Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Black Duck vs GitLab comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 5, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
6.2
Black Duck improved efficiency by identifying vulnerabilities early, saving time, streamlining audits, reducing manual effort, and enhancing code security.
Sentiment score
7.0
GitLab significantly boosts ROI by reducing deployment time, enhancing DevOps, automating processes, and supporting cost-effective, secure software development.
If you're using it on critical external programs where there is regulatory compliance on ensuring that the source code is clean from open-source, there's substantial ROI.
Migrating to GitLab is bringing time-saving benefits, and everything is easier to automate.
We have saved time significantly, reducing deployment time from four hours to five minutes per deployment.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
9.3
Black Duck support is praised for professionalism and speed, but faces inconsistent feedback, response delays, and suggests chatbot integration improvements.
Sentiment score
6.7
GitLab's customer service is generally positive, though some experience delays despite relying on stable resources and documentation.
There are some pain points with the response time and first-level support quality.
We have rarely needed to escalate issues to technical support since GitLab usually runs seamlessly.
I have interacted with architects for some advice during the implementation, and they were prompt in their response.
I have had meetings where they taught me, explained things, and provided guidance for starting from scratch.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.0
Black Duck is scalable, praised for cloud support and integration, but pricing may deter smaller firms despite versatility.
Sentiment score
7.3
GitLab is praised for its scalable, container-based architecture, adaptable for enterprises, with both vertical and horizontal scaling capabilities.
I would rate the scalability of Black Duck 8 or 9.
It has all the features required for our coding and deployment needs, which makes it scalable to our changing requirements.
We're transitioning to OpenShift for future scalability with increased user numbers.
For scaling, other deployment options from GitLab's side need to be adopted.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.0
Black Duck is highly stable, reliable, with minimal issues; users recommend against transitioning to Hub due to potential problems.
Sentiment score
8.2
GitLab is highly stable and reliable, with minor issues and availability above 99%, though updates may disrupt self-hosted versions.
I have not encountered any performance or stability issues with GitLab so far.
The updates are frequent and demanding, happening at least once a week due to security reasons.
 

Room For Improvement

Black Duck needs better integration, speed, UI, documentation, pricing, security, scalability, and support for improved user experience.
GitLab needs better integration, user-friendly interfaces, improved documentation, enhanced security, stability, pricing, and advanced CI/CD and AI features.
It can improve on the security side of it, specifically vulnerabilities identification.
There are areas for improvement such as false positives and the scanning of containers.
Black Duck does not have the SBOM management part.
It would be beneficial to have a user-friendly interface for setting up these configurations, instead of just writing YAML files.
It is essential to conduct proper testing, such as unit tests and code coverage, within the SDLC pipelines.
GitLab can improve its user interface to make conflict resolution more user-friendly.
 

Setup Cost

Black Duck's pricing ranges from $10,000 to $70,000, with unlimited users for code size, though some find it expensive.
GitLab provides open-source and paid plans catering to various needs, with pricing comparable to market competitors.
Even when working in other small organizations, we opted for GitLab as it was cost-efficient.
The pricing of GitLab is reasonable, aligning with what I consider to be average compared to competitors.
The price is high, and it limits user accessibility.
 

Valuable Features

Black Duck excels in vulnerability scanning, license management, and policy management, offering strong UI and seamless Docker integration.
GitLab excels with CI/CD, seamless branch merging, robust security, and efficient collaboration, making it ideal for DevOps processes.
The most valuable feature of Black Duck is the composition analysis feature, which is effective for security risk management.
Black Duck's ability to identify dependencies very accurately has been most valuable in identifying and mitigating risks.
The software composition analysis is most effective for security risk management.
As we implement automated testing and DevSecOps, it speeds up the process by forty to sixty percent.
The Ultimate version offers enhanced features for security scanning through DAST and SAST analysis, which have greatly benefitted our project workflow.
By integrating GitLab as a DevOps platform, we have enhanced agility, improved our time to market, and different teams can work collaboratively on various projects.
 

