GitLab CE (self-hosted) vs GitHub
Run the open-source GitLab Community Edition (MIT) on your own servers or an EU host, and your code, CI/CD pipelines and artifacts stay on infrastructure you control. Compared with GitHub, owned by Microsoft. Note: GitLab.com and GitLab's paid plans are sold by GitLab Inc., a Delaware corporation in San Francisco, and are not an EU alternative.
Your Own Forge vs Microsoft’s Default
This page compares running the open-source GitLab Community Edition yourself — on-premise or at an EU host such as Hetzner, OVHcloud or Scaleway — with GitHub, the code-hosting platform Microsoft acquired in 2018. Your source code is often your company’s most valuable intellectual property; on GitHub it sits with a US company within reach of the CLOUD Act.
An important warning first. GitLab itself is not a European company. GitLab Inc. is incorporated in Delaware with its business address in San Francisco (SEC filings) and is listed on Nasdaq. It has a Dutch subsidiary, GitLab B.V., but the parent is American. GitLab.com, GitLab Dedicated and paid GitLab subscriptions are therefore not EU alternatives. GitLab Dedicated lets customers choose an AWS region, but it remains a service run by a US company on a US hyperscaler.
What is sovereign is the software: the GitLab Community Edition is MIT-licensed, and you can run it on hardware you control. Then no vendor sits between you and your code. Everything below concerns that self-hosted setup.
Prefer not to run a server at all? Codeberg, operated by the non-profit Codeberg e.V. in Berlin on Forgejo, is the EU-run hosted option — see Codeberg vs GitHub.
Jurisdiction Comparison
| GitLab CE (self-hosted) | GitHub | |
|---|---|---|
| Who holds your code | You — on your own server | GitHub, Inc., a Microsoft subsidiary (USA) |
| Licence | MIT (Community Edition) | Proprietary |
| Hosting location | Wherever you choose (on-premise, Hetzner, OVHcloud, Scaleway…) | GitHub’s cloud; data residency on Enterprise |
| CLOUD Act exposure | None from the tool — no vendor holds your data | Yes — US company |
| GitLab.com / Dedicated / subscriptions | Sold by GitLab Inc. (Delaware, San Francisco) — not an EU option | — |
Feature Comparison
| Feature | GitLab CE (self-hosted, free) | GitHub |
|---|---|---|
| Git hosting, merge/pull requests | ✅ | ✅ |
| Built-in CI/CD | ✅ (runners you host) | ✅ GitHub Actions |
| Container & package registries | ✅ Built-in | ✅ GitHub Packages |
| SAST | ✅ Included in free tier | ⚠️ Advanced Security is a paid add-on |
| Approval rules, push rules, audit events | ❌ Premium licence | ⚠️ Team (rules, code owners) / Enterprise (auditing) |
| DAST, dependency scanning, epics/roadmaps | ❌ Ultimate licence | — |
| Community & marketplace | ⚠️ Smaller | ✅ Largest developer community |
| Operating effort | ⚠️ You run it (8 vCPU / 16 GB baseline) | ✅ None |
Pricing (as of October 2026)
- GitLab self-managed Free / Community Edition: no licence fee — “bring your own storage and runners”
- GitLab Premium (self-managed or GitLab.com): $29/user/month, billed annually — licensed by GitLab Inc. (US)
- GitLab Ultimate: contact sales (quote-based)
- GitHub Free: unlimited public and private repositories
- GitHub Team: from $4/user/month
- GitHub Enterprise: from $21/user/month; Advanced Security is an add-on
The real cost of self-hosting is not the licence but the infrastructure and the people: a server sized to GitLab’s 8 vCPU / 16 GB baseline, storage for repositories, separate CI runners, backups, and someone who applies GitLab’s frequent security releases.
What Self-Hosting Really Costs
- Hardware: GitLab’s docs give 8 vCPU and 16 GB RAM as the single-node baseline (8 GB possible in constrained setups), plus 40 GB for the application and storage for repositories and PostgreSQL.
- Operations: upgrades, security patches, TLS, backups and monitoring are your responsibility.
- CI runners: you host and scale GitLab Runners yourself.
- Feature gaps: Premium and Ultimate features — approval rules, audit events, DAST, dependency scanning, epics — are not in the free edition, and buying them means contracting with GitLab Inc.
If that sounds like too much, a lighter forge such as Forgejo, or the hosted Codeberg, may be the better fit.
Migration Guide
Estimated time: a day to set up the server; 1–2 hours per team to migrate Difficulty: Moderate — Git itself is identical, but CI/CD pipelines need rewriting
- Install GitLab on your own server or an EU VPS using the Linux package or Helm chart, and set up TLS, backups and at least one GitLab Runner.
