*NOTE* Development with Vagrant virtual machine has been deprecated.
# GitLab Metal development setup
To develop GitLab, it is recommended to install a development GitLab on metal. This is much faster than any VM-based setup, but has as disadvantage that you might have to deal with anything that is already on your system.
*Please read the whole document including the troubleshooting and limitations section before starting the setup as it can alter your system installation.*
To develop GitLab we install it directly on your machine (it runs on metal). A metal install is much faster than the old deprecated installation method inside a virtual machine where a single page load could take take minutes. A disadvantage of a metal install that you might run into conflicts because some programs are already on your system. *Please read the whole document including the troubleshooting and limitations section before starting the setup as it can alter your system installation.*
