
GitLab raises $20M Series C round led by GV - sus_007
https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/09/gitlab-raises-20m-series-c-round-led-by-gv
======
keepper
Hopefully now they will realize that they _should_ run on a colo rather than
be wholly on the cloud... and hire for that expertise (their previous attempt
to do so was a bit amateurish, which is understandable ).

Nothing blows money faster than unlimited storage and unlimited bandwidth when
you're not charging for it...

And before you down vote me, realize that github, their main competitor, runs
on a colo for this very same reason.

No matter how much revenue you get from paid accounts, and selling on-prem
installs, the free service popularity which fuels the paid revenue will
outpace it for the forseable future. Trying to reign in those cost, isn't a
bad ( or hard ) thing.

~~~
hackbinary
Could you clarify what you mean by the difference between colo vs on-prem?

We run their on-prem in our colo, and it works great for us.

~~~
keepper
It was definitely not one of my better worded comments :)

colo == renting space/cooling/power from a datacenter provider to run your own
servers. on-prem == on premise installs/support

They have two revenue models, SaaS and Selling you support [1]. Giltlab has a
"loss leader strategy" like many online businesses. The difference is that in
this case, their free plan will grow so exponentially fast, it will become a
huge cost center.

Also, to add to my simplistic post above, colo wasn't meant to only imply
Gitlab having to run everything, for example, they could go with a managed
provider, and have them run the network/hardware site of things. This is also
still substantially less expensive than the cloud, when your biggest bills
will be storage and bandwidth ( which of course, is my assumption ). From
their tech postings, it seems their problem domain doesn't allow them to
utilize s3 or any other other massive scale distributed storage, so they have
been primarily utilizing block storage.[2][3]

[1][https://about.gitlab.com/products/](https://about.gitlab.com/products/)
[2][https://about.gitlab.com/2015/01/03/the-hardware-that-
powers...](https://about.gitlab.com/2015/01/03/the-hardware-that-
powers-100k-git-repos/) [3][https://about.gitlab.com/2016/11/10/why-choose-
bare-metal/](https://about.gitlab.com/2016/11/10/why-choose-bare-metal/)

------
odiroot
Really happy for GitLab. They are definitely more than just another Github
clone.

As I don't need to maintain an installation myself I don't mind it having some
issues. From the end user perspective it's doing its job.

------
fro0116
It feels to me like GitLab might be shooting themselves in the foot by
spreading their resources too thin, too quickly.

They have the very grand ambition to take over the entire devops toolchain
from source control to deployment, and some parts of the toolchain can
certainly benefit from the tight vertical integration that GitLab provides,
and when everything just works the product does end up providing a very
streamlined user experience.

However, this also means that their monolithic toolchain has to be able to
out-compete best-of-class specialized tools in every part of the chain, and
every part of the chain where they fail to do so could end up as a potential
dealbreaker for a large subset of their user base.

I've used GitLab.com for a few projects, and in general I've found the various
aspects of their product sorely lacking in terms of overall polish,
performance, and capability compared to excellent specialized products like
GitHub for VCS, CircleCI for CI/CD, and Pivotal Tracker for project
tracking/planning, etc.

Also, the fact that they're trying to take over the entire toolchain means
that just about everybody else in the devops space sees them as a direct
competitor, so until they grow to become an 80-pound gorrila that nobody can
ignore in at least 1 part of the toolchain, very few other companies building
devops tooling will willingly integrate with their product, which makes them
even less attractive for users with specific/more advanced needs that their
product alone can't meet.

With all that said, I really appreciate their dedication to open-source and am
personally rooting for their success, but I can't help but shake the feeling
that they're fighting a losing battle. DevOps tooling is simply too diverse,
complex, and opinionated a field for any 1 company to dominate from end-to-
end. Focusing resources to become the best tool for the job in 1 area and
using that leverage to foster an open-ecosystem around that product seems like
a much more viable long term strategy (though that could certainly prove to be
difficult if you're trying to become the best tool for VCS, due to how
entrenched GitHub is in terms of developer mindshare).

~~~
sytse
We are very afraid of spreading ourselves too thin too. Recently we've been
encouraged by how GitLab CI is doing, it is winning developers gitlab-ci-is-
the-most-popular-next-generation-ci-system and industry analysts over
[https://about.gitlab.com/2017/09/27/gitlab-leader-
continuous...](https://about.gitlab.com/2017/09/27/gitlab-leader-continuous-
integration-forrester-wave/)

I think what makes GitLab different is that more than 1800 people contributed
to it to increase the depth. Our team members are focussed on increasing the
breath. From
[https://about.gitlab.com/strategy/](https://about.gitlab.com/strategy/)

"We realize our competitors have started earlier and have more capital.
Because we started later we need a more compelling product that covers the
complete scope, that is integrated out of the box, and that is cloud native.
Because we have less capital, we need to build that as a community. Therefore
it is important to share and ship our vision for the product. The people that
have the most knowledge have to prioritize breadth over depth since only they
can add new functionality. Making the functionality more comprehensive
requires less coordination than making the initial minimal feature. Shipping
functionality that is incomplete to expand the scope sometimes goes against
our instincts. However leading the way is needed to allow others to see our
path and contribute. With others contributing, we'll iterate faster to improve
and polish functionality over time. So when in doubt, the rule of thumb is
breadth over depth, so everyone can contribute."

------
pathseeker
Good, a company that cares about open source to dethrone Github.

