances. We found that it was not a great experience for customers unless we would do lots of development to make it work better. And then still you always have spend time making modifications that a customers request.
- tinus_hn 9y ago
  You're asking GitLab people for a subscription to a code hosting service on the condition it's not GitLab. Did I miss something?
  - carussell 9y ago
    You may have missed the fact that GitLab had an employee working on Gogs/Gitea full time. Even ignoring that, telling someone their product isn't what you want and to please offer a different product isn't an outlandish thing to say.
    - sytse 9y ago
      We no longer have someone working on Gogs nor Gitea. Kim is now on the Gitaly team.
      - carussell 9y ago
        Hey, Sid. This is what I meant by my message that said you'd "had an employee working on Gogs/Gitea". Sorry if it was confusing.
        sytse 9y ago
        Ah, I didn't note the past tense. Sorry for my oversight.