- Import repositories from GitHub with GitLab’s built-in importer — repos, issues, pull requests, labels and milestones.
- Rewrite CI/CD pipelines from GitHub Actions into
.gitlab-ci.yml; GitLab’s docs include a migration guide. - Configure integrations (chat, issue trackers, monitoring) in project settings.
- Run in parallel for 2–4 weeks, with GitHub repos as read-only mirrors.
- Archive the GitHub repositories with a pointer to the new location.
Who Self-Hosts It
Typical scenarios (generic, not named customers):
- A public-sector IT department that must keep source code on infrastructure it controls
- A fintech or healthcare software company whose regulator expects code and build artifacts to stay in-house
- A mid-sized software company that wants Git hosting, CI/CD and registries in one tool and has a platform team to run it
Security & Compliance
- SAST is included in the free tier; DAST, dependency scanning and compliance frameworks require Ultimate
- Security releases are published regularly — applying them promptly is your responsibility
- Certifications (ISO 27001, SOC 2) depend on your own hosting and processes, not on GitLab’s
- NIS2/DORA: self-hosting keeps code and CI/CD data inside infrastructure you can audit
Who Should Switch?
Self-hosted GitLab CE is right for:
- Organisations with an ops or platform team that want an all-in-one DevOps platform under their own control
- Regulated industries and public bodies that must keep source code in-house
- Teams already using GitLab CI who want to leave GitHub
GitHub, Codeberg or a lighter forge may suit you better if:
- Your project depends on GitHub’s community and marketplace
- You have no capacity to operate a resource-hungry service
- You need Premium/Ultimate features and do not want a contract with a US vendor
The Bottom Line
GitLab Inc. is a US company, so GitLab.com and GitLab subscriptions are not European alternatives. But the MIT-licensed Community Edition is a mature, complete DevOps platform that you can run entirely on your own EU infrastructure, with no vendor holding your code.
The price is operational: a sizeable server, regular upgrades, and some features reserved for paid tiers. For organisations with the capacity to run it, self-hosted GitLab CE is one of the strongest sovereign setups for source code. For everyone else, Codeberg is the simpler EU-run choice.
Looking for more European developer tools? See also: Codeberg vs GitHub, Self-hosted Gitea vs GitLab and JetBrains vs VS Code.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GitLab a European company?
No. GitLab Inc. is incorporated in Delaware with its business address in San Francisco, according to its SEC filings, and is listed on Nasdaq. It was co-founded by a Ukrainian and a Dutch founder and has a Dutch subsidiary (GitLab B.V.), but the parent is a US company subject to the CLOUD Act. That is why this page recommends only the open-source GitLab Community Edition running on your own infrastructure — not GitLab.com or a subscription.
Can I get EU data residency on GitLab.com?
GitLab's documentation describes region choice for GitLab Dedicated, its single-tenant managed offering, which runs on AWS in the customer's chosen region. It is still operated by GitLab Inc., a US company, on a US hyperscaler. Data residency is not documented as an option for the regular multi-tenant GitLab.com service. If you want your code under EU control, self-host or use an EU-run forge such as Codeberg.
What do I give up with the free Community Edition?
The free tier includes Git hosting, merge requests, CI/CD, container and package registries and SAST. According to GitLab's feature comparison, multiple approvers in code review, push rules, code quality reports, protected environments and audit events are Premium; epics and roadmaps, DAST, dependency scanning, compliance frameworks, Geo and advanced search are Ultimate. Premium costs $29/user/month on annual billing as of October 2026; Ultimate is quote-based.
What hardware does a self-hosted GitLab need?
GitLab's installation docs give 8 vCPU and 16 GB RAM as the baseline for a single-node install (8 GB is possible in memory-constrained setups), 40 GB for the application plus storage for repositories and the database. PostgreSQL is the only supported database. CI jobs run on separate GitLab Runners that you also host.
Is there a European-run alternative that I don't have to host myself?
Yes. Codeberg is operated by Codeberg e.V., a non-profit association based in Berlin, Germany, on the open-source Forgejo software. It is free for open-source projects. See our Codeberg vs GitHub comparison. For a lighter self-hosted forge, Forgejo can also be run on your own server.
Can I migrate from GitHub to self-hosted GitLab?
Yes. GitLab includes a GitHub importer that transfers repositories, issues, pull requests, wikis and milestones. GitHub Actions workflows must be rewritten as .gitlab-ci.yml pipelines; GitLab's docs include a migration guide for this.
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