GitLab vs Spinnaker comparison

GitLab and Spinnaker are both solutions in the Release Automation category. GitLab is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.6, while Spinnaker is ranked #8 with an average rating of 7.3. GitLab holds a 30.4% mindshare in RA, compared to Spinnaker’s 1.7% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of GitLab users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 75% of Spinnaker users who would recommend it.

GitLab

Read 85 GitLab reviews

19,768 Views
8,896 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

Spinnaker

Read 4 Spinnaker reviews

366 Views
366 Comparison Views

75% willing to recommend

GitLab

Spinnaker

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 7, 2025

GitLab and Spinnaker both operate within the software development category, focusing on continuous integration and deployment. GitLab holds an advantage with its comprehensive feature list and user-friendly interface, whereas Spinnaker specializes in complex deployments with multi-cloud capabilities.

Features: GitLab provides a robust integration for DevOps lifecycle management, including CI/CD pipelines, version control, and monitoring. It offers seamless automation and strong security features, making it versatile for various development tasks. Spinnaker specializes in application release orchestration with support for multi-cloud environments, providing flexibility in delivery strategies and advanced deployment patterns.

Room for Improvement: GitLab could enhance its capacity for complex deployment scenarios to match Spinnaker's strengths. Additionally, while its interface is user-friendly, more customizable options could benefit users with specific needs. Spinnaker might improve its initial setup process to make it more accessible, reducing technical barriers for new users. Further refinement in user interface and comprehensive documentation could also enhance user experience.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: GitLab is praised for its straightforward setup and smooth integration with both cloud-based and on-premise solutions. Its extensive documentation and active community support provide a solid customer service experience. Spinnaker, on the other hand, presents challenges in deployment due to complex setup requirements, yet its scalability and strong community support are notable.

Pricing and ROI: GitLab offers transparent pricing with tiered options that cater to different scales, leading to a rapid ROI given its ample integrated tools. Spinnaker, while free of licensing costs as an open-source platform, might incur higher initial setup costs due to its complexity. However, for long-term operations requiring sophisticated deployments, Spinnaker can provide significant ROI through its specialized efficiencies.

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

Buyer's Guide

GitLab vs. Spinnaker

July 2025

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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 Release Automation

2nd

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Security Tools (11th), Build Automation (1st), Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (7th), Rapid Application Development Software (10th), Software Composition Analysis (SCA) (5th), Enterprise Agile Planning Tools (2nd), Fuzz Testing Tools (2nd), DevSecOps (1st)

Spinnaker

Ranking in Release Automation

8th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Release Automation category, the mindshare of GitLab is 30.4%, down from 36.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Spinnaker is 1.7%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Release 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 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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Anurag Bandyopadhyay

Product Development Engineer at Razorpay

Useful to create custom pipelines

Regarding areas for improvement, one significant issue is the lack of maker-checker flows to ensure that newly created pipelines are accurate and tested. We currently use an in-house abstraction over Spinnaker to verify pipeline specs, environment variables, etc. It would be beneficial if Spinnaker could offer this functionality within their product.

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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

"I have found the most valuable feature is security control. I also like the branching and cloning software."

"The CI/CD pipeline with Helm has significantly improved deployment speed and efficiency."

"GitLab has better support, and its features are superior compared to Jenkins."

"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."

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

"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."

"The solution has an established roadmap that lays out its plans for upgrades over the next two to three years."

"The solution's service delivery model is fantastic."

More GitLab pros

"The most valuable feature of Spinnaker is the rollback."

"There is a good community around the product that makes troubleshooting possible."

"The tool's most valuable feature is its intuitive interface for converting existing Kubernetes specs into working pipelines. It's easy for anyone to deploy anything on any environment when they need to test or deploy for a specific merchant or use case. Instead of going into the specs and changing different variables, they can do it through the UI, which is very useful."

"Spinnaker is used for automating a variety of deployment tasks, infrastructure, provisioning tasks, and all kinds of things."

Cons

"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."

"The pricing has been substantially increased, which is a major concern."

"We would like to generate document pages from the sources."

"The documentation could be improved to help newcomers better understand things like creating new branches."

"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."

"GitLab's Windows version is yet not available and having this would be an improvement."

"The solution could be faster."

"It should be used by a larger number of people. They should raise awareness."

