DevOps / Gitlab Interview questions
What is the difference between GitLab and GitHub?
GitLab and GitHub are both web platforms for hosting Git repositories, but they grew from different priorities. GitHub started as a social code-hosting site and is now owned by Microsoft, while GitLab was built from day one as a single-application DevOps platform covering the full software lifecycle.
The most practical difference shows up in CI/CD: GitLab's pipelines are native to the product via .gitlab-ci.yml, while GitHub relies on the separate GitHub Actions system with its own YAML syntax and marketplace of third-party actions.
| GitLab | GitHub |
CI/CD built in from the start (.gitlab-ci.yml). | CI/CD added later as GitHub Actions. |
| Review unit is the merge request. | Review unit is the pull request. |
| Free self-managed option with full source access (CE). | No comparable free self-hosted core product. |
| Owned by GitLab Inc., independent company. | Owned by Microsoft. |
Neither is strictly "better" in every case; GitHub tends to win on open-source community size and ecosystem, while GitLab tends to win on having planning, security scanning, and CI/CD unified in one product without stitching in third-party apps.
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