GitLab

GitLab

GitLab, founded in 2011 by Sid Sijbrandij and Dmitriy Zaporozhets, is the world's most comprehensive DevSecOps platform — covering source code management, CI/CD, security scanning, and project management in a single application. GitLab went public in 2021 and serves 30M+ registered users including enterprises and startups worldwide.

Startup Programs

• GitLab for Startups: Provides qualifying early-stage startups with free GitLab Ultimate licenses (the highest tier, normally ~$99/user/month) for up to 12 months, along with community support and ecosystem visibility. Requirements: must be less than 5 years old and have raised less than $5M
• GitLab Open Source Program: Free Ultimate licenses for qualifying open-source projects, enabling startups building open-source products to use GitLab's full feature set at no cost
• Partner Ecosystem: Integration with AWS, GCP, Azure, and hundreds of DevOps tools, enabling startups to build sophisticated CI/CD pipelines from day one
• GitLab Community: Active global community providing technical support and knowledge sharing for startup engineering teams

Who Should Apply

Software startups with engineering teams — especially those building DevOps tools, enterprise SaaS, or developer-facing products. The free Ultimate license is one of the most valuable startup benefits in the DevOps space.