[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":791},["ShallowReactive",2],{"/en-us/blog/comparing-static-site-generators":3,"navigation-en-us":38,"banner-en-us":437,"footer-en-us":447,"blog-post-authors-en-us-Fatima Sarah Khalid":689,"blog-related-posts-en-us-comparing-static-site-generators":703,"assessment-promotions-en-us":742,"next-steps-en-us":781},{"id":4,"title":5,"authorSlugs":6,"body":8,"categorySlug":9,"config":10,"content":14,"description":8,"extension":26,"isFeatured":12,"meta":27,"navigation":28,"path":29,"publishedDate":20,"seo":30,"stem":34,"tagSlugs":35,"__hash__":37},"blogPosts/en-us/blog/comparing-static-site-generators.yml","Comparing Static Site Generators",[7],"fatima-sarah-khalid",null,"engineering",{"slug":11,"featured":12,"template":13},"comparing-static-site-generators",false,"BlogPost",{"title":15,"description":16,"authors":17,"heroImage":19,"date":20,"body":21,"category":9,"tags":22},"How to choose the right static site generator","Here's an in-depth look at 6 static site generators that deploy to GitLab Pages.",[18],"Fatima Sarah Khalid","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749682290/Blog/Hero%20Images/kelly-sikkema-gchfxsdcmje-unsplash-resized.jpg","2022-04-18","\n\nMost websites today fall into two categories - dynamic sites and static sites:\n\n## Dynamic sites\n\nDynamic sites are interactive, and the user experience can be tailored to the visitor. These are the ones that might remember who you are across visits or deliver content that's most applicable to the region you're visiting from. They rely on a content management system (CMS) or database for rendering and can continue to grow in complexity as the organization's needs grow.\n\n## Static sites\n\nStatic sites, however, generally display the same content to all users. They use server-side rendering to serve HTML, CSS, and Javascript files. While CMS backends have made dynamic sites easier to launch and maintain, static sites continue to grow in popularity.\n\n## What is a static site generator?\n\nA static site generator (SSG) is a software tool that generates a static website by processing plain text files that contain the websites content and markup. The resulting website consists of a set of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files, and other assets, that can be served by a web server to visitors.\n\nTo use a static site generator, you typically write your website's' content in a markup language like Markdown, and use a templating language to define the website's layout and structure. You then run the static site generator to generate the final set of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files, which can be deployed to a web server or content delivery network (CDN) for visitors to access.\n\n## Benefits of using a static site generator\n\nStatic sites' advantages include speed, security, and SEO. They're also easy to maintain and highly scalable. Because the static site generators store an already-compiled page on a CDN, they load a lot faster.\n\nAs static site generators are comprised solely of static files, no database is required, resulting in many additional benefits:\n\n* There is no need to spend valuable time querying the database or running any resource-intensive server-side scripts.\n\n* There are no extraneous libraries, no databases, or other features that a dynamic generator is built with. All you have are static files. Therefore, it’s very simple to work with and migrate as needed.\n\n* There’s no database for would-be hackers to attack.\n\n* Since there is no need for scripts to run on a file-based generator, scaling is very easy without overwhelming your server.\n\nAll static site generators can be exciting and fun, but some require time and effort on configurations, detailed templating, or management tweaks. My team and I joke that I am one of the top blog-less SSG experts, so in this blog post, I’ll walk you through a toolkit for evaluating your project and then share some SSGs that deploy to GitLab Pages.\n\nHere are the SSGs I'll review in this post:\n\n- [**Hugo**](https://gohugo.io/) is written in Go with support for multi-language sites and complex content strategy.\n- [**Zola**](https://www.getzola.org) is written in Rust with a single binary, no dependencies, and flexible features like Sass compilation.\n- [**Jekyll**](https://jekyllrb.com/) is written in Ruby, built for blogging, and has a large collection of plugins and themes.\n- [**Hexo**](https://hexo.io/) is Node.js based with support for multiple templating engines, integrations with NPM packages, and one command deployment.\n- [**GatsbyJS**](https://www.gatsbyjs.com/) is React-based, works with any CMS, API, or database, and can be used for building headless experiences.