GitLab vs Jenkins comparison

GitLab and Jenkins are both solutions in the Build Automation category. GitLab is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.6, while Jenkins is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.1. GitLab holds a 15.0% mindshare in BA, compared to Jenkins’s 10.5% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of GitLab users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 87% of Jenkins users who would recommend it.

GitLab

Read 85 GitLab reviews

5,016 Views
4,048 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

Jenkins

Read 93 Jenkins reviews

3,625 Views
2,329 Comparison Views

87% willing to recommend

GitLab

Jenkins

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 20, 2025

Jenkins and GitLab compete in the CI/CD automation domain. Based on feature richness and value clarity, Jenkins holds the upper hand due to its versatile plugin ecosystem offering extensive customization.

Features: Jenkins is known for its extensive plugin ecosystem, allowing for seamless automation. Its open-source nature and strong community support enable a range of customization through plugins and Groovy scripting. Jenkins excels at continuous integration and deployment, making it vital for managing complex delivery pipelines. GitLab offers robust CI/CD capabilities with seamless tool integration, a user-friendly interface simplifying collaboration and deployments, and comprehensive version control and DevOps features appealing to organizations seeking a unified platform.

Room for Improvement: Jenkins users highlight the need for an updated interface and stability improvements for lesser-used plugins. The installation process requires enhancements to streamline plugin dependencies and expand out-of-the-box features. GitLab, despite its Kubernetes integration, needs better AWS support, enhanced leadership metrics, and reporting features. Users of GitLab's community edition seek improved security and integration with third-party applications.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Jenkins is primarily used for on-premises installations, heavily relying on its large open-source user base for community support. GitLab is community-driven but provides more structured user experiences suitable for hybrid cloud environments along with formal support channels in paid tiers.

Pricing and ROI: Jenkins, being open-source, offers significant cost savings ideal for teams using its extensive plugins without high licensing costs, making it appealing to budget-conscious organizations. GitLab provides free and paid versions, with its Premium and Ultimate tiers offering advanced support and features that are justified by larger enterprises but challenging for smaller teams due to cost concerns.

To learn more, read our detailed GitLab vs. Jenkins Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

GitLab vs. Jenkins

June 2025

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Helped 860,592 peers since 2012

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

GitLab

Ranking in Build Automation

1st

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Security Tools (10th), 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)

Jenkins

Ranking in Build Automation

3rd

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Build Automation category, the mindshare of GitLab is 15.0%, down from 18.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Jenkins is 10.5%, down from 12.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Build Automation

Featured Reviews

Rohit Kesharwani

Manager, Engineering at 7-Eleven

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.

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Mahdi Mallaki

Senior Devops Engineer at Rakuten

Has a community of plugin providers but needs improvement in Kubernetes integration

Integrating Jenkins with other tools or solutions has presented some challenges. For instance, when attempting to integrate Jenkins with Kubernetes, I encountered numerous errors, which took several days to resolve. In Jenkins, adding a feature typically involves incorporating the repository feature separately. Jenkins lacks built-in Git repository functionality, necessitating an external Git repository to store Jenkins manifests. In contrast, GitLab offers an integrated Git repository and pipeline runner, streamlining the process. One improvement for Jenkins could be integrating a Git server, simplifying the management of CI/CD pipelines. Currently, with Jenkins, modifying pipeline manifests requires navigating to a separate Git repository. In GitLab, however, manifest changes can be made directly within the repository.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"CI/CD and GitLab scanning are the most valuable features."

"The most valuable feature of GitLab is its security."

"I like GitLab's security and SAS tools."

"It speeds up our development, it's faster, safer, and more convenient."

"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."

"CI/CD is very good. The version control system is also good. These are the two features that we use."

"Of all available products, it was the easiest to use and easy to install."

"The CI/CD process is very efficient."

More GitLab pros

"We have started to integrate Pipelines as a part of a build, and built a library of common functions. It simplified and made our build scripts more readable."

"The most valuable feature of Jenkins is its continuous deployment. We can deploy to multi-cluster and multi-regions in the cloud."

"Jenkins is a very mature product."

"Jenkins can be used for elastic management, if you have any sensitive data or credentials you can use them across the environment. Additionally, the solution is easy to use and can be used across multiple use cases."

"This solution has helped us in automating the build and test process, reducing time."

"We really appreciate that this solution is plug and play. When coding in the version control system, this product completes the build process automatically."

"It is easy to use."

"Also, the ability to customize these plugins is valuable. Its user-friendliness stands out, especially in its user interface which allows easy installation and configuration."

