8 ms·

GitLab - an open source clone of GitHub

228 points by basil 15y ago

a3_nm 15y ago
Is this doing the same thing as https://gitorious.org/gitorious/ https://gitorious.org/gitorious/ ?
- skeptical 15y ago
  And redmine, trac, etc. They hosted their code on github, doesn't make much sense to do that IMHO.
  - jsavimbi 15y ago
    Doesn't make sense to open source a Github clone or doesn't make sense to host the code on Github? If the answer were the former, I'd have to say that many a team use Git internally without being able to host it on a third party service and would benefit from a simple UI to make things easier. If the answer was the later, I'd have to say that any code you intend to share with the community should be hosted on Github and Github only.
- itsnotvalid 15y ago
  That is ironic. This GitLab project couldn't even host itself yet: https://github.com/gitlabhq/gitlabhq https://github.com/gitlabhq/gitlabhq Or I could just be wrong, that their goal could simply as if they don't want people to share code with GitLab.
  - andreaso 15y ago
    ...or that they simply considers github to have a more robust server infrastructure?
    - folsom 15y ago
      ...or it is easier to cone github if you actually use github.
- drivebyacct2 15y ago
  Gitorious is a grueling day long challenge of what feels like a somewhat hacky process to get it installed.
  - ch0wn 15y ago
    That has been true and still is if you do it manually. There are, however, several scripts assisting you at the install, like this chef cookbook: https://gitorious.org/chef-cookbooks/chef-gitorious https://gitorious.org/chef-cookbooks/chef-gitorious
  - StavrosK 15y ago
    You should use gitolite, it's a breeze to set up.
    - drivebyacct2 15y ago
      They're two entirely different things... this is actually powered by gitolite and looks incredibly easy to setup
      - StavrosK 15y ago
        Oh, sorry, I was confused by the software that preceded gitolite. Disregard that, thanks.
        drivebyacct2 15y ago
        For what it's worth, we were both wrong and about the same thing. GitLab is powered by Gitosis, rather than Gitolite, though it appears that may be changing. Gitorious is powered by it's own solution I think and is comparable to GitLab/GitHub.
- barumrho 15y ago
  I setup Gitorious for the company that I used to work for, but it did not allow for fine-grained control of access permissions. (Everything is public for members.)
- dlikhten 15y ago
  gitorious is for oss projects only, no?
  - Tobu 15y ago
    gitorious is open-source, therefore you can run your own instance.
kia 15y ago
Funny. Potential GitHub competitor uses GitHub to store its source code [1]. [1] - http://github.com/gitlabhq/gitlabhq http://github.com/gitlabhq/gitlabhq
- SingAlong 15y ago
  They don't intend to host repositories for you. Their page clearly says: "All for what you so love github - on your server" and "Keep your source code at your server!" That said. This project is really neat. It's not everyday that you find opensource projects with decent UI.
  - jsavimbi 15y ago
    > It's not everyday that you find opensource projects with decent UI. Or closed ones.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
- overshard 15y ago
  It's definitely not trying to be a GitHub competitor. They love GitHub and just want a way for people to store stuff on their own servers as well. I actually use this and have a hook on my GitLab server to push all recieves to GitHub. Distributed VCS are awesome and I'll never lose my code with this method.
  - palish 15y ago
    Have you ever lost your code before?
    - CGamesPlay 15y ago
      Does GitLab/GitHub use git objects to store the issues file? If not, then using this software does in fact significantly increase your likeliness to lose data, since your single server will crash and you only had a local copy of your source code, not your issues. [edit] I just checked: GitLab stores issues in a database separate from git, therefore unless you have a solid backup plan for those, it will significantly increase the likelihood of you losing data. GitHub stores wiki pages at least as git objects, so when you clone your repository, you have a full backup of all of those.
jarin 15y ago
This isn't a replacement for GitHub, it's a replacement for the $5000/year self-hosted GitHub.
- ajross 15y ago
  Or really, for cgit/gitweb/gitorious. There's really no lack of acceptable web front ends for git hosting. Github is prettier and better than those solutions, and I use it. But it's really just incrementally better; simple command line access is 80% of what you need. If this is better than what's available, I'm all for it. But I'm not sure I'd call it particularly innovative.
  - kstenerud 15y ago
    There's just something about an application that not only performs well, but also doesn't look like a Geocities homepage sprinkled with sendmail.cf, that makes me smile.
- suyash 15y ago
  It's replacement for the github paid plans that come with private collaborators and private repos.
  - eugenjung 15y ago
    Actually, it's not. GitLab is self-hosted; GitHub paid plans are not. The self-hosted version of GitHub costs $5000 per year.
    - nupark2 15y ago