More GitLab cons

"Log-wise, we need to understand why something has failed so that we can understand and try to fix it the moment the issue is reported. The solution could use more robust monitoring."

"Spinnaker's configuration setup is too complicated and should be made easy."

"Regarding areas for improvement, one significant issue is the lack of maker-checker flows to ensure that newly created pipelines are accurate and tested. We currently use an in-house abstraction over Spinnaker to verify pipeline specs, environment variables, etc. It would be beneficial if Spinnaker could offer this functionality within their product."

"Every time it goes to run a pipeline, it just generates a lot of data, and its database is not exactly tuned out of the box, meaning it is not tuned for high scalability."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"GitLab is an open-source solution."

"In total, I believe we have more than 300 licenses spread over about 100 users, though I can't comment on the costs involved."

"I don't mind the price because I use the free version."

"I'm not aware of the licensing costs because those were covered by the customer."

"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."

"On a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive, I rate the pricing a five out of ten."

"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 is free."

More GitLab pricing and cost advice

"The solution is open-source."

"Spinnaker is a free-to-use, open-source solution."

"Spinnaker is an open-source product. The tool is completely free for users."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

14%

Government

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

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?

Regarding improvements, making task management is something that GitLab can potentially make easier, similar to what DevOps or Jira does.

See all answers

What do you like most about Spinnaker?

The most valuable feature of Spinnaker is the rollback.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Spinnaker?

The solution is open-source.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Spinnaker?

See all answers

Comparisons

Microsoft Azure DevOps vs GitLab

Compared 31% of the time

GitHub CoPilot vs GitLab

Compared 14% of the time

SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) vs GitLab

Compared 5% of the time

TeamCity vs GitLab

Compared 5% of the time

Tekton vs GitLab

Compared 5% of the time

More GitLab Competitors

Octopus Deploy vs Spinnaker

Compared 37% of the time

Microsoft Azure DevOps vs Spinnaker

Compared 22% of the time

UrbanCode Deploy vs Spinnaker

Compared 16% of the time

More Spinnaker Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

GitLab

August 2025

Download GitLab product report

Buyer's Guide

Release Automation

July 2025

Download Spinnaker product report

Also Known As

Fuzzit

No data available

Overview

GitLab offers a secure and user-friendly platform for CI/CD pipeline management, code repository control, and collaboration, enhancing development speed and efficiency. It facilitates automation with extensive customization and tool integration, ideal for DevOps processes.

GitLab supports source code management, version control, and collaborative development. It's frequently used in CI/CD processes to automate builds and deployments while integrating DevOps practices. GitLab allows companies to manage repositories, automate pipelines, conduct code reviews, and maintain development lifecycles. The platform supports infrastructure and configuration management, enabling efficient code collaboration, deployment automation, and comprehensive repository handling. Many organizations commit and deploy developed code using GitLab's capabilities.

What are GitLab's most valuable features?

CI/CD Pipeline Management: Streamlines development through automated testing and deployment.
User-Friendly Interface: Ensures ease of collaboration and task automation.
Code Merging and Branching: Facilitates smooth code integration and version control.
Security Platform: Provides strong security features for safe development.
Tool Integration: Enhances functionality with diverse tool integration.

What benefits should users evaluate?

Development Speed: Accelerates processes through automation.
Collaboration Ease: Simplifies team interactions and workflow.
Customization Options: Offers extensive personalization for specific needs.
Comprehensive Documentation: Provides detailed guidance for users.
Secure Platform: Maintains integrity with robust security features.

In specific industries, GitLab serves as a backbone for source code management and CI/CD implementation. Companies leverage its capabilities for infrastructure management and deployment automation, thus streamlining project delivery timelines. Its ability to handle configuration management and code repositories effectively aids in maintaining development lifecycles, making it a preferred choice for organizations committed to enhancing their DevOps practices.

GitLab

Spinnaker provides application management and deployment to help you release software changes with high velocity and confidence. Spinnaker is an open-source, multi-cloud continuous delivery platform that combines a powerful and flexible pipeline management system with integrations to the major cloud providers. If you are looking to standardize your release processes and improve quality, Spinnaker is for you.

Spinnaker

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

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Buyer's Guide

GitLab vs. Spinnaker

July 2025

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