Categories and Ranking

Black Duck
Ranking in Software Composition Analysis (SCA)
1st
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
GitLab
Ranking in Software Composition Analysis (SCA)
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
85
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (11th), Build Automation (1st), Release Automation (2nd), Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (7th), Rapid Application Development Software (10th), Enterprise Agile Planning Tools (2nd), Fuzz Testing Tools (2nd), DevSecOps (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Software Composition Analysis (SCA) category, the mindshare of Black Duck is 17.8%, down from 22.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of GitLab is 4.1%, down from 5.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Software Composition Analysis (SCA)
 

Featured Reviews

Aaron  P - PeerSpot reviewer
A tool with a great UI to conduct a vulnerability scan that needs to provide better scalability options
The only thing I don't like about the product is that it is quite expensive and it is not very feasible as an open-source platform. One of the other things that I hate about the product stems from my dislike of contacting the support team of Black Duck to know if there are some issues since debugging some issues can be quite difficult. I don't find reliable or feasible documents to help me debug all those issues. The solution's pricing model and documentation areas of concern where improvement is needed. In our company, we get some issues or errors when we run a pipeline, and debugging those errors can be tedious and time-consuming. To minimize the time for debugging errors, I feel that Black Duck needs to add some documentation or something that will make it easy for users to debug the errors instead of seeking help from Black Duck's support team every time. Black Duck can add features, like viewing the vulnerability, to help users figure out the next step if they detect some vulnerability while also providing them some steps to help them follow some remedial steps, along with an explanation of measures to mitigate such issues. Black Duck's UI or server doesn't provide functionality to help users view the vulnerability, which is a process that needs to be automated. The solution's scalability is an area that needs to improve.
Rohit Kesharwani - PeerSpot reviewer
Improved agility and time to market with CI/CD enhancements
The CI/CD pipelines in GitLab are highly valuable. Another important feature is the single source of repository, allowing efficient repository management and source code management. GitLab provides manageability by allowing us to manage source code effectively through separate repositories. Additionally, GitLab enables the creation of individual CI/CD pipelines for each repository, making software more agile. By integrating GitLab as a DevOps platform, we have enhanced agility, improved our time to market, and different teams can work collaboratively on various projects.
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Software Composition Analysis (SCA) solutions are best for your needs.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Manufacturing Company
15%
Computer Software Company
13%
Insurance Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

How does WhiteSource compare with Black Duck?
We researched Black Duck but ultimately chose WhiteSource when looking for an application security tool. WhiteSource is a software solution that enables agile open source security and license compl...
What do you like most about Black Duck?
The cloud option of the product is always available and a positive aspect of the solution.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Black Duck?
The price charged by Black Duck is exorbitant. For the features provided by the product, I would not want to pay a high price. There are many other products in the market that offer better features...
What do you like most about GitLab?
I find the features and version control history to be most valuable for our development workflow. These aspects provide us with a clear view of changes and help us manage requests efficiently.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for GitLab?
The pricing and cost are on par with other tools and are neither too expensive nor cheap.
What needs improvement with GitLab?
Regarding improvements, making task management is something that GitLab can potentially make easier, similar to what DevOps or Jira does.
 

Also Known As

Blackduck Hub, Black Duck Protex, Black Duck Security Checker
Fuzzit
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Samsung, Siemens, ScienceLogic, BryterCX, Dynatrace
1. NASA  2. IBM  3. Sony  4. Alibaba  5. CERN  6. Siemens  7. Volkswagen  8. ING  9. Ticketmaster  10. SpaceX  11. Adobe  12. Intuit  13. Autodesk  14. Rakuten  15. Unity Technologies  16. Pandora  17. Electronic Arts  18. Nordstrom  19. Verizon  20. Comcast  21. Philips  22. Deutsche Telekom  23. Orange  24. Fujitsu  25. Ericsson  26. Nokia  27. General Electric  28. Cisco  29. Accenture  30. Deloitte  31. PwC  32. KPMG
Find out what your peers are saying about Black Duck vs. GitLab and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.