I really like using Gitlab CI. We are building and deploying our applications using Gitlab CI mostly every day. It's very stable and fast. So that m overall experience is very good with Gitlab CI.

The working style of most of the CI/CD tools are similar in the background. The ones that has better UI and fast responses are making a difference in the market. Gitlab CI, by far has the best UI. The button clicks, flows and placement of the features are very well-designed.

I cannot say least but I would be happier if Gitlab adds more UI features in CI/CD level.

In my work with our company, we use Gitlab as a comprehensive platforma to manage our software development projects. Gitlab allows us to host and manage our code respositories, making teamwork and version tracking easier. Additionally, we leverage GitLab CI/CD capabilities to automate build, testing, and deployment, allowing us to deliver sotware more efficiently. We also use issue tracking features and pull requests for code reviews.

The features that impressed me about gitlab are Version Control, issue tracking, and the ability to automate development workflows through CI/CD. Thank to the intuitive interface and ease of use, it helps to easily implement it into projects. Also the possibility of hosting projects in the Gitlab cloud or deploying locally helps a lot to adapt to needs.

In very large projects, perfomance and speed may be slowed down. Also the advance configuration that Gitlab offers can be very complex for new users, some features could be simplified and made more accessible. Although Gitlab has a lot of documentation, more tutorials and examples would be needed to fully take advantage of Gitlab.

Not long ago, I ordered some GitLab licenses since more people wanted to use it. I asked to go from 57 to 75 licenses. Instead, GitLab put the order in wrong and added 75 licenses, bringing us to 132 total. About this time, I was pulled to a critically-important project that was way behind schedule and told not to work on anything else. When I got enough breathing room to switch back, [SENSITIVE CONTENT] acted like she couldn't care less. The most I ever got was "I'll be sure to look into it" or "I'm still looking into it". The process dragged on for weeks. I had to nag her over and over again for updates until she finally told me that GitLab's billing department had decided... not to give me a refund because it had been too long. How convenient, especially after dragging out the process for so long. I complained about this, asked for a new account manager, and got what I requested. [SENSITIVE CONTENT] took my concerns to the GitLab crew again... and got told once again that not only would we not receive a refund, GitLab wasn't going to offer us any sort of compensation or credit whatsoever. We're a software company as well, and we would never treat loyal customers this way - especially not our power users. I've built my DevOps career around GitLab and encouraged others to do the same. That GitLab could be so tone-deaf over a problem that was clearly their fault speaks volumes to how the company has changed.

GitLab does well as an all-in-one software development platform.

If GitLab makes a billing problem, it may refuse to rectify the problem as they did with us.

Despite my gripes with debugging and monitoring, GitLab is a mind blowing software offer with an unbelievable feature set for a platform that is effectively free for many setups, not forcing a subscription or pro features by crippling its basic product but by providing additional value for paying customers instead of extorting users for critical features.

The pipeline system is by far GitLabs most important feature, though the extensive offering of supporting services such as project wikis, hooks and integrations make it a flexible control center for all needs of software development.

Debugging pipelines seems to be less than an after though, with minimal support and no indication of being in anyone's focus. Monitoring seems like a lackluster proof of concept released to the public, with many issues being ignored for years and all around extremely poor support unless the only thing you want to do is monitor the default setup for the default metrics in the default view.