\n- [**Astro**](https://gitlab.com/pages/astro) is Javascript-based, supports multiple frameworks, and is known for on-demand rendering via partial hydration.\n\n##  An Evaluation Toolkit\n\nWith so many static site generators available, selecting one for your project can be overwhelming. When evaluating which SSG is right for you, here are a few things to consider about your project, use case, and the type of work you're looking to put into the site.\n\n**Identify the use case**\n\nIt’s important to understand your site's needs, purpose, and content. Are you building a personal blog, a landing page for a product, or documentation for a tech project? Consider whether you need a streamlined editor experience, content, and interactions with your user. The better you can identify the experience you'd like your visitors to have, the easier it will be to pick the feature set that can best support it.\n\n**Specify languages and frameworks**\n\nThere are so many static site generators out there that you can find one in nearly every language and framework. Consider whether you want to learn a new language or use something you're familiar with. Depending on how much time you’d like to invest in setting up, you should also review the installation details and see if you’re familiar with the templating language, dependencies, and theming layer.\n\n**Review the ecosystem**\n\nMany static site generators will have starter repositories or sample sites where you can play around with functionality and components before diving into your project. When reviewing the ecosystem, think about the limitations of the templating engine and whether you’ll need dynamic or Javascript components, and how you’ll include them. Some generators will have out-of-the-box or community-contributed plugins and extensions.\n\n**Check out the community**\n\nThere are often Discord or forum communities where you can get support, share ideas, review cases studies, and see what other people are building. Some of the most popular generators might even have conferences or workshops for getting started on more complex topics.\n\n**Identify the specialty**\n\nFrom microblogging to academic portfolios and small business sites, static site generators cover various use cases for different people. Each SSG has its own thing, whether it’s the framework it uses, a unique feature in its templating language, or the size of the installation binary.\n\n## The Single Binary Approach\n\nSome static site generators install a single binary and don't require complex dependency management. The single binary approach gets things set up quickly and easily. It is also easier for non-technical or academic users since you can pass the executable around for installation and use a markup language like Markdown to write content.\n\n[**Hugo**](https://gohugo.io/) is written in Go, a statically compiled language, with support for multiple platforms. The Hugo binary can be downloaded and run from anywhere and is simple to install, with no runtime dependencies or installation process. Upgrades involve downloading a new binary, and you're all set. Hugo supports unlimited content types, taxonomies, dynamic content driven from an API, multi-lingual sites, and markdown. It also ships with premade templates making it easy to get started with menus and site maps.\n\nOne of the advantages of using Hugo is that it doesn't depend on client-side JS. It also has a thriving community with many prebuilt themes and starter repositories. There is an [existing sample site in Hugo that deploys to GitLab pages](https://gitlab.com/pages/hugo). If you're migrating to Hugo from another SSG, you can use the [hugo import](https://gohugo.io/commands/hugo_import/) command or one of the [community-developed migration tools](https://gohugo.io/tools/migrations/). There's a [Hugo site example](https://gitlab.com/pages/hugo) on GitLab pages to help you get started.\n\n[**Zola**](https://www.getzola.org) is a strongly opinionated SSG written in Rust that uses the Tera template engine. It's available as [a prebuilt binary](https://github.com/getzola/zola/releases), is super-fast to set up, and comes with some essential features like syntax highlighting, taxonomies, table of contents, Sass compilation, and hot reloading. The Tera templating engine supports build-in short-codes to inject more complex HTML or for repetitive data-driven sections. Configuration for Zola sites is managed in TOML.\n\nOne of the limitations of Zola might be the lack of a built-in scripting language. Unlike other SSGs, there isn't an ecosystem of plugins you can add to your site. Many in the community appreciate this lack of modularity because Zola’s specialty is content-driven sites. [One of the most popular posts on their Discourse forum is a proposal for plugins](https://zola.discourse.group/t/proposal-plugin/975) which discusses ways to include dynamic loading for plugins without affecting the single binary distribution.