4 ms·

Github is great at one thing(so far): the UI never change. We did use Gitlab for sometime but the UI and slowness compared to Github was so noticeable. I wonder

by vdfs 6y ago

Github is great at one thing(so far): the UI never change. We did use Gitlab for sometime but the UI and slowness compared to Github was so noticeable. I wonder if its still the case now?

axlee 6y ago
Coming from Bitbucket, Gitlab (self-hosted) felt blazing fast. But to be fair, any single tool feels snappy when stacked against an Atlassian product.
- manaskarekar 6y ago
  Also, the UX on bitbucket is very convoluted, to me at least.
  - mroche 6y ago
    My current team/employer uses a self hosted Atlassian stack... I only use BB to find the repo URL before immediately cloning it. I can find my way around it relatively fine, but wow is it slow to load any kind of information. Not sure how much of that is the server it’s on or the application itself. EDIT: typo closing -> cloning it.
unixhero 6y ago
I have no complaints, it works zippy.
httpsterio 6y ago
The UI on Github absolutely does change, about once a year they've done some small or even large changes to how Github looks and behaves. For me personally, I spend quite a bit of time looking for the right tab I want to navigate to and while I'm not lost, it takes along time to scan the UI and find what I'm looking for. I've preferd Gitlab's interface for the last few years over github simply because how much faster I can find everything.
- grawprog 6y ago
  One big thing gitlab has that github doesn't is the ability to download (or clone I think)repositories from a mobile browser without changing to desktop view. Yes there are actual reasons why someone would want to do this. Maybe I'm blind, but I've scoured the mobile page for a download or clone link and always ended up giving up and switching to desktop view. I just checked again, and couldn't find them after a few minute search. On gitlab, it's immediately visible just above the clone repository link on the main repository page.
nightfly 6y ago
My work uses self-hosted Gitlab. I occasionally get irritated with small UI changes but never have complaints about the speed.
konart 6y ago
Never had any speed problems with self hosted Gitlab
- bdcravens 6y ago
  What are the specs of your server? Bare metal or cloud/vm?
  - konart 6y ago
    2cpu, 8GB VM. I'm not the one who deals with these, so I don't know other details.
hivacruz 6y ago
I love Github's UI. I wish Github has file icons when you browse a repo just like Gitlab. Small change but this is nice. https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-foss/-/issues/37624 https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-foss/-/issues/37624
- bdcravens 6y ago
  It's not core to the product, but if you use the Octotree add-on to browse Github repos, you get the file type icons. https://imgur.com/0yg4Mfc https://imgur.com/0yg4Mfc
cosmojg 6y ago
Yep, it's still among the slowest. In terms of speed, popular source forges rank as follows: 1. SourceHut 2. Codeberg 3. GitHub 4. Pagure 5. GitLab 6. Bitbucket Source: https://forgeperf.org/ https://forgeperf.org/
- odensc 6y ago
  I see that site is maintained by SourceHut though - are the test run from within their own DC? That could contribute to the performance score.
  - battery_cowboy 6y ago
    No, they do it in a fair way, I believe if you read the page it will tell you how they fairly measure performance between the forges. Edit: see "Expand for details on methodology" right at the top of the page.
    - odensc 6y ago
      Yes, that explains their methodology but not the location of the hardware. If I go and run a Lighthouse audit on localhost vs. a server in Philadelphia there's going to be an inherent difference.
      - jraph 6y ago
        I remember reading that they also ran the benchmark in Germany and got similar results when first reading about this here on hn. Anyway, it suffice to use gitlab, github, bitbucket and sourcehub for a few seconds to notice the slowness of the three first sites compared to the last one. We didn't really need the numbers to be convinced but I hope they will produce some pressure to be faster.
      - battery_cowboy 6y ago
        Sorry, I seemed to remember they did something to make it fair, I don't recall the location. I use sr.ht and I've used the others and, for me, it feels like 'turbo mode' compared to them. Especially git pushing: it's faster than pushing to my dokku server that only I use!
ken 6y ago
GitHub's UI never changes? Up until a couple years ago [1], the main tabs were in a collapsable sidebar on the right [2]. They just keep cramming more junk on the top, pushing the actual source code further below the fold, and making the header so wide it hides half its functionality inside a 'hamburger' unless you make the window super-wide. The main GitHub.com page itself used to be clearly for developers, with "Search public git repositories" the very first item. Now it still says "for developers" but it's all about "GitHub Enterprise" and "Your business needs". Multi-repo search is actually disabled for non-logged-in users. The style doesn't change, but the layout and functionality definitely does, and (IMHO) not for the better. [1]: https://github.blog/2015-11-16-a-new-look-for-repositories/ https://github.blog/2015-11-16-a-new-look-for-repositories/ [2]: https://visualstudiomagazine.com/articles/2015/03/23/~/media/ECG/visualstudiomagazine/Images/introimages2014/0315vsm_msbuildgit.ashx https://visualstudiomagazine.com/articles/2015/03/23/~/media...
Already__Taken 6y ago
It's not slow anymore, we used to get 500 errors a lot on gitlab.com but that's not happened for a year or two now. Github's never changing ui was also partly because they didn't have half the features gitlab does for a long time. Gitlab is quite complicated to look at, it could be improved. But it's also partly because it is getting quite complicated.