~~~
baldfat
I don't see how GitHub will ever be dethroned due to the mind share and market
share of Open Source projects. It is a simple process to move to GitLab BUT
all the developer tools for many projects relies on GitHub.

When I get a package in Racket or R they normally come from github
automatically.

~~~
sangnoir
10 years ago:

> I don't see how SourceForge will ever be dethroned due to the mind share and
> market share of Open Source projects.

~~~
baldfat
That was due to SourceForge and how they decided not to develop their project
and destroy the user experience.

~~~
eecc
you never know what may happen to GH, they're private property after all.

Options help in keeping all actors sober and sane

------
methyl
Does the new round going to help with reliability problems? I use GitHub ~90%
of time and I can't recall any downtime, while for GitLab it's very often to
see it being unavailable.

I find the service great but it's really frustrating to see it being down so
often.

~~~
earlybike
I stopped using Github for private repos for three years. I get them for free
from Bitbucket and Gitlab. So, I think the actual contender to Gitlab is
Bitbucket and not Github.

However, Bitbucket feels a bit more organized and mature (the UI). What I also
like: Bitbucket has the _real_ Trello integrated which is great. I still like
Gitlab, it's always good to have competition.

~~~
matteeyah
> What I also like: Bitbucket has the real Trello integrated which is great.

We have an issue board built-in -
[https://about.gitlab.com/features/issueboard/](https://about.gitlab.com/features/issueboard/)

If you have any suggestions, we'd love to hear how we can improve it (or any
other part of GitLab; e.g. the UI) - [https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-
ce/issues](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues)

~~~
sanswork
Is there anyway to make issue boards the default on a per project basis so
accessing them isn't a two step process?

~~~
mgbmtl
+1 this would be really nice. Currently we can choose between "latest
activity" or "browse files". Adding an option for "issue board" (and "list of
issues") would be great.

My non-tech colleagues get pretty lost when they go to the project's home page
and see either files or a list of commits.

~~~
jobvandervoort
So as landing page? That is an interesting idea. I've created an issue. Would
love to get your thoughts there: [https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-
ce/issues/38954](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/38954)

~~~
mgbmtl
Thank you! I will follow/comment on the issue.

------
sytse
We also announced today where we'll take GitLab in the future with complete
DevOps, for more information please see the live event recording or slides
[https://about.gitlab.com/2017/10/09/gitlab-
raises-20-million...](https://about.gitlab.com/2017/10/09/gitlab-
raises-20-million-to-complete-devops/)

~~~
freehunter
Quick question: for my side project I currently pay money monthly for both
Cloud9 and GitHub, but I am very open to switching tools. One of the things I
love about storing code in the cloud and manipulating code in the cloud is
that absolutely nothing needs to touch my local machine, which means I'm free
to use (almost) whatever machine I want with (almost) any browser or (almost)
any platform I want. It also means switching costs are next to nil, since I
don't have to worry about if it runs on a Mac or Windows or what native
tooling I have.

However, a big problem I've discovered with Cloud9 is that it doesn't run on
iOS and there are seemingly no plans to make that happen. I'm beginning to
transfer over a lot of my work to an iPad, and with the incredible power
offered by modern iOS systems, not supporting the platform seems a huge miss.

I see in your slides you're working on a web IDE for GitLab, and in some of
the comments on the open issue, iOS is mentioned. Can you answer if mobile
platforms like iOS are really in the roadmap?

As a paid customer, I'd switch in a heartbeat if I could use the same IDE on
my Mac, PC, and iPad.

~~~
jetsnoc
I'm using Cloud9 and Bitbucket. I was thinking just the other day how I would
love to ditch my main rig for an iPad. Researching this some it looks like
Duet or Puffin Browser gets Cloud9 mostly working.

~~~
freehunter
I do use Duet, but it's just an app to make an iPad a second monitor, it
doesn't allow me to take it with me and leave my Mac at home.

I'm not really understanding why anyone would build a web IDE in 2017 without
iPad support. Web IDEs targeting x86 platforms are already plentiful and
mature, and people on x86 platforms tend to ignore them for more traditional
desktop IDEs because their computer can already run all of the code or
containers they might need. But those don't really exist on an iPad, which I'd
think is the ideal target for a cloud IDE.

~~~
jakecodes
Hi. Jacob from GitLab. Our editor will work on iPad.

