GitLab vs Travis CI comparison

GitLab and Travis CI are both solutions in the Build Automation category. GitLab is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.3, while Travis CI is ranked #21 with an average rating of 6.0. GitLab holds a 12.2% mindshare in BA, compared to Travis CI’s 1.3% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of GitLab users are willing to recommend the solution.

GitLab

Read 86 GitLab reviews

18,203 Views
4,187 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

Travis CI

Read 2 Travis CI reviews

415 Views
415 Comparison Views

0% willing to recommend

GitLab

Travis CI

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 5, 2025

Travis CI and GitLab compete in the continuous integration and deployment domain. GitLab seems to have the upper hand due to its feature-rich environment, despite potentially higher costs.

Features: Travis CI provides valuable features like easy configuration with YAML, native support for various programming languages, and a quick setup process. GitLab stands out with a complete DevOps lifecycle solution, offering source code management, issue tracking, and application performance monitoring, showcasing its versatility compared to Travis CI's streamlined approach.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: GitLab offers a unified platform with flexible on-premises and cloud deployment options supported by detailed documentation and extensive integration capabilities, although setup might require more effort. Travis CI offers a straightforward cloud-based setup, reducing deployment complexity, but with less flexibility for customization. GitLab's model may be more complex but allows for greater scalability and support.

Pricing and ROI: Travis CI has a straightforward pricing model suitable for smaller teams or projects with budget constraints, potentially leading to quicker ROI due to low maintenance costs. GitLab's pricing is higher but delivers substantial ROI by streamlining the software development lifecycle for larger teams needing an all-in-one solution, providing broader value.

To learn more, read our detailed Build Automation Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Build Automation

September 2025

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Helped 868,787 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

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Security Tools (11th), 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 (3rd), DevSecOps (1st)

Travis CI

Ranking in Build Automation

21st

Average Rating

6.0

Reviews Sentiment

3.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Build Automation category, the mindshare of GitLab is 12.2%, down from 17.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Travis CI is 1.3%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Build Automation Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
GitLab	12.2%
Travis CI	1.3%
Other	86.5%

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 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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Pravar Agrawal

Senior SRE at IBM

YAML-based configuration and simple deployment but user interface needs modernizing

Travis CI is an okay tool, and I am forced to use it as part of my job. I don't maintain it; it is running somewhere else, and I don't have control over it. The interface is very basic and not user-friendly; it feels like it was stuck in 2010. It is very basic and designed for lightweight CI work, and it cannot handle heavy CI. You cannot do branched flows, and you will have to write shell scripts to send calls here and there. The pipelines are not as detailed as some other CI/CD tools. If Travis is down, you don't have any control over it and need to reach out to their customer support.

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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

"Key features allow creation of well-presented Wiki that includes ideas, development, and domains."

"We use the Git repository and tagging feature. We are a product-based company and use this solution to move to a forward or backward tag."

"If you want to maintain your issues in GitLab and raise your book of work and features, then GitLab is a great tool for collaboration and integration with code deployment and CICD pipelines."

"The initial setup of GitLab is pretty simple, with no complications."

"It's a great toolbox where the CI/CD pipeline is the fundamental component, but there are so many other features that you can pull from, which makes it a very powerful tool. My current client is using AWS, and they can, of course, use AWS CodePipeline, but GitLab is much more mature than that, and it also gives you the freedom to decide to go to another platform or have a multi-cloud strategy and things like that. That freedom for me is also very valuable."

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

"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."

"We use GitLab in the new project for CI/CD, integration, and deployment."

More GitLab pros

"The only thing I like about Travis CI is that you have a YAML file to define a Travis flow."

Cons

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

"For as long as I have used GitLab, I haven't encountered any major limitations. However, I think that perhaps the search functionality could be better."

"Based on what I know so far, its integration with Kubernetes is not so good. We have to develop many things to make it work. We have to acquire third-party components to work with Kubernetes."

"I would like to see security increased in the future. A secure environment is very important."

"We have only seen a couple of issues on Gitlab, which we use for building some of the applications."

"I rate the support from GitLab a four out of five."

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

"GitLab doesn't have AWS integration. It would be better to have integration with other container management environments beyond Kubernetes. It has very good integration with Kubernetes, but it doesn't have good integration with, for example, AWS, ETS, etc."

More GitLab cons

"The interface is very basic and not user-friendly; it feels like it was stuck in 2010."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution's pricing is acceptable."

"GitLab is an open-source solution."

"We are currently using the open-source version."

"It seems reasonable. Our IT team manages the licenses."

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

"The solution is free."

"The initial setup cost is excellent and you can add the premium features later."

"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."

More GitLab pricing and cost advice

Information not available

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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

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	35
Midsize Enterprise	9
Large Enterprise	42

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?

We are currently using general GitLab, not GitLab Premium.

See all answers

What needs improvement with GitLab?

GitLab needs to improve the CI/CD functionality because it is not compatible with Jenkins and other tools, as it is not that efficient. Security-wise, we have security features enabled in GitLab fo...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Travis CI?

I'm not too sure about the pricing of Travis or how the agreement works.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Travis CI?

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Travis CI?

Travis CI is mainly used to run integration tests as part of the deployment, which I do on Kubernetes. The Travis workflows are integrated with any changes in my code. It will have different jobs, ...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 38% of the time

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Compared 12% of the time

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Compared 5% of the time

Tekton vs GitLab

Compared 5% of the time

SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) vs GitLab

Compared 3% of the time

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Compared 100% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

GitLab

September 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Build Automation

September 2025

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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

Easily sync your GitHub projects with Travis CI and you'll be testing your code in minutes. Travis CI for private repositories has plans for every size project. With Travis CI testing your open source project is 100% free.

Travis CI

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

Facebook, Heroku, Mozilla, Zendesk, twitter, Rails

Find out what your peers are saying about GitLab, Google, GitHub and others in Build Automation. Updated: September 2025.

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