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CAST Highlight 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

CAST Highlight
Ranking in Software Composition Analysis (SCA)
15th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
GitLab
Ranking in Software Composition Analysis (SCA)
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
91
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (11th), Build Automation (1st), Release Automation (2nd), Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (9th), Rapid Application Development Software (11th), Enterprise Agile Planning Tools (2nd), Fuzz Testing Tools (2nd), DevSecOps (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Software Composition Analysis (SCA) category, the mindshare of CAST Highlight is 1.1%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of GitLab is 4.0%, down from 4.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Software Composition Analysis (SCA) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
GitLab4.0%
CAST Highlight1.1%
Other94.9%
Software Composition Analysis (SCA)
 

Featured Reviews

Jayanti Rode - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Associate Manager at Accenture
Identifies migration blockers and boosters while facing challenges with platform-specific roadblocks
The solution provides agnostic blockers for platforms as well as for containerization. Within that containerization, it offers generic blockers. However, my project might require it to provide Windows-specific blockers or Linux-specific blockers, as I often work with only one platform at a time. If I received categorization in containerization blockers, it would save time. Understanding only the OS-specific blockers means I would avoid resolving irrelevant issues, thus saving time. Initially, I receive a response from support, however, if there is involvement from R&D or other teams, it may take longer than expected. The support team is challenging when sharing source code. As this is a static code analysis tool, it sometimes requires source code for R&D. However, CAST clients may be restricted from sharing due to business logic and nondisclosure agreements. This creates a challenge, and I may have to share pseudo code or seek client approval, risking escalation.
BasilJiji - PeerSpot reviewer
System Engineer at a retailer with 10,001+ employees
Role-based workflows have transformed daily deployments and improve team collaboration
GitLab has role-based access control, so when a team member needs to make a code change, they cannot directly apply it to the environment but must put in a merge request. Once a senior reviews the code and approves it, then it is implemented across the environment, making it safer and allowing everyone to experience the process. The best features GitLab offers are version control and automation, which are the major things that stand out to me. When it comes to access, the login is very smooth, with just one login integrated with our Okta, allowing everyone to log in easily. Deployments become much easier, and that is how GitLab helps. The automation features make my work easier because we use a tool called AWX, which is connected to GitLab. Whenever we run a job on AWX, it directly checks the code and uses it. Since the code is not preserved locally but kept in the cloud, it is safe and nobody can tamper with it. When it comes to safety, that is a major thing. Automation features allow the code to be accessed from any tools we use, so the jobs we run are helping tremendously and doing their work perfectly. For pipeline tasks, we have created a significant amount of pipelines, which are all hosted in GitLab. Running the pipelines has become much easier, and they are doing a perfect job, helping tremendously in our day-to-day activities. GitLab has positively impacted my organization because previously we stored code locally on servers, leading to many risks. Since GitLab came into our environment, our integration and deployments became much easier, helping our work become much smoother. Improvements from GitLab have led to better team collaboration because when several people are working, they can all edit the code and submit it as a merge request, and once approved, it reflects directly to the main branch. Many can work at the same time. When it comes to deployments, deploying has become much faster since we started using GitLab, and even if errors occur, we can spot them easily and troubleshoot, which has helped tremendously.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"CAST Highlight provides a clear overview of the role portfolio and allows users to assess the overall quality of the environment. Users can see where improvements are needed and follow up on trends of the application."
"The most valuable features of CAST Highlight are automation and speed."
"It offers good performance."
"The most valuable features of the CAST Highlight are the interface and there are three notations that are very simple to understand and communicate with."
"The way it tells you which codebase is more ready for the cloud and which codebase is less ready is very valuable. It works seamlessly with most languages."
"CAST Highlight is easy to use and has a good dashboard."
"The solution provides agnostic blockers for platforms as well as for containerization."
"In cloud migration, I use CAST highlight to identify blockers, which are the negative road patterns, and also the boosters, which are positive code patterns."
"Key features allow creation of well-presented Wiki that includes ideas, development, and domains."
"The most valuable feature of GitLab is its convenience. I am able to trace back most of my changes up to a far distance in time and it helps me to analyze and see the older version of the code."
"We use the Git repository and tagging feature. We are a product-based company and use this solution to move to a forward or backward tag."
"The user interface is really good so that helps with huge teams who need to collaborate."
"The solution's most valuable feature is that it is compatible with GitHub. The product's integration capabilities are sufficient for our small company of 35 people."
"GitLab helps me save time and provide financial benefits, as keeping track of the updated version and the changes is money and time-saving."
"CI/CD and GitLab scanning are the most valuable features."
"The dashboard and interface make it easy to use."
 

