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GitLab vs Semgrep comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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 Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
4th
Ranking in Software Composition Analysis (SCA)
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
91
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (7th), Build Automation (1st), Release Automation (2nd), Rapid Application Development Software (11th), Enterprise Agile Planning Tools (2nd), Fuzz Testing Tools (2nd), DevSecOps (1st)
Semgrep
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
18th
Ranking in Software Composition Analysis (SCA)
11th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Supply Chain Management Software (3rd), Static Code Analysis (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of GitLab is 2.2%, down from 2.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Semgrep is 2.5%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
GitLab2.2%
Semgrep2.5%
Other95.3%
Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Manjunath Maneppagol - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud & Application Security at Sixt SE
Context-aware code analysis has reduced noise and now improves developer experience with actionable security findings
I have consistently observed that their scan time is an issue for mono repos. Sometimes with their AI-based scanning, when you triage that scan, the scan never completes or finishes(, which makes it difficult. Another consistent issue is that whenever you have a new repo to onboard to the platform, the tool ideally should detect the master branch by default. However, sometimes the tool fails to identify it and will never scan it unless manually somebody looks into it and fixes the issue. Although their support team is really good, this issue was present six or eight months ago during the POC and is still present now. If it is affecting multiple customers, it should be prioritized and fixed. I would say that their integration aspects could have been improved. I see a lot of different security solutions that provide flexibility to the security teams based on Jira project, team divisions, Slack, and all those can be very much easily customized. Semgrep needs to work on the enhancement of their notification capabilities. Currently, they are working on identifying business logic vulnerabilities or privilege escalation vulnerabilities by looking at the code, and they should continue to focus on and improve this effort. Regarding stability, whenever you have a mono-repo which is a very large repository, the scan never finishes or the scan never kicks in. At that time, you have to reach out to the support team and ask them to expand the resources in the back end to fix it. This is an issue I keep seeing often on that platform.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is a speedy platform compared to the others I have used. I have also enjoyed using the platform as this solution offers a good user experience."
"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."
"GitLab is being used as a repository for our codebase and it is a one stop DevOps tool we use in our team."
"I was satisfied with the support."
"We have seen a couple of merge requests or pull requests raised in GitLab. I see the interface, the way it shows the difference between the two source codes, that it is easy for anyone to do the review and then accept the request; the pull request is the valuable feature."
"GitLab is very well-organized and easy to use. Also, it offers most features that customers need."
"GitLab is scalable and works well with multiple environments."
"Git merging allows us to track the details of how and who has done what; this is the best feature which is useful for all companies."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to write our custom rules."
"Compared to other competitors in the market, the AI-backed capability is the biggest strength of Semgrep."
"The best part of Semgrep is its ease of integration with CI/CD pipelines and how it is a developer-friendly tool."
 

Cons

"I would like to see static analysis also embedded in GitLab. That would also help us. If there's something that it does internally by GitLab and then that is already tied up with your pipeline and then it can tell you that you're coding is good or your code is not great. Based on that, it would pass or fail. That should be streamlined. I would think that would help to a greater extent, in terms of having one solution rather than depending on multiple vendors."
"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."
"However, I think that perhaps the search functionality could be better."
"GitLab would be improved with the addition of templates for deployment on local PCs."
"GitLab should work on improving their user interface for GitOps as it is lagging behind."
"It could have more security integrations and the ability to check the vulnerability of the code. I don't think it is a responsibility of Gitlab, but it would be nice to have more options to integrate with."
"Technologies are always changing. Nowadays, new things like serverless computing and workload management have emerged. We have noticed a few gap items for faster service delivery. For example, we do user interface testing in the latest team and automate it using some tools. Recently, we integrated a tool with user interface testing, which can simulate a multi-user environment. So, we would like to see more integration with different platforms."
"GitLab can improve its user interface to make conflict resolution more user-friendly."
"I have consistently observed that their scan time is an issue; sometimes with their AI-based scanning, when you triage that scan, the scan never completes or finishes, which makes it difficult."
"There should be more information on how to acquire the system, catering to beginners in application security, to make it more user-friendly."
"However, as a tool it is really complex to maintain and to use, and it has a huge price tag."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is based on a subscription model and is reasonably priced."
"I don't mind the price because I use the free version."
"The initial setup cost is excellent and you can add the premium features later."
"The price is okay."
"We are using the open-source version."
"This is an open-source solution."
"The open-source version is very good and the commercial version is reasonably priced."
"GitLab is cheap."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business37
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise46
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for GitLab?
The setup cost for GitLab is minimal since the team has its own minimal resource balancing. The costing falls into an intermediate stage and is impactful across all results within the team. It allo...
What needs improvement with GitLab?
There are many improvements that GitLab can implement, such as addressing the issue of caching. Currently, when I have multiple tasks to merge or attempt multiple merges, the CI/CD and overall GitL...
What is your primary use case for GitLab?
My main use case for GitLab is as a version control system that we are using. Currently, I am working on an end-to-end AI pipeline, and I have deployed my whole code using GitLab so that all things...
What needs improvement with Semgrep?
The coverage of Semgrep could be a bit better, as there are other tools that are more specialized in other areas of security. Semgrep as an SCA tool is adequate, but if you want to use some other p...
What is your primary use case for Semgrep?
I use Semgrep mainly for its software composition analysis capabilities to identify vulnerabilities in dependencies used in our applications. Every time a new feature is developed or a new version ...
What advice do you have for others considering Semgrep?
The first thing you need to do is to integrate Semgrep with your CI/CD pipelines and once they are running, invest time in reading documentation and getting yourself familiar with all of the produc...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Fuzzit
Semgrep Code, Semgrep Supply Chain, Semgrep AppSec Platform
 

Overview

 

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
Policygenius, Tide, Lyft, Thinkific, FloQast, Vanta, and Fareportal
Find out what your peers are saying about GitLab vs. Semgrep and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.