All articles

Platforms

GitHub vs GitLab SaaS: hosted plans, CI minutes, security and self-managed options

GitHub and GitLab compared as hosted services: per-user prices, included CI minutes, security scanning, data residency and when a self-managed edition fits.

By Published

Isometric 3D illustration of a bright teal pipe bent into a looping branch, on a pale grey background.

You need a home for your team’s code, and the choice has narrowed to GitHub or GitLab. Both sell a hosted service you rent per user, the model explained in What is SaaS?, and both also sell software you can run on your own servers. The price per user is only part of your bill: CI minutes, security add-ons and where your data lives decide the rest.

This comparison uses the vendors’ own pricing and documentation pages, checked in October 2026. Both companies change plans often, so recheck every figure on the linked pages before you sign.

Hosted Git in plain terms

Think of a shared workshop. Everyone keeps their projects on labeled shelves, a bench in the corner tests anything you put on it, and a guard at the door checks what comes in. You pay rent per member, plus extra when the bench runs long.

Each part has a name:

  • Repository hosting is the shelves: Git repositories with access control, code review (pull requests on GitHub, merge requests on GitLab) and issues.
  • CI/CD (continuous integration and delivery) is the bench: jobs that build, test and deploy code on every change. GitHub calls its service Actions; GitLab meters runner time in compute minutes.
  • Security scanning is the guard: tools that look for vulnerable dependencies, leaked secrets and unsafe code.

Hosted plans side by side

Checked October 2026 GitHub GitLab.com
Free $0; 2,000 Actions minutes a month; 500 MB Packages storage $0; 400 compute minutes a month; 10 GiB storage; 5 users per top-level group (private groups)
Middle tier Team: $4 per user/month; 3,000 minutes; 2 GB Packages storage Premium: $29 per user/month, billed annually; 10,000 minutes; 500 GiB
Top tier Enterprise: $21 per user/month; 50,000 minutes; 50 GB Packages storage Ultimate: custom price; 50,000 minutes; 500 GiB
Extra CI Linux 2-core $0.006 a minute, Windows $0.010, macOS $0.062 (standard runners) $10 per 1,000 compute minutes, one-time purchase
AI allowance in the plan Copilot free tier up to 2,000 completions a month Premium includes $12 of GitLab Credits per user/month; Ultimate $24

One caution on GitHub’s prices. Its pricing page shows Team at $4 and Enterprise at $21 with the words “for the first 12 months” and an asterisk whose terms were not shown on the page when checked. Ask GitHub for the price from month 13 before you budget past year one.

GitHub’s documentation adds that Actions is free on self-hosted runners and for public repositories using standard GitHub-hosted runners. You pay for minutes only on private repositories using GitHub’s machines.

Example: 20 developers for one year

Example: a team of 20 developers whose private-repository CI uses 8,000 Linux minutes a month. The calculation assumes each GitLab compute minute equals one Linux runner minute; confirm the rate for your runner type in GitLab’s documentation.

GitHub Team, at the listed first-year price:

  1. Seats: 20 x $4 = $80 a month.
  2. Minutes over the allowance: 8,000 - 3,000 = 5,000. At $0.006 a minute: 5,000 x $0.006 = $30.
  3. Monthly total: $80 + $30 = $110. Yearly: $110 x 12 = $1,320.

GitHub Enterprise, same basis:

  1. Seats: 20 x $21 = $420 a month. The 8,000 minutes fit inside the 50,000 included.
  2. Yearly: $420 x 12 = $5,040.

GitLab Premium:

  1. Seats: 20 x $29 = $580 a month. The 8,000 minutes fit inside the 10,000 included.
  2. Yearly: $580 x 12 = $6,960.

Now move half the builds to macOS, for an iOS app, and assume the included minutes go to the Linux jobs. On GitHub Team, 4,000 Linux minutes are covered by the 3,000 included plus 1,000 x $0.006 = $6, and 4,000 macOS minutes cost 4,000 x $0.062 = $248. The monthly bill becomes $80 + $6 + $248 = $334, three times the Linux-only figure. The operating system of your builds can matter more than the seat price.

The seat prices are not a like-for-like comparison of features. Read the plan tables for the three or four features you actually need, and price those.

Security scanning

  • GitHub: Dependabot is listed on the Free plan. GitHub Secret Protection and GitHub Code Security are sold as add-ons; the pricing page did not list their prices when checked.
  • GitLab: its pricing FAQ says basic static analysis (SAST), secret detection and container scanning run on all tiers, while enterprise-grade scanning and vulnerability management are in Ultimate.

If security scanning is the reason you are choosing, get a written quote for the add-on or tier that carries it, since neither company lists every security price on the main pricing page.

Data residency and self-managed editions

Option GitHub GitLab
Shared (multi-tenant) SaaS GitHub.com; GitHub describes Enterprise Cloud as “a multi-tenant enterprise SaaS solution on Microsoft Azure” GitLab.com
SaaS with data in a chosen region Enterprise Cloud with data residency, on its own GHE.com subdomain; regions listed: EU, Australia, US and Japan GitLab Dedicated: single-tenant SaaS “hosted and maintained by GitLab” in the AWS region you choose
Self-managed GitHub Enterprise Server, on your own hardware or cloud account GitLab Self-Managed; the Free tier means “bring your own storage and runners”, Premium is $29 per user/month billed annually

Self-managed editions move upgrades, backups and uptime to your team. They make sense when a rule requires the code on your own infrastructure, not merely in a given country, because both vendors now sell hosted options with regional data. For the general trade-off, see SaaS vs on-premise software.

Common mistakes

  1. Comparing seat prices only. In the example, macOS builds tripled the GitHub Team bill while the seat line stayed at $80. Why it happens: per-user prices lead the pricing page. Instead: estimate monthly CI minutes by operating system and add them to each option.
  2. Budgeting the first-year price for three years. GitHub labels its Team and Enterprise prices “for the first 12 months”. Why it happens: the label is small. Instead: get the year-two price in writing before you compare.
  3. Forgetting free-tier user limits. GitLab’s Free plan allows 5 users per top-level group for private groups, so a sixth developer forces a decision. Why it happens: the limit sits in the plan details, not the headline. Instead: count everyone who needs write access, including contractors.
  4. Self-hosting for data location when a hosted regional option exists. You take on upgrades and backups to solve a problem the vendor already sells. Why it happens: the regional options sit on separate product pages. Instead: check GitHub’s data residency regions and GitLab Dedicated first, then decide. For how per-user licenses are counted in contracts, see SaaS licensing.

Sources

In three sentences

GitHub and GitLab both rent hosted Git with CI/CD per user and sell self-managed editions, but their plans bundle CI minutes, storage and security very differently. For 20 developers using 8,000 Linux minutes a month, the listed prices give $1,320 a year on GitHub Team, $5,040 on GitHub Enterprise and $6,960 on GitLab Premium. Price your real CI minutes by operating system, get the year-two price in writing and check hosted regional options before you choose to run either one yourself.