Theory

Updated

October 30, 2026

Theory: GitLab Sells a Full SDLC on a (Mostly) Monolith

GitLab’s theory is one application for Git, CI, registry, and security. Omnibus is that app plus dependencies as a package. Kubernetes is the same app shredded into services.

Invariants

  1. FOSS vs Premium is feature gating on the same codebase.
  2. Runners are the horizontal scale knob for CI, not the Rails app.
  3. A small team can run CE; HA is a different product shape.
Omnibus: one node, many processes
Geo / K8s: DB, Gitaly, Sidekiq, registry, runners

What can break

  • GitLab CE on a 2 GB VPS with CI enabled.

How to read this chapter

History, architecture, features, ops/license, lab, when it fits.