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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
12th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
GitLab
Ranking in Application Security Tools
8th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
91
Ranking in other categories
Build Automation (1st), Release Automation (2nd), Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (5th), Rapid Application Development Software (9th), Software Composition Analysis (SCA) (4th), Enterprise Agile Planning Tools (2nd), Fuzz Testing Tools (2nd), DevSecOps (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Application Security Tools category, the mindshare of GitHub Advanced Security is 4.3%, down from 7.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of GitLab is 2.1%, down from 3.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Security Tools Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
GitLab2.1%
GitHub Advanced Security4.3%
Other93.6%
Application Security Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Sabna Sainudeen - PeerSpot reviewer
Director, Application Security at Carlsberg
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.
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

"GitHub Advanced Security is a very developer-friendly solution that is integrated within my development environment."
"The product's most valuable features are security scan, dependency scan, and cost-effectiveness."
"The best features of GitHub Advanced Security are its flexibility and the multiple options it has compared to other tools."
"GitHub Advanced Security is ten out of ten scalable."
"Dependency scanning is a valuable feature."
"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."
"It is a stable solution...It is a scalable solution as it can handle new applications along with the analysis part."
"GitLab has positively impacted our organization by making our code very secure because GitLab prides itself on security."
"It speeds up our development, it's faster, safer, and more convenient."
"The scalability is good."
"When a developer checks in code, it is automatically built and deployed, and automated test cases are also run. We have extensive integration with GitLab, which helps us with source code management. We run the static code analysis using SonarQube."
"The most valuable feature of GitLab is its security."
"The code merging capability is something that we use very frequently."
"The CI/CD pipeline with Helm has significantly improved deployment speed and efficiency."
"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."
 

Cons

"Maybe make it compatible with more programming languages. Have a customized ruleset where the end-user can create their own rules for scanning."
"Open-source security vulnerabilities are not getting updated in a timely manner."
"The customizations are a little bit difficult."
"We used additional third-party solutions, but we replaced them with GitHub Advanced Security, even though I do not have a very good opinion about GitHub Advanced Security."
"There could be DST features included in the product."
"The report limitations are the main issue."
"A more refined approach, categorizing and emphasizing specific vulnerabilities, would be beneficial."
"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 missing search features, particularly when searching repositories or applying filters. Additionally, I have encountered issues with the deployment of CI/CD pipelines, especially dealing with variable environments."
"Perhaps the integration could be better."
"The self-hosted version of GitLab is not very stable when under load. It slows down and requires restarts every few days."
"The initial setup was quite challenging because it takes some time to understand how to pull out or push the code."
"I believe GitLab can be improved by making integration with other platforms a little easier."
"I would like to have some features to support peer review."
"It is a little complex to set up the pipelines within the solution."
"We do face issues in our company when we run out of disk space."
 

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 price is okay."
"It seems reasonable. Our IT team manages the licenses."
"I'm not sure if they have some kind of discount. I've been negotiating with them on prices before, and I believe they weren't too happy to give discounts, but list prices are $19 per user, per month for Premium and $99 per user, per month for Ultimate. So, the difference between Premium and Ultimate is a bit bigger, and in most companies, you need to build some type of business case."
"I'm not aware of the licensing costs because those were covered by the customer."
"GitLab's pricing is good compared to others on the market."
"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."
"The solution's pricing is acceptable."
"We are currently using the open-source version."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
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 Business1
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business36
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise46
 

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?
We used additional third-party solutions, but we replaced them with GitHub Advanced Security, even though I do not have a very good opinion about GitHub Advanced Security. Even though it is an inli...
What is your primary use case for GitHub Advanced Security?
I'm working with software development nowadays. As a process, we are using the dependent bot alerts and the code scanning for Java, and some of the code scanning is happening. Security secrets in c...
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

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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: February 2026.
881,665 professionals have used our research since 2012.