~~~
freehunter
I'm excited to try it on day one if it does!

------
__s
On wages: the lowest pay they offer in London Ontario is higher than my
current salary, & I've been given a 10k raise over the course of the past two
years. Figured I'd mention seeing people going as far as getting into the
topic of minimum wage. Slippery slope

(as an aside, totally for hire)

~~~
wtflmaohnisdumb
Canadians are criminally underpaid. I made significantly more than many full-
time employees (I'd wager the majority) on more than half of my internships.
Adjusted for rent and cost of living.

I do love London, Ontario though. Beautiful place even if it's too homogenous
and quiet outside of around Western university.

------
nathan_f77
> GitLab says that it plans to use it to add “new functionality for packaging,
> releasing, configuring and monitoring software.”

I can't wait for GitLab to offer hosting. They already do such a good job with
their CI containers. It will be amazing when I can host my code, run my tests,
and deploy my app all on the same service.

~~~
jazoom
GitLab is amazing but I wouldn't host with them until they fix their frequent
downtime issues.

------
ssully
I wish Gitlab all the success in the world.

My team utilized Gitlabs on premise offerings and it's always been a good
experience to use. They are adding new features at a modest pace and their
support people have always been helpful.

I really need to try them out for my personal projects but I haven't had the
chance.

------
brianllamar
congrats to GitLab they seem to be taking the right chances in the right
places. I am hopeful this tangentially helps grow the Vuejs community as well.
[https://www.heavybit.com/library/podcasts/jamstack-
radio/ep-...](https://www.heavybit.com/library/podcasts/jamstack-
radio/ep-21-why-gitlab-chose-vue-js/)

------
estsauver
What I'm most surprised by in this thread is the toxicness. As of right now
there are only two threads that I can see, one that is slamming Gitlab's
salaries and one that is slamming their reliability.

Gitlab is building something nearly completely in the open, and doing it quite
well in my opinion. They're the best open source reference for how to ship on
premises software I've seen, and I frequently refer people to them as an
example. You may not like their compensation structure, but they have
certainly been quite transparent.

If we want to see more companies build around open source and bring
transparency, a small touch of forgiveness is probably worthwhile. I'm a
little disappointed in the HN community.

(I'm not affiliated with gitlab other than being a customer.)

~~~
koolba
> What I'm most surprised by in this thread is the toxicness. As of right now
> there are only two threads that I can see, one that is slamming Gitlab's
> salaries and one that is slamming their reliability.

After many year on the internet, it's not that surprising. It's best summed up
as, " _Haters gonna hate._ ".

The jabs at the cloud offerring's reliability are valid. That includes both
uptime and the horrendous data loss event they had earlier this year. I don't
recall anything major after though not knowing about internals, can't tell if
they learned from it or have just gotten lucky.

As a CE user I love GitLab. It does what it says on the tin and for the most
part I don't have to think about it. The UI changes every other release are
bit haphazard but not enough for me to truly care.

I've always thought that slamming their open comp policy is hilarious. They're
one of the most open companies about how they handle comp and the result is
they get insulted for it. I'm not saying I agree with the formulas (in
particular the non-NYC COLA adjustments are out of whack) or the general
approach, but to say they're worse than the voodoo guesswork that goes into
figuring out how much a company is going to pay you is disingenuous.
Especially if it's after a number of interviews only to find out they're going
to low ball you.

At least in GitLab's case I know, at the current comp levels, I'd never work
there or even interview there. And that's beyond fair for the worker. Plus it
seems to be working fine because they've got a bunch of people that _are_
happy to work there.

~~~
dxhdr
> I've always thought that slamming their open comp policy is hilarious.
> They're one of the most open companies about how they handle comp and the
> result is they get insulted for it.

Well, they openly discriminate based on zipcode. It's their right as a
business but it runs counter to the internet age remote-work utopia everyone
wants. Kudos to them for even running a remote-work business, though. We need
more of them.

~~~
unethical_ban
Is there any company with a household name that doesn't? That I could get paid
SF wages for a dev job in Biloxi?

------
deckar01
> WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg is joining the company’s board.

I suspect this has more to do with Akismet than WordPress. They are using
Akismet to filter spam issues, but it seems to have a problem with false
positives after making edits.

~~~
mattl
More likely Matt knows a lot about running a free software business, which is
what GitLab is for the most part.

~~~
relaunched
This is interesting because the two companies are very similar, with
Automaticc being a few steps ahead in several areas: distributed workforce,
developer first, size / stage of the company.

It helps to have someone who has solved the very problems you'll be facing.

~~~
pibefision
25% of the webs runs on Wordpress, which is more than a few steps ahead, in my
opinion.

~~~
hellojason
Recent stats now suggest just under 29% of the web
([https://w3techs.com/technologies/details/cm-
wordpress/all/al...](https://w3techs.com/technologies/details/cm-
wordpress/all/all)).

