head to head · open source
GitLab vs Coder
GitLab has 24,544 GitHub stars, 5,983 forks, 36 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Coder has 14,764 stars, 1,484 forks, 996 open issues and last shipped yesterday. GitLab leads on adoption by 66% (24,544 vs 14,764 stars). GitLab is written in Ruby under a custom or non-standard licence; Coder is written in Go under AGPL-3.0. GitLab has attracted 24% as many forks as stars, Coder 10%. Coder was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| GitLab | Coder | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 25K | ★ 15K |
| License | Custom / other | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Ruby | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.0K | ⑂ 1.5K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick GitLab if
- You weight community size — 25K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Ruby
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Coder if
- You want the Coder feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and Coder fits your workflow better
About GitLab
GitLab is an open core DevSecOps platform that gives teams Git repository hosting, merge request code review, CI/CD pipelines, issue tracking, and wikis in one self hostable application, aimed at organizations that want to run their development lifecycle on infrastructure they control.
read the full GitLab overview →
About Coder
Coder is a self hosted platform for cloud development environments and AI coding agents. It is written in Go, released under AGPL 3.0, and listed under Developer Tools / Version Control & Collaboration. Teams define workspaces with Terraform, connect through a secure Wireguard tunnel, and run environments on EC2 VMs, Kubernetes Pods, or Docker Containers.
read the full Coder overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is GitLab or Coder more popular?
GitLab has 24,544 GitHub stars and Coder has 14,764. GitLab has the larger community by that measure.
Are GitLab and Coder free?
Both are open source. GitLab has no licence declared in this registry, and Coder is licensed under AGPL-3.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between GitLab and Coder?
GitLab is written in Ruby and Coder in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, GitLab or Coder?
Choose GitLab if you want the larger community (24,544 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose Coder if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.