Knapsack Pro

Gitlab CI vs Shippable comparison of Continuous Integration servers
What are the differences between Gitlab CI and Shippable?

Gitlab CI

https://about.gitlab.com/product/continuous-integration/

Shippable

https://www.shippable.com
Unique feature

AutoDev Ops / Allows keeping code management and CI in the same place

N/A

Type of product

SaaS / On Premise

SaaS / On Premise

Offers a free plan

Yes

Very generous free plans for both the SaaS version as well as the on premise version.

Yes

Free unlimited builds for open source projects, 150 builds per month for all others (hosted plan). For the on-premise solution they only offer a 30 day trial.

Predictable pricing

Yes

Clear and affordable pricing for both SaaS and self-hosted versions.

Yes

Clear pricing based on number of concurrent jobs. They also allow a varied combination of platforms you want to run (Ubuntu, Windows, MacOS, CentOS) and provide a Bring Your Own Node option (so you can run builds on your own infrastructure)

Support / SLA

Yes

All paid plans include next business day support.

Yes

One of the few competitors to offer support tiers with clearly defined SLAs: https://www.shippable.com/premium-support.html as well as Services and Training: https://www.shippable.com/devops-services.html

Paralellism
Every CI servers tends to address this differently (parallel, distributed, build matrix). Some of it is just marketing, and some is just nuance. For this table, parallel means that tasks can be run concurrently on the same machine, distributed means that tasks can be scaled horizontally, on multiple machines
How to split tests in parallel in the optimal way with Knapsack Pro

Yes

Easily configure jobs you want to be run in parallel via the YML config file (gitlab-ci.yml)

Yes

One thing that stands out, is the shipctl CLI tool, which can automatically determine which tests to run in parallel, based on previous performance, such that a minimal amount of time is ensured: http://docs.shippable.com/ci/running-parallel-tests/#running-tests-in-parallel

Distributed builds
distributed means that tasks can be scaled horizontally, on multiple machines
How to split tests in parallel in the optimal way with Knapsack Pro

Yes

N/A

No specific mention. From the wording, multiple environments are certainly available, but it's unclear if the tasks can be distributed to multiple containers/VMs on the same machine, or multiple machines.

Containers support / Build environment

Yes

The Docker Container Registry is integrated into GitLab by default

Yes

Native Docker support

Analytics / Status overview
Analytics and overview referrs to the ability to, at a glance, see what's breaking (be it a certain task, or the build for a specific project)

Yes

Yes

Detailed statistics available at multiple levels (job, account, project, etc.). They also include a view they call SPOG (Single Pane of Glass) which allows viewing a real-time representation of all of the pipelines in the organization, from where you can drill-in to the leaf nodes you're interested in.

Management support
How easy is it to manage users / projects / assign roles and permissions and so on

Yes

Yes

Self-hosted option

Yes

Yes

Hosted plans / SaaS

Yes

Yes

Build pipelines
A continuous delivery pipeline is a description of the process that the software goes through from a new code commit, through testing and other statical analysis steps all the way to the end-users of the product.

Yes

Defined via YML config files

Yes

Configurable via an YML file (called Assembly Lines)

Reports
Reports are about the abilty to see specific reports (like code coverage or custom ones), but not necesarily tied in into a larger dashboard.

Yes

Yes

Ecosystem
Besides the official documentation and software, is there a large community using this product? Are there any community-driven tools / plugins that you can use?

Yes

Yes

https://www.shippable.com/integrations.html

Specific language support: Ruby
Some CI servers have built-in support for parsing RSpec or Istanbul output for example and we mention those. Some others make it even easier by detecting Gemfiles or package.json and automate parts of the process for the developer.

Yes

Although not built into GitLab CI by default, the Docker support allows solving any Ruby specific need that may arise.

Yes

Ruby is available by default on the Shippable container images. They also provide support for tools such as Cucumber or RSpec. Specific documentation for Ruby available on the website: http://docs.shippable.com/ci/ruby-continuous-integration/

Specific language support: JavaScript

Yes

Although not built into GitLab CI by default, the Docker support allows solving any Javascript specific need that may arise.

Yes

Specific documentation for Node.js available: http://docs.shippable.com/ci/ruby-continuous-integration/

Integrations
1st party support for common tools (like Slack notifications, various VCS platforms, etc)

Yes

Plenty of third party integrations available throughout GitLab, most notably Kubernetes and GitHub, but also plenty of others: https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/integration/README.html

Yes

http://docs.shippable.com/ci/ruby-continuous-integration/

API
Custom integreation is available, via an API or otherwise, it's mentioned separately as it allows further customization than any of the Ecosystem/Integration options

Yes

Provides a REST API and a (new) GraphQL API, with plans to maintain the GraphQL API only going forward. Allows doing almost anything that can be done via the interface, at least in terms of CI needs.

Yes

Provides a straight-forward REST API: http://docs.shippable.com/platform/api/api-overview/. They also provide ways to integrate notifications in your workflow, via webhooks or specific channels (IRC, Slack, Email, etc): http://docs.shippable.com/ci/send-notifications/

Auditing

Yes

Yes

Additional notes

The Auto DevOps feature might be interesting to people looking for a very hands-off experience with getting a CI/CD process up and running https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/topics/autodevops/

GitLab CI parallelisation - how to run parallel jobs for Ruby & JavaScript projects

Gitlab CI parallelism integration

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