4 ms·

Reasons for initially switching to Gitlab: - Pricing structure made much more sense than Github's at the time. I would've been willing to pay for Github, but t

Reasons for initially switching to Gitlab: - Pricing structure made much more sense than Github's at the time. I would've been willing to pay for Github, but their pricing for private repos (now unlimited on the free plan) scaled steeply for any reasonable number. - In addition to private repos, their free plan still offers many features that Github's free plan lacks, and their paid plans have many more features again than Github (Github focuses on polish, while Gitlab bundles the kitchen sink). While they may lack polish, some of these features are genuinely useful. Particularly around CI. Github's Actions API is an embarassingly recent addition. - Gitlab Sites: their answer to Github Sites is an underadvertised and wickedly powerful feature. Github Sites really pales in comparison. Reasons for staying: - Responsive / active / communicative support team. Getting talking to Gitlab staff is incredibly easy. - Proactively/playfully innovative culture, evident on tickets and MRs throughout their projects. I also really liked their approach to GithubLab: https://hub.gitlab.com/ https://hub.gitlab.com/ - Transparent process. Finding out what's cooking in Github is frustratingly impossible, and why Github holds off supporting seemingly obvious things for eternity is just odd. - The warm fuzzy feeling of storing my code on an open-source stack. Reasons for wanting to leave: - Stability and site performance have always been and continue to be abysmal. This seems to be a result of a reasonably good team being lost in a sea of complexity in a platform on which new features are prioritised over a simplified architecture. They do seem to spend a lot of time working on polish and performance, but never actually managing to achieve either of these things.

mcintyre1994 7y ago
I haven't tried Gitlab sites yet - what makes it better than Github's?
- lucideer 7y ago
  Note: I haven't yet looked into Github Actions in depth, so if there's GH Pages integration there, some of the below may no longer be true. Github's is tightly coupled to Jekyll, and—more specifically—to this single Gem https://github.com/github/pages-gem https://github.com/github/pages-gem Also, this might have changed, but last time I interacted with it, it lacked any real control over your source repo structure: there's some arcane rules about either giving it a certain name under a certain GH org, or using a specifically named branch (`gh-pages`). Github were also pretty lax about adding HTTPS support to custom domains their Pages service. In comparison, GL pages allows: - using any SSG[0] - writing your own custom SSG (even integrated/including in your repo itself) - automatic LetsEncrypt renewal for custom domains - out-of-repo secrets management for any tasks within your SSG build/deploy steps [0] https://about.gitlab.com/2016/06/17/ssg-overview-gitlab-pages-part-3-examples-ci/#ssgs-examples https://about.gitlab.com/2016/06/17/ssg-overview-gitlab-page...
  - frenchyatwork 7y ago
    > automatic LetsEncrypt renewal for custom domains Really, is this new? I wasn't aware of it.
    - Already__Taken 7y ago
      I want to say this is about 6/mo new guessing from when I wanted it to when I realised it had been added.
      - frenchyatwork 7y ago
        Oh, I was thinking of letsencrypt support directly in gitlab pages.
        Already__Taken 7y ago
        No you're correct, gitlab pages now does that. I was trying to do it with CI jobs but now it's native.
  - mcintyre1994 7y ago
    Thanks for the response! Reading through their docs it looks really nicely integrated with all the CI stuff there, a good example of them taking advantage of all the flexibility and power that has. Nice!
danShumway 7y ago
I was going to comment, but this sums up my thoughts as well. Agreed on pretty much every front, including the stability/performance concerns. I will add that, while this is subjective, I also think that Gitlab has a nicer interface and is better organized. On top of everything parent mentions, there's a lot of subtle stuff like this that makes me stay.
mroche 7y ago
Same here, though I can’t say I’ve seen the same issues with performance as others. Maybe because I’m not reading through several thousand line files, but loading the site and files is pretty snappy over here. It’s not like a static site, but I’m never twiddling my thumbs. The GitLab site itself is a bit slow, but self hosted never seen wait times.

mcintyre1994 7y ago

I haven't tried Gitlab sites yet - what makes it better than Github's?

lucideer 7y ago
Note: I haven't yet looked into Github Actions in depth, so if there's GH Pages integration there, some of the below may no longer be true. Github's is tightly coupled to Jekyll, and—more specifically—to this single Gem https://github.com/github/pages-gem https://github.com/github/pages-gem Also, this might have changed, but last time I interacted with it, it lacked any real control over your source repo structure: there's some arcane rules about either giving it a certain name under a certain GH org, or using a specifically named branch (`gh-pages`). Github were also pretty lax about adding HTTPS support to custom domains their Pages service. In comparison, GL pages allows: - using any SSG[0] - writing your own custom SSG (even integrated/including in your repo itself) - automatic LetsEncrypt renewal for custom domains - out-of-repo secrets management for any tasks within your SSG build/deploy steps [0] https://about.gitlab.com/2016/06/17/ssg-overview-gitlab-pages-part-3-examples-ci/#ssgs-examples https://about.gitlab.com/2016/06/17/ssg-overview-gitlab-page...
- frenchyatwork 7y ago
  > automatic LetsEncrypt renewal for custom domains Really, is this new? I wasn't aware of it.
  - Already__Taken 7y ago
    I want to say this is about 6/mo new guessing from when I wanted it to when I realised it had been added.
    - frenchyatwork 7y ago
      Oh, I was thinking of letsencrypt support directly in gitlab pages.
      - Already__Taken 7y ago
        No you're correct, gitlab pages now does that. I was trying to do it with CI jobs but now it's native.
- mcintyre1994 7y ago
  Thanks for the response! Reading through their docs it looks really nicely integrated with all the CI stuff there, a good example of them taking advantage of all the flexibility and power that has. Nice!

danShumway 7y ago

I was going to comment, but this sums up my thoughts as well. Agreed on pretty much every front, including the stability/performance concerns. I will add that, while this is subjective, I also think that Gitlab has a nicer interface and is better organized. On top of everything parent mentions, there's a lot of subtle stuff like this that makes me stay.

mroche 7y ago

Same here, though I can’t say I’ve seen the same issues with performance as others. Maybe because I’m not reading through several thousand line files, but loading the site and files is pretty snappy over here. It’s not like a static site, but I’m never twiddling my thumbs. The GitLab site itself is a bit slow, but self hosted never seen wait times.