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GitHub Advanced Security vs GitLab comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 8, 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

GitHub Advanced Security
Ranking in Application Security Tools
4th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
GitLab
Ranking in Application Security Tools
10th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
85
Ranking in other categories
Build Automation (1st), Release Automation (2nd), Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (7th), Rapid Application Development Software (11th), Software Composition Analysis (SCA) (5th), Enterprise Agile Planning Tools (2nd), Fuzz Testing Tools (2nd), DevSecOps (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Application Security Tools category, the mindshare of GitHub Advanced Security is 8.7%, up from 4.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of GitLab is 2.7%, down from 2.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Security Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Sabna Sainudeen - PeerSpot reviewer
Seamlessly integrates into developer environment for streamlined code scanning
GitHub Advanced Security should look into API security issues, which they currently do not. Additionally, open-source security vulnerabilities are not getting updated in a timely manner. There are features in GitHub Advanced Security that cannot be used within Microsoft, which is strange since they are the same company. It should also focus on developing a software bill of materials (SBOM) to see all open software used in one place.
Rohit Kesharwani - PeerSpot reviewer
Improved agility and time to market with CI/CD enhancements
The CI/CD pipelines in GitLab ( /products/gitlab-reviews ) 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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Dependency scanning is a valuable feature."
"GitHub Advanced Security is ten out of ten scalable."
"GitHub Advanced Security uses artificial intelligence in the backend, specifically CodeQL, to analyze code and provide fewer but more reliable findings, so there are less false positives."
"The most valuable is the developer experience and the extensibility of the overall ecosystem."
"I have not experienced any performance or stability issues with GitHub Advanced Security."
"The product's most valuable features are security scan, dependency scan, and cost-effectiveness."
"GitHub Advanced Security is a very developer-friendly solution that is integrated within my development environment."
"The initial setup was straightforward and completed in a matter of minutes."
"As a developer, this solution is useful as a repository holder because most of the POC projects that we have are on GitLab."
"This is a scalable solution. We had around 200 users working with it."
"Everything is easy to configure and easy to work with."
"The most valuable functionality of GitLab, for me, is the DevOps. Besides the normal source control based on Git, I find the Auto DevOps features most important in the solution."
"Git hosting has an integration with ACD which is why we liked this solution in the first place."
"The best thing is that as the developers work on separate tasks, all of the code goes there and the other team members don't have to wait on each other to finish."
"GitLab's best features are continuous integration and fast deployment."
"This product is always evolving, and they listen to the customers."
 

Cons

"There could be a centralized dashboard to view reports of all the projects on one platform."
"GitHub Advanced Security should look into API security issues, which they currently do not. Additionally, open-source security vulnerabilities are not getting updated in a timely manner."
"The customizations are a little bit difficult."
"Maybe make it compatible with more programming languages. Have a customized ruleset where the end-user can create their own rules for scanning."
"The report limitations are the main issue."
"The reporting feature might need improvement. While it integrates seamlessly with my workflow, it doesn't provide management with oversight, such as statistics and the number of vulnerabilities."
"For GitHub Advanced Security, I would like to see more support for various programming languages."
"Open-source security vulnerabilities are not getting updated in a timely manner."
"There are some challenges with repository file management as GitLab may struggle to manage larger files."
"GitLab can improve by integrating with more tools, such as servers with Docker."
"The integration and storage capabilities could be better."
"GitLab can improve its user interface to make conflict resolution more user-friendly."
"We do face issues in our company when we run out of disk space."
"GitLab could improve by having more plugins and better user-friendliness."
"In the free version, when a merge request is raised, there is no way to enforce certain rules. We can't enforce that this merge request must be reviewed or approved by two or three people in the team before it is pushed to the master branch. That's why we are exploring using some agents."
"We'd always like to see better pricing on the product."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The current licensing model, which relies on active commitments, poses challenges, particularly in predicting and managing growth."
"The solution is expensive."
"The solution's pricing is acceptable."
"This is an open-source solution."
"I don't mind the price because I use the free version."
"GitLab is an open-source solution."
"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."
"It is very expensive. We can't bear it now, and we have to find another solution. We have a yearly subscription in which we can increase the number of licenses, but we have to pay at the end of the year."
"The solution's standard license is paid annually. They have changed the pricing model and it used to be better. There is a free version available."
"GitLab is comparatively expensive, but it provides value because it's feature-rich."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
13%
Educational Organization
12%
Government
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about GitHub Advanced Security?
It is a stable solution...It is a scalable solution as it can handle new applications along with the analysis part.
What needs improvement with GitHub Advanced Security?
The reporting feature might need improvement. While it integrates seamlessly with my workflow, it doesn't provide management with oversight, such as statistics and the number of vulnerabilities. Ma...
What is your primary use case for GitHub Advanced Security?
I use GitHub Advanced Security for conducting source code security scanning for the software that I develop.
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?
One significant feature we lack is the configuration that enforces code reviews, which simplifies the development life cycle. Unfortunately, this is available only at a higher license level than we...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Fuzzit
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
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 GitHub Advanced Security vs. GitLab and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.