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Compare GitHub to the competition

  • ️@GitHub
  • ️Mon May 16 2022

More than 90% of the Fortune 100 use GitHub Enterprise

DevOps is just the beginning. From McKesson to Meta and Spotify to SAP, many of the world's biggest and most innovative companies are built on GitHub—the leading developer platform compared to alternative solutions.

Why teams choose GitHub

Build on the most loved developer platform

Build what's next with the all-in-one solution that's beloved by developers. Go from ideation to planning, project management, security, automation and delivery with extensive native capabilities and a rich integration ecosystem.

Collaboration beyond coding

Bring your teams together in one place—and scale faster with access to the world's largest open source registry.

Full project management

Build a roadmap and quickly assign tasks—all on GitHub.

Stay secure at every step

Empower developers to fix vulnerabilities in minutes with the only community-driven, native application security testing solution on a platform designed for dynamic teams and regulated industries.

Code securely from idea to ship

Secure code without disrupting innovation with advanced security testing embedded right in the developer experience.

Improve developer velocity

Reduce the time to commit. Eliminate environment management and context switching for your developers.

How GitHub compares to other DevOps platforms

There are dozens of alternative DevOps tools from best-in-breed point solutions to full platforms. So how does GitHub compare? There are plenty of analyst reports that answer that question--but here's an overview to help you get started.

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GitHub vs. GitLab for DevOps

Use caseGitHubGitLab
Desktop and Mobile Support, CLIGitHub

Native desktop app for MacOs and Windows.

Native iOS and Android mobile applications to enable collaboration on any device.

Native CLI to enable collaboration via your terminal.

GitLabThird party apps with limited capabilities.
Planning, tracking, and project managementGitHubComparable native capabilitiesGitLabComparable native capabilities
CollaborationGitHubComparable native capabilitiesGitLabComparable native capabilities
Application securityGitHub

Native core capabilities based on GitHub's own IP with GitHub Advanced Security

Integrations to third-party commercial products and open source solutions via support for the SARIF format

GitLabCore capabilities based on embedded open source projects and integrations with other open source solutions.
Automation & CI/CDGitHub

Comparable native core capabilities

Over 13,000 GitHub Actions are available in the GitHub Marketplace to automate your development workflow.

GitLabComparable native capabilities
Innovative coding capabilitiesGitHub

Cloud-hosted developer environments with GitHub Codespaces

AI programming assistance with GitHub Copilot (currently in technical preview)

Third-party integrations

GitLabThird-party integrations
Platform securityGitHub

Comparable native capabilities

Complete control over identity provisioning, access and removal of permissions with Enterprise Managed Users in the cloud.

Certifications:
  • GDPR Compliant
  • ISO 27001:2013
  • SOC 1 Type 2
  • SOC 2 Type 2
  • ISAE 2000
  • ISAE 3402
  • FedRAMP LI-Saas Authorization to Operate (ATO)
  • Trusted Cloud Provider(™) with the Cloud Security Alliance (CSA)
GitLab

Comparable native capabilities

Certifications:
  • ISO 27001
  • SOC 2 Type 2 Report: Security and Confidentiality Criteria
  • SOC 3 Report: Security and Confidentiality Criteria
  • ISO/IEC 20243-1:2018 Self Assessment
  • CSA-Star
  • PCI DSS SAQ-A Self-Assessment
ScalabilityGitHub

Comparable native capabilities

Hosts the world's largest code graph with over 83 million registered users on github.com, and more on self-managed deployments.

99.99% uptime guarantee with GitHub Online Services SLA.

GitLab

Comparable native capabilities

Claims estimated 30 million users including estimated user counts from self-managed deployments.

Uptime SLA is not available.

* This is a biased overview of capabilities by use case, based on publicly available information as of 2022-05-16.

GitHub vs. Bitbucket for Devops

Use caseGitHubBitbucket
Desktop and Mobile Support, CLIGitHub

Native desktop app for MacOs and Windows.

Native iOS and Android mobile applications to enable collaboration on any device.

Native CLI to enable collaboration via your terminal.

BitbucketThird party apps with limited capabilities.
Planning, tracking, and project managementGitHub

Comparable native capabilities

Next generation planning and tracking capabilities with the new GitHub Issues experience.

Bitbucket

Very limited native core capabilities

Requires Atlassian's JIRA (a separate product) for planning and tracking capabilities.

CollaborationGitHubComparable native capabilitiesBitbucketComparable native capabilities
Application securityGitHub

Native core capabilities based on GitHub's own IP with GitHub Advanced Security

Integrations to third-party commercial products and open source solutions via support for the SARIF format

BitbucketThird-party integrations with commercial products and open source solutions.
Automation & CI/CDGitHub

Comparable native core capabilities

Over 13,000 GitHub Actions are available in the GitHub Marketplace to automate your development workflow.

Bitbucket

Comparable native capabilities

Only supports 86 integrations as of 2022-05-16.

Innovative coding capabilitiesGitHub

Cloud-hosted developer environments with GitHub Codespaces

AI programming assistance with GitHub Copilot (currently in technical preview)

Third-party integrations

BitbucketThird-party integrations
Platform securityGitHub

Comparable native capabilities

Complete control over identity provisioning, access and removal of permissions with Enterprise Managed Users in the cloud.

Certifications:
  • GDPR Compliant
  • ISO 27001:2013
  • SOC 1 Type 2
  • SOC 2 Type 2
  • ISAE 2000
  • ISAE 3402
  • FedRAMP LI-Saas Authorization to Operate (ATO)
  • Trusted Cloud Provider(™) with the Cloud Security Alliance (CSA)
Bitbucket

Comparable native capabilities

Certifications:
  • GDPR Compliant
  • ISO 27001:2013
  • SOC 2
  • SOC 3
  • FedRAMP
  • PCI DSS Compliant
  • VPAT 508 Compliant
ScalabilityGitHub

Comparable native capabilities

Hosts the world's largest code graph with over 83 million registered users on github.com, and more on self-managed deployments.

