GitLab

GitLab Community Edition is an open-source DevOps platform that delivers a complete toolchain for modern software development. Combining Git repository hosting, CI/CD automation, issue tracking, code review, security scanning, and deployment management in a single application, GitLab eliminates the integration complexity of using multiple separate tools. Trusted by organizations ranging from startups to Fortune 500 companies, GitLab powers millions of projects with its robust feature set and self-hosted deployment model. Unlike cloud-only alternatives, self-hosting GitLab gives you complete control over your source code, CI/CD infrastructure, and sensitive development data while avoiding per-user pricing that can become expensive as teams grow.

Common Use Cases

Software development teams use GitLab as their central platform for source code management, replacing GitHub or Bitbucket with unlimited private repositories and no per-user fees for self-hosted deployments. DevOps engineers implement complete CI/CD pipelines using GitLab's integrated runners and pipeline configuration, automating testing, building Docker images, and deploying applications without relying on separate services like Jenkins or CircleCI. Project managers leverage GitLab's issue tracking, milestone planning, and roadmap features to coordinate development work, track bugs, and manage sprint cycles within the same platform where code lives. Security teams utilize GitLab's built-in security scanning features including static application security testing (SAST), dependency scanning, and container scanning to identify vulnerabilities before code reaches production. Open source projects and educational institutions deploy GitLab to provide students and contributors with enterprise-grade development infrastructure without SaaS subscription costs.

Key Features

• Unlimited private Git repositories with branch protection and merge request workflows
• Built-in CI/CD pipelines with integrated runners for automated testing and deployment
• Container registry for storing Docker images alongside your code
• Package registry supporting npm, Maven, PyPI, NuGet, and other package formats
• Issue tracking with boards, milestones, labels, and time tracking
• Code review with inline comments, approval rules, and merge request templates
• Wiki and documentation hosting for each project
• Built-in security scanning including SAST, dependency scanning, and secret detection
• Kubernetes integration for deploying applications to container orchestration platforms
• Auto DevOps for automatic CI/CD pipeline configuration based on project detection
• Comprehensive REST and GraphQL APIs for automation and integration
• GitLab Pages for hosting static websites directly from repositories

Resource Requirements and Startup Time

GitLab is a resource-intensive application due to its all-in-one architecture that includes PostgreSQL, Redis, Sidekiq, Puma web server, Gitaly, and other components. While GitLab can technically run on minimal hardware (1 CPU core and 2GB RAM for testing and personal use), this will result in slower performance. For small production deployments (up to 10 users), recommend at least 2 CPU cores and 4GB RAM. For teams up to 500 users, GitLab recommends 4 CPU cores and 8GB RAM plus 1-2GB swap space. Medium deployments supporting up to 1,000 users should have 8 CPU cores and 16GB RAM. Initial startup takes 3-10 minutes as all services initialize and become healthy - during this time you may encounter 502 Bad Gateway errors which is completely normal. Wait for all services to fully start before attempting to log in. Plan for adequate disk space as GitLab stores repositories, CI/CD artifacts, container images, and database backups in the data volume.

Security Considerations

This GitLab deployment includes built-in user authentication and access control, with the initial 'root' administrator account secured by your configured password. After first login, create additional user accounts and consider disabling the root account or limiting its use to system administration tasks only. GitLab supports two-factor authentication (2FA) which should be enabled for all users, especially administrators. For production deployments, configure HTTPS by placing GitLab behind a reverse proxy with SSL certificates, as this deployment uses HTTP by default. Regularly update the GitLab container to receive security patches and new features, and configure automated backup of the three GitLab volumes to prevent data loss.

Why deploy GitLab on Hostinger VPS

Deploying GitLab on a Hostinger VPS provides complete ownership of your development infrastructure without the per-user costs that make GitLab.com and GitHub expensive for growing teams. With dedicated VPS resources, your CI/CD pipelines run with predictable performance rather than competing for shared runner capacity on cloud platforms where build minutes are metered and capped. Self-hosting keeps all source code, CI/CD secrets, security scan results, and proprietary development data on infrastructure you control, essential for organizations with compliance requirements or intellectual property concerns. The unlimited private repositories and CI/CD pipeline usage means your costs remain fixed as your team and codebase grow, unlike SaaS alternatives where expenses scale linearly with users and usage. Hostinger VPS performance tiers allow you to start small and upgrade resources as your team expands, providing the flexibility to match infrastructure costs to actual needs rather than paying for enterprise plans with unused capacity.