\n\nZola is commonly used for content-driven websites. One of its notable features is how content is structured using a tree with sections and pages. There is no example site on GitLab pages, but the Zola documentation includes a [guide on how to deploy to GitLab pages](https://www.getzola.org/documentation/deployment/gitlab-pages/).\n\n## The Standard Approach\n\nWhen it comes to generators and frameworks, you might hear, \"Boring is better.\" Sometimes the preferred SSG is feature complete, well documented, and has a community of examples and plugins to support it - even if it's not actively growing anymore.\n\n[**Jekyll**](https://jekyllrb.com/) is a static site generator written in Ruby and released in 2008. It paved the way for static sites by replacing the need for a database and inspiring developers to start creating blogs and documentation pages quickly and easily. It uses the Liquid templating language, has a vast plugin ecosystem, and is known to be beginner-friendly since it’s just HTML (or Markdown, if you prefer). While it doesn’t provide many features out of the box, Jekyll supports Ruby plugins for any functionality you might need. There are over [200 plugins](https://github.com/topics/jekyll-plugin), themes, and resources available to use.\n\nOne of the challenges when working with Jekyll can be the requirement of having a whole Ruby development environment to build your site. This can be tricky for developers unfamiliar with Ruby or when making updates. Another thing to consider is the build pipeline - it supports Sass compilation out of the box, but the community recommends using webpack to build assets instead. If you're migrating to Jekyll from another framework or CMS, there are [importers](https://import.jekyllrb.com/docs/home/) that can help automate part of the process. There is a [Jekyll site example that deploys to GitLab pages](https://gitlab.com/pages/jekyll).\n\n[**Hexo**](https://hexo.io/) is a NodeJS static site generator that offers itself as a blogging framework. It has built-in support for Markdown, front matter, and tag plugins. It specializes in creating markup-driven blogs. Hexo provides the Nunjucks template engine by default, but you can easily install additional plugins to support alternative templating engines. Like Jekyll, Hexo also [supports migrations](https://hexo.io/docs/migration#content-inner) from several popular frameworks, including WordPress.\n\nA notable feature of Hexo is tag plugins. Tag plugins are snippets of code you can add to your Markdown files without having to write complex or messy HTML to render specific content. Hexo supports several tag plugins, including block quotes, Twitter and Youtube embeds, and code blocks. There’s an [example site for Hexo that deploys to GitLab pages](https://gitlab.com/pages/hexo) and also a [guide in the Hexo documentation](https://hexo.io/docs/gitlab-pages).\n\n## SSGs and beyond\n\nFor those who love flexibility and modularity, there are some SSGs that allow you do everything from full content moderation support and dynamic API-driven content to state management and partial rendering.\n\n[**GatsbyJS**](https://www.gatsbyjs.com/) is an open-source React-based static site generator optimized for speed and has an extensive plugin library. GatsbyJS supports routing, and handling images, accessibility, and hot reloading out of the box. To improve performance, it loads only the critical elements of the page and prefetches assets for other pages to load them as quickly as possible. It also uses webpack to bundle all of your assets.\n\nGatsbyJS believes in a “content mesh” where third-party platforms provide specialized functionality to the base architecture. It allows you to seamlessly pull data from multiple sources, making it popular for Headless approaches with a CMS backend like Drupal, WordPress, or Contentful. You use GraphQL to query the APIs and manage data throughout your site. The GatsbyJS community has contributed over 2000 plugins, including starter repositories and templates that you can use to get started. There’s an [example GatsbyJS site that deploys to GitLab pages](https://gitlab.com/pages/gatsby).\n\n[**Astro**](https://gitlab.com/pages/astro) is a Bring Your Own Framework (BYOF) static site generator with no package dependencies. You can build your site with any JavaScript framework or web components, and Astro will render it into static HTML and CSS. This flexibility has made it popular since it’s future-proof for migrations. Astro ships with automatic sitemaps, RSS feeds, and pagination. It uses Snowpack to compile Javascript, which supports hot module replacement, ES6 modules, and dynamic imports without extra configuration. The project is still a [Beta release with the 1.0 coming in June 2022](https://twitter.com/astrodotbuild/status/1512505549354639363?s=20&t=zXDUGuYmbiOp08FTETXw5A).