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Gitlab from YC to IPO

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: Gitlab from YC to IPO

#21

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

debacle wrote: post #8

A paid user + big fan of gitlab. They exist in a strange valley between github and Atlassian where usability has remained high while also being featureful. Their kanban is 10% more functional than Trello, which is all our small team really needs, they give you everything and they don't nickel and dime you. The only feature I would like to see improved is their PR process. Seems a bit buggy with remotely large changes…

The only issue I had with GL is that they don't show the entire diff if the changes/files are very large.

They may have fixed this since last year, but it was super, super annoying to me at the time.

Re: Gitlab from YC to IPO

#22

Post by reayn »

mooreds wrote: post #5

I haven't used gitlab much, but I was shocked to hear GitHub's CTO (at the time of the interview, he has moved on since) state that GitHub didn't consider them a competitor. "I do think that people still, to this day, think of GitLab as one of our main competitors, and I never have ever saw GitLab as a competitor." https://www.lastweekinaws.com/podcast/screaming-in-the-cloud... Anyone have thoughts on that? Or pointe…

I think the CTO's reasoning comes from that while GitLab is competitive in terms of usage and features (actually offering a more complete CI experience imo), it's influence is still relatively miniscule in comparison to GitHub.

I wouldn't be surprised if you tried asking random people in public or in a university whether they know GitHub or GitLab and came to the conclusion that GitLab basically does not exist for many people.

Especially for newer programmers, the vast majority tutorials/educational courses and whatnot probably don't even mention any alternatives to GitHub, much less an explicit reference to GitLab.

I say we just give it time, GitLab as a company seems like a way more inviting environment to me and if they keep up the good work GitHub may have to start acknowledging them more.

Re: Gitlab from YC to IPO

#23

Post by debacle »

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #21
debacle wrote: post #8

A paid user + big fan of gitlab. They exist in a strange valley between github and Atlassian where usability has remained high while also being featureful. Their kanban is 10% more functional than Trello, which is all our small team really needs, they give you everything and they don't nickel and dime you. The only feature I would like to see improved is their PR process. Seems a bit buggy with remotely large changes…

The only issue I had with GL is that they don't show the entire diff if the changes/files are very large. They may have fixed this since last year, but it was super, super annoying to me at the time.

You can "expand" the diff, but sometimes that breaks the UI, makes it unable to add comments, etc. That's probably the reason they don't show large changesets by default.

Re: Gitlab from YC to IPO

#24

Post by dhritzkiv »

debacle wrote: post #8

A paid user + big fan of gitlab. They exist in a strange valley between github and Atlassian where usability has remained high while also being featureful. Their kanban is 10% more functional than Trello, which is all our small team really needs, they give you everything and they don't nickel and dime you. The only feature I would like to see improved is their PR process. Seems a bit buggy with remotely large changes…

Yes! Gitlab's offerings are great, and our team doesn't even scratch the surface of what's possible with its feature set.

That said, MRs with over 1000 lines of changes are painful sometimes impossible to review. Even small MRs feel clunky, due to how many panels there are (yes, I know they're collapsible). Because MRs are one of our most used features, it sometimes makes me consider switching to GitHub for their much nicer PR UX/UI.

Re: Gitlab from YC to IPO

#25

Post by 41209 »

mooreds wrote: post #5

I haven't used gitlab much, but I was shocked to hear GitHub's CTO (at the time of the interview, he has moved on since) state that GitHub didn't consider them a competitor. "I do think that people still, to this day, think of GitLab as one of our main competitors, and I never have ever saw GitLab as a competitor." https://www.lastweekinaws.com/podcast/screaming-in-the-cloud... Anyone have thoughts on that? Or pointe…

In the same way the Nintendo Switch and Xbox Series X aren't competitors.

Many hard core gamers will have both. My Switch is for Smash Bros and the Advance Wars reboot. Advance Wars was one of my favorite games as a kid, and I'll pay 300$ for a machine just to play it.

The Series X also plays games, but it's a completely different experience. No one expects Switch quirkiness on an Xbox, and no one expects 4K gaming on a Switch.

GitHub is for your public portfolio. Gitlab is for getting stuff done once your GitHub portfolio lands you a decent job.

GitHub is synonymous with programmer portfolio, but it's CI/CD system is rather primitive.