Cons

"The ease of configuration and customization could be improved in CAST Highlight."
"The reports that describe the issues of concern are rather abstract and the issues should be more clearly described to the user."
"There could be potential improvements or additional features added to CAST Highlight to make it better."
"If I received categorization in containerization blockers, it would save time."
"Its price should be better. It is a pretty costly tool. They have two products: CAST Highlight and CAST AIP. I would expect CAST Highlight to have the Help dashboard and the Engineering dashboard. These dashboards are currently a part of CAST AIP, and if these are made available in CAST Highlight, customers won't have to use two different products all the time."
"CAST Highlight could improve to allow us to comment and do a deep analysis by ourselves."
"There's a bit of a learning curve at the outset."
"I've noticed an area for improvement in GitLab, particularly needing to go through many steps to push the code to the repository. Resolving that issue would make the product better. My team quickly fixed it by writing a small script, then double-clicking or enabling the script to take care of the issue. However, that quick fix was from my team and not the GitLab team, so in the next release, if an automatic deployment feature would be available in GitLab, then that would be good because, in Visual Studio, you can do that with just one click of a button."
"This solution could be improved by adding modifications such as slack notifications."
"The initial setup was quite challenging because it takes some time to understand how to pull out or push the code."
"We have only seen a couple of issues on Gitlab, which we use for building some of the applications."
"Expand features to match other tools such as a static code analysis tool so third-party integrations are not required."
"I used Spring Cloud config and to connect that to GitLab was so hard."
"Reporting could be improved."
"A pain point I have encountered with GitLab is that large GitLab-ci.yml files become hard to read and maintain."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is a pretty costly tool. A lot of customers are resistant to using it."
"Basic support is included with the standard licensing feed but it can be upgraded for an additional cost."
"CAST Highlight is an expensive solution."
"CAST Highlight is an expensive solution. However, CAST Highlight is less expensive than the CAST AIP, but it remains too expensive and the professional services from CAST are also too expensive. The high price is part of the problem with the CAST solutions."
"It seems reasonable. Our IT team manages the licenses."
"In total, I believe we have more than 300 licenses spread over about 100 users, though I can't comment on the costs involved."
"The solution is based on a subscription model and is reasonably priced."
"As I work in a vast enterprise, I'm unsure about the licensing cost for GitLab. It's the management team that takes care of that."
"In terms of the pricing for GitLab, on a scale of one to five, with one being expensive and five being cheap, I'm rating pricing for the solution a four. It could still be cheaper because right now, my company has a small team, and sometimes it's difficult to use a paid product for a small team. You'd hope the team will grow and scale, but currently, you're paying a high license fee for a small team. I'm referring to the GitLab license that has premium features and will give you all features. This can be a problem for management to approve the high price of the license for a team this small."
"The open-source version is very good and the commercial version is reasonably priced."
"I think that we pay approximately $100 USD per month."
"We are currently using the open-source version."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
23%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
7%
Insurance Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business36
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise46
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for CAST Highlight?
The pricing of CAST Highlight was not considered expensive or cheap, and no specific comment was made about the setup cost.
What needs improvement with CAST Highlight?
The solution provides agnostic blockers for platforms as well as for containerization. Within that containerization, it offers generic blockers. However, my project might require it to provide Wind...
What is your primary use case for CAST Highlight?
For CAST, I use it in cloud migration roadmap and in open source safety issues. These are my two main use cases.
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 setup cost was moderate and not very high. For GitLab SaaS, the initial setup cost was minimal, while self-managed GitLab involved infrastructure, VM storage backups, runner configuration, and ...
What needs improvement with GitLab?
A pain point I have encountered with GitLab is that large GitLab-ci.yml files become hard to read and maintain. YAML syntax is strict, and errors are easy to make, while debugging pipeline logic ca...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
Fuzzit
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Wells Fargo, Bank of NY Mellon, Northern Trust, Microsoft, Amazon, IBM, BMW, AT&T, US Army, US Air Force, US Navy, John Hancock, Marsh & McLennan, Ernst & Young, PwC, Volkswagen, Boston Consulting Group, London Stock Exchange, Telefonica, Saur France, Total Energies France, SNCF
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 CAST Highlight vs. GitLab and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,114 professionals have used our research since 2012.