      I'm not sure how that makes it not a replacement. Arguably 'externally hosted' is a single feature (or serious drawback) of github, not the defining attribute of their product. It's also a limitation you can get around by paying them more money, but that doesn't make this position that Gitlab is not competing with github seem any less arbitrary.
- 15y ago
ccarpenterg 15y ago
It doesn't work on Chrome 14.0.835.202. Some issue with the tree slider I think.
llambda 15y ago
This was just posted very recently, with comments: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3107417 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3107417
mahcuz 15y ago
Can somebody explain what "All for what you so love github" means? My brain is refusing to make sense of that sentence.
- maw 15y ago
  Heh, I noticed that too. My guess: a non-native English speaker trying to say "All of what you love about github".
  - dchest 15y ago
    This is a correct translation from Englishrussian :-)
kennystone 15y ago
I like paying for github. They are an important service to me - for open source and private projects, and I want a profitable business to be based on it. I like that they have skin in the game.
- mxavier 15y ago
  Our company gives them money but the main thing is that we have a lot of small private projects that are more like prototypes and will never see the light of day. We are not permitted to open source them and probably wouldn't if we could because they'd be worthless to everyone but us. The pricing plans for additional private repos is pretty steep with github so we had to pay for a crappy repository hosting service to dump all of our second tier projects. GitLab would be pretty neat to allow us to store our second rate stuff on our own servers and the stuff we use every day on github.
  - RVijay007 15y ago
    Why not use bitbucket.org instead if you have a bunch of small private repositories? They allow for unlimited private repositories, and it has been working quite well for me.
  - jarin 15y ago
    I actually use Assembla's free git repos for client projects and throwaway projects.
    - Tobu 15y ago
      So they re-opened that offer? When they closed it I had to endure about six dire e-mails when all I wanted to say was screw you, I've already re-hosted my stuff.
      - jarin 15y ago
        Yep, it's just slightly hidden on the "create repo" page now.
- 15y ago
wyclif 15y ago
All for what you so love github - on your server! "Everything you love about github - on your server!"
suyash 15y ago
Thanks for proving this, now I don't have to buy the paid githib repos :) I can use this for free for my own projects (private) and the UI is awesome. One of the best open source projects, how long did it took you all to build this?
- sukhbir 15y ago
  > I can use this for free for my own projects (private) and the UI is awesome This was the first thought that came to my mind! A really awesome project, was much needed.
suckerpunch 15y ago
Quite exciting, given what a rainy hill climb gitorious is and the lack of much else. But: Gitosis? Unless it's back from the dead, its development has long been abandoned. It works just fine, but the new kid on the block is Gitolite, and it makes far more sense.
- iFire 15y ago
  https://github.com/gitlabhq/gitlabhq/issues/15 https://github.com/gitlabhq/gitlabhq/issues/15
vasco 15y ago
Been using gitweb with a custom theme by some dude (https://github.com/kogakure/gitweb-theme https://github.com/kogakure/gitweb-theme). This seems much cleaner and easy to use. When I have some time I'll probably switch over to this if it doesn't have any problems/bugs
- js4all 15y ago
  What a great tip. I am running gitweb for the hosted node.js apps on cloudnode. It looks really nice now and is a clean and easy solution.
- bostonvaulter2 15y ago
  Is there any freely available demo site of that theme?
  - js4all 15y ago
    As I have just installed it today, here is one of the repos for the node.js chat app: http://bit.ly/ogzmMk http://bit.ly/ogzmMk and the live app is at http://chat.cloudno.de http://chat.cloudno.de
iFire 15y ago
I'm defining GitLab Annex [1] for use in my game which requires me to store a large number of revisions of the same sizeable texture and every version of my game installer. My game installer will have a sizeable monolithic asset archive. Anyone interested and want to contribute? [1] - https://github.com/gitlabhq/gitlabhq/issues/13 https://github.com/gitlabhq/gitlabhq/issues/13
Mithaldu 15y ago
Am i just blind or do they seriously have no test suite? It also lacks one of github's most important features: A proper repository+fork graph like this: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10190786/octopus.html http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10190786/octopus.html
potomak 15y ago
a cool project, but I use github because I don't want to self-host my git repos
symkat 15y ago
I've spent my last two weekends on getting Gitolite and GitWeb set up and working well with other tools (cpan mini, Jenkins). I don't know how often I googled for "Open Source GitHub Clone" and never found this. Thanks GitLab!
licketysplit 15y ago
I use http://gitblit.com/ http://gitblit.com/ A great open source github clone. 5 second install, also hosted on github.com.
denysonique 15y ago
it lacks the AJAX
billpatrianakos 15y ago
Looks great but will it be a pain to use GitHub and GitLab for different projects? I'm not too experienced with Git so I'm hopiing that configuring my machines to connect to GitLab won't screw up what I have with GitHub.

