Source control is really only the 'hook' that brings developers into both GitHub and GitLab. Primarily they're communities which grow in value based on the num

Source control is really only the 'hook' that brings developers into both GitHub and GitLab. Primarily they're communities which grow in value based on the number of developers and projects hosted within them. Some of the powerful resulting centralized features are: * The social / team functionality - collaborating on code review, receiving notifications on repository activity, managing access control across multiple codebases * Code discovery - the ability to find projects which use a particular library, search for (and subscribe to) issue reports/fixes, follow other developers' activity These could more-or-less be achieved by configuring individual repos and setting up your own email alerts and notifications; GitHub & GitLab just make it very convenient and bring it all together in a single place.