GitLab CI used to be a completely separate application. When we integrated both ...

GitLab CI used to be a completely separate application. When we integrated both we learned of the emergent benefits of an integrated application https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/product/single-application... and we want to keep those.

I understand the need to have GitLab use less memory, I commented in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17588073 about our plans.

BTW If you want to use just GitLab CI and are a current GitHub customer you can do that https://about.gitlab.com/features/github/