A terrific team stands behind every outstanding product. Teams of today are dynamic and varied, bringing with them new possibilities and difficulties due to the different skill sets that they comprise.
Each teamwork-intensive endeavor, then, presents a chance for both professional and personal development.
All team members should be aware of each other’s activities and have unfettered access to any code created by their colleagues in software development projects. The need for open-source software has resulted in code repositories continuously developing.
Version control systems—software that enables recording code changes and uploading new versions—make it feasible.
A project hosting service is a service that archives projects to provide access to several computers and developers.
All significant research and development initiatives rely on these platforms since they make it possible to monitor the team’s progress and access code from any device.
This post compares GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket in great depth and delves deep into the nature of version control systems.
First, we will look at the introduction of the version control system.
So, what is a version control system?
A remote mediator known as a version control system (VCS) provides developers with the most recent source code and keeps track of any alterations made to the project.
It is a collection of technologies that aid in establishing and upkeep a collaborative environment for developers. One server houses the primary data in a version control system, and several local workstations communicate with it.
Let’s go through their structure and key terms to better comprehend version control systems.
Let’s examine the origin of the need for a VCS first. We can picture a team building an app. The group has to set up many processes in order to have an effective workflow.
How can I synchronize my work on identical files and receive regular updates on fresh code changes? How can a searchable log of all previous updates be obtained?
And how many other features be tested out without interfering with the primary workflow?
A version control system is helpful in this situation.
Creating a connection to a repository: The development team must first link their local PCs to the main server hosting the project repository. All modifications are tracked and kept in the repository, which is the server’s main database. Changes made from a repository are subsequently published or added to a finished product.
Pull requests: Being linked enables any developer to submit a pull request from a repository at any time. A pull request that is started counts as an update. With it, a developer can request the most recent copy of the code to be downloaded to their local workstation from the server.
Committed code: Anyone can submit their own updates into the shared process in addition to retrieving the data onto their own workstation. There are actually two phases. A commit is an initial step involving gathering all the changes on a local computer before submitting them to the central server. In essence, saving changes in the local system requires committing them to the project.
Push request: The push request is the second stage. One must either issue a push request or push to publish commits to the repository. Requests for code updates are transmitted to the repository using a push.
Employing branches: Developers can construct branches, which are essentially duplicates of the entire codebase or a portion of it, in the repository to experiment and advance with the code in a more dynamic fashion. There are two different kinds of branches: the master, which contains all of the final modifications, and the branch as a copy, which allows isolated changes to be made before being included in the master.
Code evaluation: Any team member is able to review code fragments in branches. After the code has been posted into the repository, it is verified as part of the review process.
Merge.: Eventually, when code verification is finished, branches can be combined. Moving a modification from one branch to another or to the master branch is known as merging.
Therefore, when the team develops an app using a VCS, members can commit their own changes to the project and push them to the repository, review the code as a whole, pull a fresh update of the code on a local machine, keep track of the previous modifications, work out different features on duplicated branches, and finally merge them with the master. Here is a brief summary of VCS.
Now let’s start with each of them individually and then compare them at the end.
What is Github?
Developers from California established GitHub in 2008, and Microsoft purchased the company in the middle of 2018.
According to platform stats, at the start of 2022, 4 million enterprises and over 83 million developers were using the source, and there were over 200 million hosted repositories overall.
The foundation of GitHub’s strategy, social coding, is what helped it grow to be so well-known. The site initially offered free open-source project collaboration.
Since that time, GitHub has drawn developers from all around the world who want to become involved in projects, exhibit their own work, obtain community assistance, or find solutions to problems.
Very fast, GitHub expanded from being only a trusted and stable VCS to a valued and vibrant developer community. The straightforward User Interface of GitHub helps developers get into the swing of using Git algorithms fast.
Another distinguishing feature of the service is how rapidly requests are pushed, pulled, and versions are merged.
The social component was accentuated even more with the launch of GitHub Pages, a straightforward way for developers to create web pages on the platform.
A developer’s portfolio and talents are shown on GitHub, which also shows that the developer is familiar with version control systems and how to cooperate with them.
This puts the developer in the possible crosshairs of hiring managers looking to hire developers.
Features
- Project managers and developers collaborate on projects using GitHub in order to plan, track, and update their work in a transparent manner.