Re: Gitlab from YC to IPO

#26

Post by necovek »

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #21
debacle wrote: post #8

A paid user + big fan of gitlab. They exist in a strange valley between github and Atlassian where usability has remained high while also being featureful. Their kanban is 10% more functional than Trello, which is all our small team really needs, they give you everything and they don't nickel and dime you. The only feature I would like to see improved is their PR process. Seems a bit buggy with remotely large changes…

The only issue I had with GL is that they don't show the entire diff if the changes/files are very large. They may have fixed this since last year, but it was super, super annoying to me at the time.

Nope, they still arbitrarily decide to "fold" big changes (file with a large diff), causing me to miss entire files when reviewing on occasion.

In all honesty, their pull request pages need a lot of UX work: too much stuff going on on the overview pages, jumping to unresolved threads does not work when they are in previous commits...

There's also that merge train confusion where merge trains get "cancelled" without an obvious explanation ("this was cancelled because it is included in a new one" would do). In a sense, I'd say that their UX is pretty bad, but the API is not much better either (you can't fetch pipeline log files with individual script timings that you see floating on the right in the web UI). If anything, all of this only goes to show that you don't need to be perfect to be good!

But I applaud the effort, mission and dedication they put up, and especially their open core nature.

Congrats on the IPO and keep pushing forward.

Re: Gitlab from YC to IPO

#27

Post by halfmatthalfcat »

41209 wrote: post #25
mooreds wrote: post #5

I haven't used gitlab much, but I was shocked to hear GitHub's CTO (at the time of the interview, he has moved on since) state that GitHub didn't consider them a competitor. "I do think that people still, to this day, think of GitLab as one of our main competitors, and I never have ever saw GitLab as a competitor." https://www.lastweekinaws.com/podcast/screaming-in-the-cloud... Anyone have thoughts on that? Or pointe…

In the same way the Nintendo Switch and Xbox Series X aren't competitors. Many hard core gamers will have both. My Switch is for Smash Bros and the Advance Wars reboot. Advance Wars was one of my favorite games as a kid, and I'll pay 300$ for a machine just to play it. The Series X also plays games, but it's a completely different experience. No one expects Switch quirkiness on an Xbox, and no one expects 4K gaming o…

Actions are close If not better than Gitlab’s CI. I moved from Gitlab to GitHub Actions because they offer OSX runners too, game changer.

Re: Gitlab from YC to IPO

#28

Post by 41209 »

halfmatthalfcat wrote: post #27
41209 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the same way the Nintendo Switch and Xbox Series X aren't competitors. Many hard core gamers will have both. My Switch is for Smash Bros and the Advance Wars reboot. Advance Wars was one of my favorite games as a kid, and I'll pay 300$ for a machine just to play it. The Series X also plays games, but it's a completely different experience. No one expects Switch quirkiness on an Xbox, and no one expects 4K gaming o…

Actions are close If not better than Gitlab’s CI. I moved from Gitlab to GitHub Actions because they offer OSX runners too, game changer.

Are you using enterprise Gitlab?

I don't think Gitlab is a serious player outside of enterprise clients. But that's where the money is.

Re: Gitlab from YC to IPO

#29

Post by pjot »

pid-1 wrote: post #18
mooreds wrote: post #5

I haven't used gitlab much, but I was shocked to hear GitHub's CTO (at the time of the interview, he has moved on since) state that GitHub didn't consider them a competitor. "I do think that people still, to this day, think of GitLab as one of our main competitors, and I never have ever saw GitLab as a competitor." https://www.lastweekinaws.com/podcast/screaming-in-the-cloud... Anyone have thoughts on that? Or pointe…

GitHub has stronger 'social' features and it's better for people who want to connect to other devs or build portfolios. GitLab is years ahead of GitHub for certain stuff (e.g. CI/CD) and IMO it has a better commercial offering for business. I use GitHub as my portfolio profile for free and GitLab in my $JOB. That's my opinion tho, I'm just a person who uses both.

In an interview I had with GL the interviewer mentioned “people use GH for open source work, and GL for closed”.

Re: Gitlab from YC to IPO

#30

Post by alangibson »

Have any of the finance minded HN commenters decided if the $10B valuation is justified? I'm usually pretty negative about high valuations, but given their enterprise penetration, this one seems almost reasonable.
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