Atlassian's Bitbucket: How It Stacks Up Against GitHub and GitLab
When should you choose Bitbucket over GitHub or GitLab? Here's how to determine whether Bitbucket is your best option.
GitHub and GitLab — the best-known Git-based hosting sites — tend to be the first platforms that come to mind when developers think about where to create code repositories. But they are not the only games in town. A third option is Bitbucket, a GitHub alternative provided by Atlassian.
Bitbucket isn't the ideal solution for every software development use case. But as this article explains, it does have some standout features and unique advantages that can make it a better choice than GitHub, GitLab, and other competing offerings in certain cases.
What Is Bitbucket?
Bitbucket is a platform for hosting and managing code based on Git. Like GitHub and GitLab , Bitbucket lets users create code repositories, track version changes over time, manage branches, and so on.
Atlassian , the vendor best known for project management tools like Jira, Confluence, and Trello, develops Bitbucket.
Bitbucket Features
While Bitbucket's main feature is the ability to set up and manage code repositories using Git, it also includes capabilities for automating key CI/CD processes, including:
Building applications by turning source code into binaries.
Testing applications to ensure they meet integration and performance requirements. (Automated security testing is also available with help from third-party tools.)
Deploying applications into production environments.
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In short, Bitbucket is an end-to-end code hosting and software development platform, making it similar in most key respects to GitHub and GitLab.
Cloud-Based vs. On-Prem Bitbucket
Like GitHub and GitLab, Bitbucket's main deployment model is in the cloud. Using Bitbucket Cloud, teams can set up repositories on servers that are fully managed by Atlassian.
However, also like those other offerings, on-prem or private instances of Bitbucket are available for businesses that don't want to host their code on third-party infrastructure.
What Makes Bitbucket Different?
Although Bitbucket is not significantly different feature-wise from alternatives such as GitHub and GitLab, it is subject to some smaller distinctions that are important for certain use cases.
1. Atlassian integration
Unsurprisingly, Bitbucket integrates tightly and natively with other Atlassian tools and platforms. For example, development teams that manage software projects using Jira can set up Bitbucket repositories and connect to them from Jira with just a few clicks.
Atlassian's tooling also integrates with most other mainstream code repository platforms; you don't need to use Bitbucket if you want to connect solutions like Jira to your code. However, the integrations are more extensive and easier to enable when you use Bitbucket alongside other Atlassian tooling.
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2. Pricing plans and features
Bitbucket is priced differently from GitHub and GitLab. In some areas, Bitbucket's pricing may be less attractive; for example, Bitbucket's free plan includes only 50 minutes of build time per month, compared with GitHub's 2,000 CI/CD minutes for public repositories. However, Bitbucket includes access to a broader set of features through its free plan than GitHub, whose free offering is mostly limited to basic code management, CI/CD, and project tracking capabilities.
Bitbucket may also be a more compelling offering for teams that need to keep code in private repositories. While GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket all offer ways to set up private repositories under their free plans, Bitbucket places fewer restrictions on what you can do using private repositories without paying. GitHub, in contrast, offers certain features for free only when users set up public repositories. (Historically, GitHub didn't offer private repositories under its free tier, but that is no longer the case.)
3. Overall cost
For individual coders or teams who opt for a paid plan, Bitbucket generally has lower overall pricing. Its full-featured offering, called Premium, costs 6ドル.60 per user per month, compared with 21ドル for GitHub's most advanced plan. GitLab's pricing is also higher; its Premium offering costs 29ドル per user per month, and its full-featured "Ultimate" plan is priced on a custom basis.
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Note, however, that some of Bitbucket's advanced features require you to use external tools and integrate them with Bitbucket — so, depending on which capabilities you need, your total cost may be higher than Bitbucket's 6ドル.60 Premium plan pricing implies. In contrast, almost all of GitHub's and GitLab's core features are available as core parts of their respective platforms.
4. Context-aware AI-assisted coding
GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket all offer AI-assisted software development tools that can help generate code automatically. However, Bitbucket's primary solution, Rovo, stands out for its focus on analyzing each project's existing code to develop contextual insights, then use them when suggesting new code.
Comparable offerings on other platforms, like GitHub Copilot , also provide some context-awareness capabilities, but they are not a key focus to the same extent that they are with Bitbucket and Rovo.
When to Choose Bitbucket
So, when does it make sense to use Bitbucket instead of GitHub or GitLab?
In general, Bitbucket may be your best option if the following are true:
Your team uses other Atlassian products. For organizations already wed to the Atlassian ecosystem, Bitbucket is an obvious choice thanks to its deep integration with other Atlassian tooling.
You're focused on private repositories. Bitbucket generally doesn't offer fewer features or charge more for teams that want to create private repositories, making it a more attractive offering if most of your code will not be public.
You want to minimize costs. On the whole, Bitbucket may be a less expensive option, although your total cost (and your ability to use Bitbucket's free tier) depends on factors such as how much build time you need and whether you have to purchase additional Atlassian tools to unlock capabilities that are not native components of Bitbucket.
On the other hand, if you want to stick with a more popular and widely known platform, GitHub or GitLab are better choices.
About the Author
Technology analyst, Fixate.IO
Christopher Tozzi is a technology analyst with subject matter expertise in cloud computing, application development, open source software, virtualization, containers and more. He also lectures at a major university in the Albany, New York, area. His book, "For Fun and Profit: A History of the Free and Open Source Software Revolution ," was published by MIT Press.
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