- Additionally, there are desktop programs for Windows and Mac and an Android app.
- support for more than 200 programming languages
- Basic VCS tools and a number of additional instruments that utilize those tools in some way are included in version control system features. For instance, GitHub provides secured branches, alerts for code owners, drafts for pull requests, and reviews amongst designated people and teams.
- On GitHub, CI/CD and automation refer to services like GitHub Pages and GitHub Marketplace as well as continuous integration and continuous deployment automation.
- With two-factor authentication for login, status checks, code scanning to remove vulnerabilities, and security warnings for team members, GitHub is highly protected.
- Get ideas for entire lines or complete functions directly within your editor with GitHub Copilot.
- By referring to or commenting on many lines simultaneously in a pull request diff view, you can clarify code reviews.
- A designated area where members of your community can meet and engage in open-ended discussions and queries.
What is GitLab?
GitLab serves as a remote host for repositories, just like the prior VCS. It was released to the market in 2014 and was developed by a group of two developers, one from the Netherlands and the other from Ukraine.
GitLab provides much more than merely saving the code and making collaboration easier, though.
GitLab supports the whole DevOps cycle, which sets it apart from other GIT repositories. Developers and operators engage in continuous contact as part of the DevOps creation process.
DevOps also suggests a high degree of automation, allowing all development and application activities to move quickly between phases. Testing, releasing and displaying become significantly faster as a consequence.
GitLab has integrated continuous integration, continuous deployment, and continuous delivery procedures into its system to support DevOps. These tools provide direct building-process control from the GIT.
Those who are interested in automation should surely pay attention to a post on our site that is devoted to the CI/CD tools. In a nutshell, the development, security, operation, and business workflows are flawlessly integrated on GitLab alone, allowing for speedier delivery of the finished product and more seamless collaboration.
Not to mention, there is still one more thing to say regarding GitLab. The fact that the platform is open-source and covered by an MIT license offers two advantages.
To start, anybody can participate in GitLab development and watch its progress. This explains why the platform is packed with features and regularly introduces new ones.
GitLab can be hosted and used locally because it is open-source, which means that private repositories and codes aren’t accessible to outsiders.
Features
- With the use of epics, groups (programs), and milestones, GitLab provides portfolio planning and management.
- Multiple problems can be quickly given the same status, milestone, or assignee, and you can filter them according to any property. View issues and milestones for all projects.
- a GitLab project can import Jira bugs.
- GitLab issues are delivered as an attachment to your usual notification email and can be exported as CSV files.
- There are several features in GitLab’s version control system. In addition to simple version control solutions, there are also technologies that are designed to break a process between a repository and local workstations into smaller, more precisely managed steps.
- Within GitLab, create and examine test cases. This makes it possible for contributors to work together easily.
- Code quality reporting, vulnerability management, Infrastructure as Code Security Scanning, Dynamic Application Security Testing, and Dynamic API Security Testing are among the security solutions suggested by the platform.
- Planning tools including problems, task lists, assignees to projects, and time tracking are available to help manage projects more quickly and effectively. As part of the package, general business performance supervision is also provided.
- The foundation of GitLab is CI/CD automation. With the intention of aiding and automating continuous integration, continuous deployment, and continuous delivery, the VCS process is built on DevOps. When CI/CD is successful, GitLab provides automated merge requests, and DevOps reports identify areas for improvement.
What is Bitbucket?
One of the top three GIT version control systems in use today is Bitbucket. After being introduced in 2008, Atlassian purchased the service in 2010.
For project management software like Trello, Jira, and Confluence, Atlassian is well known among businesses.
Despite having less functionality than GitLab or GitHub, Bitbucket draws businesses with easy connections thanks to its parent firm. Bitbucket rose to prominence on the market since it was once the only one providing limitless, cost-free private repositories.
The service attracted startups and small organizations that were on the lookout for innovative corporate solutions and were adamant about keeping their source code to themselves. Other GIT systems already provide private repositories in free plans as well.
Apart from that, Bitbucket is free for legitimate nonprofits and charities, and it also provides student and teacher discounts.
The Bitbucket is utilized for workflow management, access control, pull requests, Jira integration, and complete rest API. Bitbucket, which offers access control, provides the limitation of source code.