228 points by basil 15y ago

a3_nm 15y ago

Is this doing the same thing as https://gitorious.org/gitorious/ https://gitorious.org/gitorious/ ?

skeptical 15y ago
And redmine, trac, etc. They hosted their code on github, doesn't make much sense to do that IMHO.
- jsavimbi 15y ago
  Doesn't make sense to open source a Github clone or doesn't make sense to host the code on Github? If the answer were the former, I'd have to say that many a team use Git internally without being able to host it on a third party service and would benefit from a simple UI to make things easier. If the answer was the later, I'd have to say that any code you intend to share with the community should be hosted on Github and Github only.
itsnotvalid 15y ago
That is ironic. This GitLab project couldn't even host itself yet: https://github.com/gitlabhq/gitlabhq https://github.com/gitlabhq/gitlabhq Or I could just be wrong, that their goal could simply as if they don't want people to share code with GitLab.
- andreaso 15y ago
  ...or that they simply considers github to have a more robust server infrastructure?
  - folsom 15y ago
    ...or it is easier to cone github if you actually use github.
drivebyacct2 15y ago
Gitorious is a grueling day long challenge of what feels like a somewhat hacky process to get it installed.
- ch0wn 15y ago
  That has been true and still is if you do it manually. There are, however, several scripts assisting you at the install, like this chef cookbook: https://gitorious.org/chef-cookbooks/chef-gitorious https://gitorious.org/chef-cookbooks/chef-gitorious
- StavrosK 15y ago
  You should use gitolite, it's a breeze to set up.
  - drivebyacct2 15y ago
    They're two entirely different things... this is actually powered by gitolite and looks incredibly easy to setup
    - StavrosK 15y ago
      Oh, sorry, I was confused by the software that preceded gitolite. Disregard that, thanks.
      - drivebyacct2 15y ago
        For what it's worth, we were both wrong and about the same thing. GitLab is powered by Gitosis, rather than Gitolite, though it appears that may be changing. Gitorious is powered by it's own solution I think and is comparable to GitLab/GitHub.
barumrho 15y ago
I setup Gitorious for the company that I used to work for, but it did not allow for fine-grained control of access permissions. (Everything is public for members.)
dlikhten 15y ago
gitorious is for oss projects only, no?
- Tobu 15y ago
  gitorious is open-source, therefore you can run your own instance.

kia 15y ago

Funny. Potential GitHub competitor uses GitHub to store its source code [1]. [1] - http://github.com/gitlabhq/gitlabhq http://github.com/gitlabhq/gitlabhq

SingAlong 15y ago
They don't intend to host repositories for you. Their page clearly says: "All for what you so love github - on your server" and "Keep your source code at your server!" That said. This project is really neat. It's not everyday that you find opensource projects with decent UI.
- jsavimbi 15y ago
  > It's not everyday that you find opensource projects with decent UI. Or closed ones.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
overshard 15y ago
It's definitely not trying to be a GitHub competitor. They love GitHub and just want a way for people to store stuff on their own servers as well. I actually use this and have a hook on my GitLab server to push all recieves to GitHub. Distributed VCS are awesome and I'll never lose my code with this method.
- palish 15y ago
  Have you ever lost your code before?
  - CGamesPlay 15y ago
    Does GitLab/GitHub use git objects to store the issues file? If not, then using this software does in fact significantly increase your likeliness to lose data, since your single server will crash and you only had a local copy of your source code, not your issues. [edit] I just checked: GitLab stores issues in a database separate from git, therefore unless you have a solid backup plan for those, it will significantly increase the likelihood of you losing data. GitHub stores wiki pages at least as git objects, so when you clone your repository, you have a full backup of all of those.

jarin 15y ago

This isn't a replacement for GitHub, it's a replacement for the $5000/year self-hosted GitHub.

ajross 15y ago
Or really, for cgit/gitweb/gitorious. There's really no lack of acceptable web front ends for git hosting. Github is prettier and better than those solutions, and I use it. But it's really just incrementally better; simple command line access is 80% of what you need. If this is better than what's available, I'm all for it. But I'm not sure I'd call it particularly innovative.
- kstenerud 15y ago
  There's just something about an application that not only performs well, but also doesn't look like a Geocities homepage sprinkled with sendmail.cf, that makes me smile.
suyash 15y ago
It's replacement for the github paid plans that come with private collaborators and private repos.
- eugenjung 15y ago
  Actually, it's not. GitLab is self-hosted; GitHub paid plans are not. The self-hosted version of GitHub costs $5000 per year.
  - nupark2 15y ago
    I'm not sure how that makes it not a replacement. Arguably 'externally hosted' is a single feature (or serious drawback) of github, not the defining attribute of their product. It's also a limitation you can get around by paying them more money, but that doesn't make this position that Gitlab is not competing with github seem any less arbitrary.
15y ago

ccarpenterg 15y ago

It doesn't work on Chrome 14.0.835.202. Some issue with the tree slider I think.