More Jenkins pros

Cons

"I would like configuration of a YML file to be done via UI rather than a code file."

"The initial setup was quite challenging because it takes some time to understand how to pull out or push the code."

"The pricing model of GitLab is an issue for me."

"While GitLab is a great tool for developers, it lacks project planner features. Roadmaps and Gantt charts in GitLab are not as advanced as in Jira, and changing start and end dates is more laborious in GitLab."

"GitLab's UI could be improved."

"Some of the scripts that we encountered in GitLab were not fully functional and threw up errors."

"I would like to see better integration with project management tools such as Jira."

"I used Spring Cloud config and to connect that to GitLab was so hard."

More GitLab cons

"It can be improved by including automated mobile reporting integrations."

"We cannot change the ownership of any directory or file or any kind of directory."

"Sometimes, random errors of metadata are not there, which causes delays. These are essentially gaps in the information being passed to the job."

"Logging could be improved to offer a clearer view."

"Jenkins is an old product, and we encounter performance issues and slow response. Also, some of the plugins are not stable."

"The solution's UI can use a facelift and the logs can use more detailed information."

"I would like to see even more integrations included in the next release."

"Jenkins could improve by adding the ability to edit test automation and make time planning better because it is difficult. It should be easier to do."

More Jenkins cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This is an open-source solution."

"The price is okay."

"This product is not very expensive but the price can be better."

"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."

"Regarding pricing, I would rate GitLab as moderately priced, maybe around a seven or eight out of ten. It could be more flexible for clients but generally offers good value."

"There are different licensing options available, including a free limited-user license."

"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."

"GitLab is a free solution to use."

More GitLab pricing and cost advice

"In our company, we do pay for the licensing of the solution."

"We use the tool's open-source version which is free. There is an enterprise version which is expensive but comes with better support."

"We are using the free version of Jenkins. There is not a license required to use the solution because it is open-source."

"Jenkins is a free open-source server."

"It's free software with a big community behind it, which is very good."

"It is a free product."

"Jenkins is open-source, so it is free."

"It is a cheap solution."

More Jenkins pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user184734

Systems Administrator at Facebook

Jan 22, 2015

I generally find TeamCity a lot more intuitive than Jenkins.

Moving to TeamCity from Jenkins At work, we’re slowly migrating from Jenkins to TeamCity in the hope of ending some of our recurring problems with continuous integration. My use of Jenkins prior to this job has been almost strictly on a personal basis, although I pretty much only use Travis…

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

13%

Computer Software Company

13%

Educational Organization

12%

Government

10%

Financial Services Firm

21%

Computer Software Company

16%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

How does Tekton compare with Jenkins?

When you are evaluating tools for automating your own GitOps-based CI/CD workflow, it is important to keep your requirements and use cases in mind. Tekton deployment is complex and it is not very e...

See all answers

What do you like most about Jenkins?

Jenkins has been instrumental in automating our build and deployment processes.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Jenkins?

Jenkins is used in many companies to save money, especially within R&D divisions, by avoiding the expenses of proprietary tools.

See all answers

Comparisons

Microsoft Azure DevOps vs GitLab

Compared 24% of the time

GitHub CoPilot vs GitLab

Compared 16% of the time

SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) vs GitLab

Compared 6% of the time

TeamCity vs GitLab

Compared 5% of the time

OpenText Static Application Security Testing vs GitLab

Compared 2% of the time

More GitLab Competitors

Harness vs Jenkins

Compared 17% of the time

Bazel vs Jenkins

Compared 9% of the time

Tekton vs Jenkins

Compared 8% of the time

Bamboo vs Jenkins

Compared 7% of the time

JFrog Pipeline vs Jenkins

Compared 7% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

GitLab

June 2025

Download GitLab product report

Buyer's Guide

Jenkins

June 2025

Download Jenkins product report

Also Known As

Fuzzit

No data available

Overview

GitLab is a complete DevOps platform that enables teams to collaborate and deliver software faster.

It provides a single application for the entire DevOps lifecycle, from planning and development to testing, deployment, and monitoring.

With GitLab, teams can streamline their workflows, automate processes, and improve productivity.

GitLab

Jenkins is an award-winning application that monitors executions of repeated jobs, such as building a software project or jobs run by cron.

Jenkins

Sample Customers

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

Airial, Clarus Financial Technology, cubetutor, Metawidget, mysocio, namma, silverpeas, Sokkva, So Rave, tagzbox

Buyer's Guide

GitLab vs. Jenkins

June 2025

Free Report: GitLab vs. Jenkins

Find out what your peers are saying about GitLab vs. Jenkins and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.

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