GitHub Vs Bitbucket Vs GitLab | Version Control Systems

The demand for the modern version control system(GitHub vs Bitbucket vs GitLab) is an inevitable part of the development world. The secret behind the smooth process of web development is the dependency on the control version system, as it helps to maintain the flow in the development. Generally, version control systems are categorized into two:- centralized and distributed version control systems. Before getting deeper into the version control systems, let have a look at what is version control systems?

GitHub vs Bitbucket vs GitLab - An Overview

What is Version Control Systems?

Version Control System or VCS is a kind of software tool that helps to keep records and track any changes and modifications done to the code. Commonly, version control systems consist of a
Repository which is known as the database of any changes or edits in the historical version of the project.
Checkout is the personal copy of a code, where you can make changes and give a final commit to the code without making edits to anyone else’s code.

As we have mentioned earlier, version control systems are of two types: Centralized Version Control Systems and Distributed Version Control Systems.

Centralized Version Control Systems

The systems contain only one repository and every user will get their own working copy. To reflect changes in the code, you need to commit changes in the repository. Once you commit changes to the repository, everyone else can see the updates in the repository. Here you can perform two commands:

Commit
Update

Distributed Version Control Systems

The distributed version control systems work differently as compared to the centralized version control systems. Here every user has their own repository as well as a working copy. Any changes or commit to the local repository will not make it accessible for others. You need to push code to the central repository to make it visible to others. You can pull code to check changes done by another user.

Here you can perform four commands:

Commit
Push
Pull
Update

So, let’s move forward to decide which is the best version control system for you: GitHub vs Bitbucket vs GitLab

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GitHub vs Bitbucket vs GitLab: Which is the best version control system for you?

GitHub vs Bitbucket vs GitLab: Introduction

GitHub

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GitHub is one of the most popular platforms for sharing development codes among the developers for faster deployment. In 2008, GitHub was introduced as an Internet hosting service and web-based Git or version control repository written using Ruby and Erlang. GitHub was launched by Tom Preston-Werner, Chris Wanstrath, and PJ Hyatt. GitHub is considered as one of the largest repository hosts containing over 38 million projects.

Features of GitHub

GitHub allows collaborative coding by allowing the project quick setup and instant changes to the project’s code.
GitHub facilitates automation in everything including planning, project management, testing, etc.
GitHub is known for its fantastic security features as it automatically reviews all the changes done to your codebase.
GitHub provides a huge support community from the GitHub marketplace, GitHub sponsors, and GitHub learning lab, etc.

Bitbucket

Bitbucket is also launched in the same year, 2008 by an Australian startup company to provide support to the Mercurial Projects. Initially, it was used only for the Mercurial projects, but later on, it was adopted by the company, Atlassian in 2011. After which it also started to support the Git hosting. Due to the pricing plans of Bitbucket, an immense number of developers prefer to choose Bitbucket.

Features of Bitbucket

Bitbucket offers continuous code and team collaboration, and delivery of quality code.
Bitbucket provides the branch permissions in the form of granular access control for your team.
CI/CD integration in Bitbucket allows you to build, deploy, and test the code automatically.

GitLab

GitLab was developed by Dmitriy Zaporozhets and Valery Sizov in the year 2011, in order to create an alternative version control systems and repository management solutions. GitLab is also considered as a git hosting solution involving a large set of tools.

Features of GitLab

GitLab provides the built-in Docker registry.
GitLab offers the integrated CI pipelines and automation for your projects.
GitLab provides a large number of syntax themes and third-party integration tools.

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GitHub vs Bitbucket vs GitLab: Pricing

GitHub providing amazing features in a free plan that allows you to host an unlimited number of public repositories with amazing features like clone, fork, and contribute to them. GitHub offers a free plan for public repositories. But if you want the private one then you need to pay $25 per month for the first 5 users, but after this, it will charge $9 per user.

Bitbucket offers a free plan for keeping the private repositories until you have 5 team members. In case, you need to access the account for more than 5 team members, then you need to buy the standard and premium version of the Bitbucket which costs you $3/user/month and $6/user/month for standard and premium plan respectively.

GitLab is a completely free tool for repository management solutions. It provides the access to an unlimited number of private repositories for unlimited users and offers full access to amazing features.

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GitHub vs Bitbucket vs GitLab: Project Distribution

The major difference in these three version control systems is the way of project distribution.

GitHub uses the organization level for project distribution, thus, it is widely used by companies and organizations.
Bitbucket platform allows the distribution at the team level and with this, the project can be distributed among the team members.
GitLab platform offers the project distribution in groups and allows the group members to access and share the project code.

GitHub vs Bitbucket vs GitLab: Repository Import

If we are talking about the repository management systems, then it must support to importing of a repository from one platform to another.

GitHub allows importing of the repository from one platform to another platform.
Bitbucket also supports the repository import but only from the Mercurial platforms.
GitLab users can import the repositories only from the git platform.

Thus, in this case, GitHub and Bitbucket are the right choices if you want the repository import from one platform to another.

GitHub vs Bitbucket vs GitLab: Open-Source Repository Support

In the case of open-source repository support, GitHub is the only platform that provides support to it. Although GitLab provides the functionality to the users to check the complete code on their official websites, it doesn’t support an open-source repository. The presence of the self-hosted version functionality in the Bitbucket platform allows the users to host the projects privately, but there is no support available to open-source repository.

GitHub vs Bitbucket vs GitLab: Pull and Push Support Features

Both the GitHub and Bitbucket platforms allow the users to use the pull request to get the project from the platform. But, in the case of the GitLab platform, there is nothing like a feature of the pull request. Here you can use the merge request feature instead of the pull request features.

Bitbucket vs GitHub vs GitLab: A Glance

	GitHub	Bitbucket	GitLab
Introduction	Open-Source Hosting Service.	Not an Open-Source Hosting Service.	Open-Source Self-Hosting Service.
CI Integration	CI pipelines for sharing of codes.	Free CI for easy access to users.	Doesn’t provide free CI to its users.
API Integration	Uses its own APIs for application development.	Integrates various APIs and Services.	Also uses its own APIs for application development.
Merge Request or Issue Templates	Users can ask for merge requests or issue templates.	No such functionality as merge requests or issues templates.	Users can ask for merge requests or issue templates.
Open-Source	Open-Source Platform	Not an Open-Source Platform	Open-Source Platform
Support	Import of Git, Hg, SVN, and TFS.	Import of Git, Google Code, Source Forge, HG, Code Plex, and SVN.	Import of Git, Google Code, Bitbucket, and Fog bugs.

Wrapping it Up

GitHub vs Bitbucket vs GitLab is the version control system that allows the developers to manage the projects and share the projects on other platforms. The selection of the right version control system entirely lies in the level of comfort with these platforms. But the use of repository management solutions has made the process of software development easier and smooth as well. If you are looking for software development services for your business, then hire a software developer from a reputed company, Tekki Web Solutions Inc.