Workflow control is used to enforce a project or team and pull requests are carried inside the inline comment to facilitate code reviews. Jira integration handles the traceability of the whole development process.
Features
- The Bitbucket version control system tools come with all the typical VCS capabilities. The primary contrast is that this service, which preserves the primary emphasis on integrated tools and their symbiosis, adds to the project structure of repositories.
- The strength of Bitbucket is project management. The natural interfaces this version control system has with Jira, Confluence, Trello, Bamboo, and Opsgenie allow it to flow all internal processes—including CI/CD deployment—through the aforementioned platforms.
- Crucible Jenkins, Jira, and Bamboo can offer tool integration services.
- In order to enable CI/CD automation, Bitbucket first integrates with Jira. This focuses on integration, deployment, and automated dev to deployment.
- Automated vulnerability monitoring, pull request screening, and a security dashboard with associated data are all examples of security methods.
- Code reviews pull requests, and organization-level branch comparisons are a few of Bitbucket’s key features.
- Smart mirrors, which accelerate clone and fetching times as well as verify that work is synchronized and secured to the committed history, give the distributed system speed.
GitHub vs GitLab vs Bitbucket
Open-source
Only GitLab is an open-source GIT out of the three version control programs. For businesses that wish to operate VCS locally and maintain the privacy of their code, open-source quality can be quite intriguing, as we previously indicated.
However, Bitbucket is frequently chosen by enterprises, despite the fact that GitHub still has the most influential community. So, until it is, being open-source is not a crucial aspect.
Integrations
The most well-known version control system is undoubtedly Bitbucket because of its integrations, which essentially allow it to evolve in sync with business workflow tools that are already built into this VCS.
To be fair, though, GitLab also has a strong relationship with Jira and other issue trackers. In addition, GitHub’s Marketplace is home to hundreds more applications.
Project Distribution
GitHub is frequently utilized by businesses and organizations because it distributes projects at the organizational level. The project can be divided among the team members thanks to the Bitbucket platform’s ability to distribute at the team level.
The GitLab platform supports group project distribution and gives group members access to and sharing rights over the project code.
Community
In terms of community, GitHub is unquestionably in the lead. On Stack Overflow, there are around 50,000 queries with the tag “GitHub.” The platform itself is well-known for being a place where developers can have discussions, collaborate, and look for experience and knowledge.
In contrast, GitLab is undoubtedly a smaller community, with just about 15,000 searches by tag on Stack Overflow, but it is still highly well-liked among programmers. This is in large part due to its continually updated features and open-source nature.
Finally, Bitbucket lacks a robust community core, with just a little more than 7,000 requests found in the search results on Stack Overflow.
However, Bitbucket also excels in other areas, including integrations and a workflow style that is reminiscent of a corporation.
Import Repository
Repository management solutions must allow for the import of repositories from one platform to another if we are talking about them. The repository can be imported using GitHub from one platform to another.
Users of GitLab can only import repositories from the git platform. Additionally, Bitbucket enables repository imports, but only from systems that use Mercurial.
Therefore, in this situation, if you wish to import the repository from one platform to another, GitHub and Bitbucket are the best options.
DevOps and CI/CD integration
Continuous integration and continuous deployment are now available on GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket as of the beginning of 2022, as they have been constantly requested by developers for, well, pretty much forever.
Bitbucket and GitHub make important advancements in the development of DevOps. However, GitLab, with its ongoing emphasis on the entire DevOps lifecycle and integrated CI/CD, continues to hold the leadership position.
Pricing
You can start using Github for free and it also offers premium plans which start from $4/user/month.
You can start using GitLab for free and it also offers premium plans which start from $19/user/month.
You can start using Bitbucket for free and it also offers premium plans which start from $3/user/month.
Conclusion
Let’s examine which platform works best for you and your business now that you have a better understanding of them.
Given that users can submit their own projects and use them as an online portfolio, GitHub is a fantastic option if you solely want to work on open-source projects.
In contrast, if you are an enterprise, you can utilize GitLab.
Free public and private repositories are available, and there are no user-count restrictions. GitLab can be a fantastic option for you if you wish to host several repositories and collaborate with many people.
Due to its user interface, BitBucket is the most preferred choice amongst many enterprises.
Additionally, it supports mercurial. BitBucket is a fantastic option if you are an organization and you want to host your project.
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