99.99% uptime guarantee with GitHub Online Services SLA.

Bitbucket

No public information on total number of registered users. The last reported number was 10 million registered users in 2019.
Uptime SLA is not available.

** This is a biased overview of capabilities by use case, based on publicly available information as of 2022-05-16.

GitHub vs. Jenkins for CI/CD

Use caseGitHubJenkins
Automation & CI/CDGitHub

Comparable native core capabilities

Over 13,000 GitHub Actions are available in the GitHub Marketplace to automate your development workflow.

Jenkins

Comparable native capabilities

1,800+ community contributed Jenkins plugins in Jenkins Plugin Marketplace.

Deployment modelsGitHubCloud or self-hostedJenkins

Self-hosted only
CloudBees is the cloud alternative

*** This is a biased overview of capabilities by use case, based on publicly available information as of 2022-05-16.

Frequently
asked questions

What are some quick facts about GitHub Enterprise Cloud?

GitHub Enterprise Cloud offers a cloud-hosted enterprise product plan (SaaS) for large businesses and teams who need a complete DevSecOps solution. It provides tools for greater management of an organization's resources using sophisticated security and administrative features, for example through authentication with SAML single sign-on. GitHub Enterprise Cloud includes support for 50,000 minutes of GitHub Actions runtime for CI/CD workflows and 50GB of storage for shared components and containers. You can learn more about GitHub Enterprise Cloud in our documentation or product page.

How rich is GitHub’s documentation and where can I find it?

GitHub offers thorough documentation around all of its products with detailed how-to guides that walk teams, developers, and administrators through maximizing their investment with GitHub Enterprise. You can find GitHub’s documentation at docs.github.com, which offers a centralized place to find the latest information about GitHub’s products, how to use them, and how to get help. This documentation is kept up-to-date by our documentation teams partnering closely with engineering, our product teams, and our outside community via community contributions.

How can I migrate teams from personal GitHub accounts to my organization account?

GitHub offers a simple way to turn personal accounts into organization accounts and migrate teams from personal accounts into organization accounts, too. You can find a full guide on how to do this in our documentation.

Does GitHub offer project planning and source code management in one place?

GitHub offers a complete cloud-hosted developer platform, which includes project planning, source code management, CI/CD, automation, application security and more. All of these features and capabilities are centralized within the core platform making it simple to plan projects, assign tasks, track work, and deploy code from one interface. GitHub’s project planning solution also integrates with task management and forum boards to track decision making trees, conversations, and project statuses. Learn more about project planning with GitHub Issues and how it ties into the everyday developer platform to increase the speed at which you can build, deploy, and scale solutions.

Does GitHub offer pre-built automation and CI/CD workflow templates?

GitHub offers a number of pre-built and community-developed automation workflow templates that enable organizations to build powerful CI/CD pipelines, enforce environmental policies, and more. These workflow templates are designed to meet the needs of leading teams and companies and feature a sizable integration ecosystem. You can find more than 12,000 pre-built automation workflows in the GitHub Marketplace, which contains community-driven and tested automations for security, CI/CD, development workflows, platform integrations, and more. You can also learn more about how automation and CI/CD work on GitHub in our documentation.

What is the difference between GitHub and GitLab?

Trying to choose between GitHub vs. GitLab for DevOps? The short answer: It depends on your current business needs and your growth plans. GitHub and GitLab are both mature, cloud-based SaaS platforms that offer native capabilities and integrations with third-party tools. While GitLab has their roots and the majority of their business in on-premises environments, they also have a relatively small cloud offering. GitHub is the home of open source and has been a cloud-native solution since their inception. GitHub also offers on-premises environments. Before making a decision on GitHub vs. GitLab, you’ll likely want to conduct your own research and test each solution.

What is the difference between GitHub and Bitbucket?

Making a decision between GitHub vs. Bitbucket to scale your DevOps practice? The answer depends on what you’re looking to accomplish and your organizational goals. GitHub and Atlassian Bitbucket are both mature platforms with native capabilities and third-party integrations. GitHub offers both a cloud-hosted SaaS model and a self-managed deployment model. In contrast, Bitbucket only offers a self-hosted solution for 500 seats or more with recurring license and support fees and otherwise promotes their cloud-hosted SaaS solution after making an end-of-life announcement for their on-premise Server product).

What is the difference between GitHub and Jenkins for CI/CD?

Trying to decide whether to use GitHub Actions vs. Jenkins? If you’re looking for a cloud-hosted CI/CD solution, GitHub Actions bring extensive and platform-native capabilities to the GitHub platform. Plus, it’s included in GitHub Enterprise. You can also look at CloudBees, which is the commercial variant of Jenkins and fully integrates into the GitHub experience. But where GitHub offers a complete DevOps and DevSecOps platform, Jenkins and its CloudBees commercial solution focus only on automation and CI/CD capabilities.

What is the difference between Git and GitHub?

Trying to understand the difference between Git vs. GitHub? It helps to understand what each solution is. Let’s start with Git: Originally developed in 2005 by Linux inventor Linus Torvalds, Git is a locally installed version control system used to track file changes in development workflows. Its primary purpose is to help developers coordinate work and track changes to source code over time. You can learn more about Git on Git-guides. In contrast, GitHub offers an end-to-end DevOps platform with cloud-hosted Git services—i.e., source code management (SCM) and versioning control. GitHub also includes project management, CI/CD, automation, enterprise-grade security scanning, and more to serve all software development needs.