llambda 15y ago

This was just posted very recently, with comments: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3107417 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3107417

mahcuz 15y ago

Can somebody explain what "All for what you so love github" means? My brain is refusing to make sense of that sentence.

maw 15y ago
Heh, I noticed that too. My guess: a non-native English speaker trying to say "All of what you love about github".
- dchest 15y ago
  This is a correct translation from Englishrussian :-)

kennystone 15y ago

I like paying for github. They are an important service to me - for open source and private projects, and I want a profitable business to be based on it. I like that they have skin in the game.

mxavier 15y ago
Our company gives them money but the main thing is that we have a lot of small private projects that are more like prototypes and will never see the light of day. We are not permitted to open source them and probably wouldn't if we could because they'd be worthless to everyone but us. The pricing plans for additional private repos is pretty steep with github so we had to pay for a crappy repository hosting service to dump all of our second tier projects. GitLab would be pretty neat to allow us to store our second rate stuff on our own servers and the stuff we use every day on github.
- RVijay007 15y ago
  Why not use bitbucket.org instead if you have a bunch of small private repositories? They allow for unlimited private repositories, and it has been working quite well for me.
- jarin 15y ago
  I actually use Assembla's free git repos for client projects and throwaway projects.
  - Tobu 15y ago
    So they re-opened that offer? When they closed it I had to endure about six dire e-mails when all I wanted to say was screw you, I've already re-hosted my stuff.
    - jarin 15y ago
      Yep, it's just slightly hidden on the "create repo" page now.
15y ago

wyclif 15y ago

All for what you so love github - on your server! "Everything you love about github - on your server!"

suyash 15y ago

Thanks for proving this, now I don't have to buy the paid githib repos :) I can use this for free for my own projects (private) and the UI is awesome. One of the best open source projects, how long did it took you all to build this?

sukhbir 15y ago
> I can use this for free for my own projects (private) and the UI is awesome This was the first thought that came to my mind! A really awesome project, was much needed.

suckerpunch 15y ago

Quite exciting, given what a rainy hill climb gitorious is and the lack of much else. But: Gitosis? Unless it's back from the dead, its development has long been abandoned. It works just fine, but the new kid on the block is Gitolite, and it makes far more sense.

iFire 15y ago
https://github.com/gitlabhq/gitlabhq/issues/15 https://github.com/gitlabhq/gitlabhq/issues/15

vasco 15y ago

Been using gitweb with a custom theme by some dude (https://github.com/kogakure/gitweb-theme https://github.com/kogakure/gitweb-theme). This seems much cleaner and easy to use. When I have some time I'll probably switch over to this if it doesn't have any problems/bugs

js4all 15y ago
What a great tip. I am running gitweb for the hosted node.js apps on cloudnode. It looks really nice now and is a clean and easy solution.
bostonvaulter2 15y ago
Is there any freely available demo site of that theme?
- js4all 15y ago
  As I have just installed it today, here is one of the repos for the node.js chat app: http://bit.ly/ogzmMk http://bit.ly/ogzmMk and the live app is at http://chat.cloudno.de http://chat.cloudno.de

iFire 15y ago

I'm defining GitLab Annex [1] for use in my game which requires me to store a large number of revisions of the same sizeable texture and every version of my game installer. My game installer will have a sizeable monolithic asset archive. Anyone interested and want to contribute? [1] - https://github.com/gitlabhq/gitlabhq/issues/13 https://github.com/gitlabhq/gitlabhq/issues/13

Mithaldu 15y ago

Am i just blind or do they seriously have no test suite? It also lacks one of github's most important features: A proper repository+fork graph like this: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10190786/octopus.html http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10190786/octopus.html

potomak 15y ago

a cool project, but I use github because I don't want to self-host my git repos

symkat 15y ago

I've spent my last two weekends on getting Gitolite and GitWeb set up and working well with other tools (cpan mini, Jenkins). I don't know how often I googled for "Open Source GitHub Clone" and never found this. Thanks GitLab!

licketysplit 15y ago

I use http://gitblit.com/ http://gitblit.com/ A great open source github clone. 5 second install, also hosted on github.com.

denysonique 15y ago

it lacks the AJAX

billpatrianakos 15y ago

Looks great but will it be a pain to use GitHub and GitLab for different projects? I'm not too experienced with Git so I'm hopiing that configuring my machines to connect to GitLab won't screw up what I have with GitHub.