You desperately need to improve your product comparisons
I'm hoping that @jschatz1's responsibility of "Prioritize frontend issues which lead to bad user experience" applies here (https://about.gitlab.com/jobs/frontend-lead/). Though it's not accurate to call it a "bad" user experience per se, just one that I feel could improve on the frontend immensely.
I'm also hoping I'm not blind and/or an idiot, because I've scoured several resources in order to find the information I need but can't find it. I've also submitted a contact request and made a forum post (https://forum.gitlab.com/t/gitlab-com-vs-community-edition/4207).
I'll try to make this brief and to-the-point in order to better give a "first impression" kind of review on what I've experienced with Gitlab thus far.
- We currently use Github for a private repo ($7/month) but don't particularly like it.
- It was recommended to use Gitlab's self-hosted version (CE) after purchasing a VPS in order to have a kickass setup.
- Bought the VPS (OVH's VPS SSD1 package for $3.49/month - https://www.ovh.com/us/vps/vps-ssd.xml)
- I get it set up, install Gitlab using the Omnibus installer (super easy - thank you for this).
- Out of curiousity I visit Gitlab's pricing/features area on the website to review all the options.
Here's what I find:
- The only information about Gitlab.com that I can find is in the 7 bullet points here: https://about.gitlab.com/gitlab-com/
- There's an extremely relevant but buried bullet point here: https://about.gitlab.com/comparison/#gitlabcom-vs-githubcom (GitLab.com runs GitLab Enterprise Edition with all its features.)
Right away I'm thinking two things:
- These guys REALLY need a column to compare Gitlab.com right beside the CE and EE.
- Why on earth would anyone buy the EE or install the CE? Gitlab.com IS the EE and it's completely free, and the CE has stunted features.
After setting up a Gitlab.com project I verified:
- Community Edition has an "Admin Area". Gitlab.com does not. I don't know if it needs one, though. The hosted CE version will benefit from the "Overview" and "Monitoring" areas whereas Gitlab.com doesn't need those.
- Gitlab.com has more options for projects than the Community Edition - merge methods, issues template, description template, approvers, container registry... I'm guessing because it's actually the EE.
I asked a friend of mine about his guess at the differences between Gitlab.com and CE and he said:
Reasons to use the self hosted versions are ldap integration for user management, risk of losing IP, uptime, performance, size limits. (and probably a few that I missed)
...but I have no easy way to verify this. Do I?
So in summary, I'm hoping that the wall of text I've just written is some indication that even intermediate-ish level developers like myself would like to know what their actual "it's right here in your face" options are before moving their entire project and contributor base to Gitlab, be it Gitlab.com, CE, or EE. So please add a comparison to all three in the same area so we know all of our options right away.
Thanks!