head to head · open source
GitLab vs gitpod
GitLab has 24,546 GitHub stars, 5,982 forks, 36 open issues and last shipped today. gitpod has 13,771 stars, 1,393 forks, 452 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. GitLab leads on adoption by 78% (24,546 vs 13,771 stars). GitLab is written in Ruby under a custom or non-standard licence; gitpod is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0. GitLab has attracted 24% as many forks as stars, gitpod 10%. GitLab 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 | gitpod | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 25K | ★ 14K |
| License | Custom / other | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Ruby | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.0K | ⑂ 1.4K |
| 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 gitpod if
- You want the gitpod feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and gitpod 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 gitpod
Gitpod is a developer platform that provides on demand, pre configured cloud development environments. It lives in the cloud development environment (CDE) ecosystem, alongside the cloud IDE and dev environment tooling categories it is tagged with. Repositories are configured through a .gitpod.yml file, and workspaces are Docker based, ephemeral, and secure, giving developers the same capabilities as a local Linux machine but in a consistent and reproducible cloud environment. The project is written in TypeScript and released under the AGPL 3.0 license, with roughly 13,771 stars and 1,392 forks on GitHub after eig…
read the full gitpod overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is GitLab or gitpod more popular?
GitLab has 24,546 GitHub stars and gitpod has 13,771. GitLab has the larger community by that measure.
Are GitLab and gitpod free?
Both are open source. GitLab has no licence declared in this registry, and gitpod is licensed under AGPL-3.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between GitLab and gitpod?
GitLab is written in Ruby and gitpod in TypeScript. 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 gitpod?
Choose GitLab if you want the larger community (24,546 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose gitpod if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.