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GitLab Premium vs. Ultimate: When to Upgrade and What to Expect

It’s never an easy decision to upgrade your license tier, whether it be GitLab or any other product on the marketplace. Oftentimes, upgrading your licensing tier to the ‘best’ comes with bloatware, vaporware, or shovel-ware – nothing particularly special for your organization to use.

Upgrading to GitLab Ultimate can significantly enhance your organization’s development, security, and compliance capabilities. It is the platform for the large enterprise, and we want to take some time to go over some of the features and benefits of upgrading from Premium to Ultimate here.

GitLab Premium vs. Ultimate: What’s the Difference?

GitLab Premium is a powerful tool, especially when paired with GitLab Duo Pro (GitLab’s AI solution). Oftentimes, this is what organizations need. What’s in Premium? Well – a lot of great stuff:

  • Self-managed reliability
  • Release controls
  • Enterprise Agile Planning
  • Advanced CI / CD
  • Faster code reviews
  • AI capabilities – GitLab Duo Pro
  • Enhanced code reviews
  • Priority Support
  • Everything in the GitLab Free offering

While GitLab Premium provides many capabilities, it does not support different deployment models, security testing, or advanced AI through GitLab Duo Enterprise. The table below provides an overview of features found in GitLab Ultimate that are not in GitLab Premium:

GitLab Ultimate Feature Description
Advanced Security Testing Application Security Testing (AST) (think scanners and on-demand Dynamic AST and Static AST), API and Container Security, and Secrets Detection and Software Composition Analysis (SCA)
Global Governance Security Policy Management (Approvals and policies), Compliance Management, Vulnerability Management (generate vulnerability reports, security dashboards), BOM & Audit Management (simplify your audit reporting)
Support for GitLab Duo Enterprise Duo Enterprise is supported on Ultimate only, but Duo Pro can work across Ultimate and Premium. Duo Enterprise opens up even more functionality and capabilities, including CI/CD, Testing, Security, and advanced development and Project management features
Value Stream Management Measure the value of your DevSecOps lifecycle, including DORA4 Metrics – specifically Deployment Frequency, Change Failure Rate, Mean Lead Time for Changes, Mean Time to Recovery
Planning and Portfolio Management Enhanced capabilities around Requirements Management, Portfolio Management, and Quality Management, including the ability to create test cases in GitLab, link epics and build portfolio-level roadmaps
Free Guest Users Allow for Guest Users to access your environment, view reports, download and browse job artifacts, view releases and more
GitLab Dedicated Single-tenant SaaS Enterprise DevSecOps Platform, ideal if you are in an industry with complex compliance needs

 

Figure 1: Portfolio Management

When Should I Consider Upgrading?

GitLab Ultimate is priced $99 / user / month (not including additional upgrades), a $70 increase from Premium. We’ve used both versions and are convinced that the benefits to users far outweigh the incremental cost. GitLab features and capabilities unlocked with Ultimate include:

  • Security & Compliance: Crucial if your organization needs advanced security testing capabilities, or you’re servicing customers that require your products and services to meet a specific security standard. This includes vulnerability management, security dashboards, and advanced reporting capabilities.
  • Advanced AI Features: GitLab Ultimate allows organizations to upgrade to GitLab Duo Enterprise, its most powerful AI offering. To learn more about GitLab’s AI offering, Duo, check out our comprehensive buyer guide on GitLab Duo today!
  • All-in-One Platform: Simply put, if you and your team are just plain fed up with an overwhelming number of disparate tools and you’d like a comprehensive solution that offers Project Management, Documentation, and Development capabilities, GitLab Ultimate could be right for you.

How Can I Upgrade?

To best upgrade, deploy and optimize your current GitLab solution, contact a trusted GitLab partner (like GitSimple!). Through our license management services at GitSimple, we make the upgrade process simple, helping customers secure new licenses, reviewing features and functionality, and ultimately unlocking the full power of the GitLab solution suite.

Interested in upgrading? Contact us today!