by vdfs 6y ago

Github is great at one thing(so far): the UI never change. We did use Gitlab for sometime but the UI and slowness compared to Github was so noticeable. I wonder if its still the case now?

axlee 6y ago

Coming from Bitbucket, Gitlab (self-hosted) felt blazing fast. But to be fair, any single tool feels snappy when stacked against an Atlassian product.

manaskarekar 6y ago
Also, the UX on bitbucket is very convoluted, to me at least.
- mroche 6y ago
  My current team/employer uses a self hosted Atlassian stack... I only use BB to find the repo URL before immediately cloning it. I can find my way around it relatively fine, but wow is it slow to load any kind of information. Not sure how much of that is the server it’s on or the application itself. EDIT: typo closing -> cloning it.

unixhero 6y ago

I have no complaints, it works zippy.

httpsterio 6y ago

The UI on Github absolutely does change, about once a year they've done some small or even large changes to how Github looks and behaves. For me personally, I spend quite a bit of time looking for the right tab I want to navigate to and while I'm not lost, it takes along time to scan the UI and find what I'm looking for. I've preferd Gitlab's interface for the last few years over github simply because how much faster I can find everything.

grawprog 6y ago
One big thing gitlab has that github doesn't is the ability to download (or clone I think)repositories from a mobile browser without changing to desktop view. Yes there are actual reasons why someone would want to do this. Maybe I'm blind, but I've scoured the mobile page for a download or clone link and always ended up giving up and switching to desktop view. I just checked again, and couldn't find them after a few minute search. On gitlab, it's immediately visible just above the clone repository link on the main repository page.

nightfly 6y ago

My work uses self-hosted Gitlab. I occasionally get irritated with small UI changes but never have complaints about the speed.

konart 6y ago

Never had any speed problems with self hosted Gitlab

bdcravens 6y ago
What are the specs of your server? Bare metal or cloud/vm?
- konart 6y ago
  2cpu, 8GB VM. I'm not the one who deals with these, so I don't know other details.

hivacruz 6y ago

I love Github's UI. I wish Github has file icons when you browse a repo just like Gitlab. Small change but this is nice. https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-foss/-/issues/37624 https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-foss/-/issues/37624

bdcravens 6y ago
It's not core to the product, but if you use the Octotree add-on to browse Github repos, you get the file type icons. https://imgur.com/0yg4Mfc https://imgur.com/0yg4Mfc

cosmojg 6y ago

Yep, it's still among the slowest. In terms of speed, popular source forges rank as follows: 1. SourceHut 2. Codeberg 3. GitHub 4. Pagure 5. GitLab 6. Bitbucket Source: https://forgeperf.org/ https://forgeperf.org/

odensc 6y ago
I see that site is maintained by SourceHut though - are the test run from within their own DC? That could contribute to the performance score.
- battery_cowboy 6y ago
  No, they do it in a fair way, I believe if you read the page it will tell you how they fairly measure performance between the forges. Edit: see "Expand for details on methodology" right at the top of the page.
  - odensc 6y ago
    Yes, that explains their methodology but not the location of the hardware. If I go and run a Lighthouse audit on localhost vs. a server in Philadelphia there's going to be an inherent difference.
    - jraph 6y ago
      I remember reading that they also ran the benchmark in Germany and got similar results when first reading about this here on hn. Anyway, it suffice to use gitlab, github, bitbucket and sourcehub for a few seconds to notice the slowness of the three first sites compared to the last one. We didn't really need the numbers to be convinced but I hope they will produce some pressure to be faster.
    - battery_cowboy 6y ago
      Sorry, I seemed to remember they did something to make it fair, I don't recall the location. I use sr.ht and I've used the others and, for me, it feels like 'turbo mode' compared to them. Especially git pushing: it's faster than pushing to my dokku server that only I use!

ken 6y ago

GitHub's UI never changes? Up until a couple years ago [1], the main tabs were in a collapsable sidebar on the right [2]. They just keep cramming more junk on the top, pushing the actual source code further below the fold, and making the header so wide it hides half its functionality inside a 'hamburger' unless you make the window super-wide. The main GitHub.com page itself used to be clearly for developers, with "Search public git repositories" the very first item. Now it still says "for developers" but it's all about "GitHub Enterprise" and "Your business needs". Multi-repo search is actually disabled for non-logged-in users. The style doesn't change, but the layout and functionality definitely does, and (IMHO) not for the better. [1]: https://github.blog/2015-11-16-a-new-look-for-repositories/ https://github.blog/2015-11-16-a-new-look-for-repositories/ [2]: https://visualstudiomagazine.com/articles/2015/03/23/~/media/ECG/visualstudiomagazine/Images/introimages2014/0315vsm_msbuildgit.ashx https://visualstudiomagazine.com/articles/2015/03/23/~/media...

Already__Taken 6y ago

It's not slow anymore, we used to get 500 errors a lot on gitlab.com but that's not happened for a year or two now. Github's never changing ui was also partly because they didn't have half the features gitlab does for a long time. Gitlab is quite complicated to look at, it could be improved. But it's also partly because it is getting quite complicated.