\n\nA notable feature of Astro is partial hydration. If you decide that parts of your site need interactivity, you can “hydrate” just those components when they become visible on the page. This way, your pages will load super fast by default and have [“islands of interactivity”](https://docs.astro.build/en/core-concepts/partial-hydration/#island-architecture). There are several themes, plugins, components, and showcase projects available. Astro has [an online playground](https://astro.new/) where you can try out features and integrations in your browser. There’s also [an Astro example site on GitLab pages](https://gitlab.com/pages/astro).\n\n## Creating your own SSG\n\nSometimes, the best part of building a static site is creating a custom generator based on a specific programming language, architecture, and feature set. You might find that the process of creating a static site generator is more exciting than actually writing blogs for your site. Consider several preferences, from document structure to a templating language, theming support, custom plugins, and the build pipeline. You’ll have the opportunity to customize the features to your liking. 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statement",{"items":679},[680,683,686],{"text":681,"config":682},"Terms",{"href":507,"dataGaName":508,"dataGaLocation":455},{"text":684,"config":685},"Cookies",{"dataGaName":517,"dataGaLocation":455,"id":518,"isOneTrustButton":28},{"text":687,"config":688},"Privacy",{"href":512,"dataGaName":513,"dataGaLocation":455},[690],{"id":691,"title":18,"body":8,"config":692,"content":694,"description":8,"extension":26,"meta":698,"navigation":28,"path":699,"seo":700,"stem":701,"__hash__":702},"blogAuthors/en-us/blog/authors/fatima-sarah-khalid.yml",{"template":693},"BlogAuthor",{"name":18,"config":695},{"headshot":696,"ctfId":697},"https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749663337/Blog/Author%20Headshots/sugaroverflow-headshot.jpg","sugaroverflow",{},"/en-us/blog/authors/fatima-sarah-khalid",{},"en-us/blog/authors/fatima-sarah-khalid","GpfAGDKB-pWdwSjPp8CXd-29am9proj8tK7mm1IN_rs",[704,719,731],{"content":705,"config":717},{"title":706,"description":707,"authors":708,"heroImage":710,"date":711,"body":712,"category":9,"tags":713},"How to use GitLab Container Virtual Registry with Docker Hardened Images","Learn how to simplify container image management with this step-by-step guide.",[709],"Tim Rizzi","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1772111172/mwhgbjawn62kymfwrhle.png","2026-03-12","If you're a platform engineer, you've probably had this conversation:\n  \n*\"Security says we need to use hardened base images.\"*\n\n*\"Great, where do I configure credentials for yet another registry?\"*\n\n*\"Also, how do we make sure everyone actually uses them?\"*\n\nOr this one:\n\n*\"Why are our builds so slow?\"*\n\n*\"We're pulling the same 500MB image from Docker Hub in every single job.\"*\n\n*\"Can't we just cache these somewhere?\"*\n\nI've been working on [Container Virtual Registry](https://docs.gitlab.com/user/packages/virtual_registry/container/) at GitLab specifically to solve these problems. It's a pull-through cache that sits in front of your upstream registries — Docker Hub, dhi.io (Docker Hardened Images), MCR, and Quay — and gives your teams a single endpoint to pull from. Images get cached on the first pull. Subsequent pulls come from the cache. Your developers don't need to know or care which upstream a particular image came from.\n\nThis article shows you how to set up Container Virtual Registry, specifically with Docker Hardened Images in mind, since that's a combination that makes a lot of sense for teams concerned about security and not making their developers' lives harder.\n\n## What problem are we actually solving?\n\nThe Platform teams I usually talk to manage container images across three to five registries:\n\n* **Docker Hub** for most base images\n* **dhi.io** for Docker Hardened Images (security-conscious workloads)\n* **MCR** for .NET and Azure tooling\n* **Quay.io** for Red Hat ecosystem stuff\n* **Internal registries** for proprietary images\n\nEach one has its own:\n\n* Authentication mechanism\n* Network latency characteristics\n* Way of organizing image paths\n\nYour CI/CD configs end up littered with registry-specific logic. Credential management becomes a project unto itself. And every pipeline job pulls the same base images over the network, even though they haven't changed in weeks.\n\nContainer Virtual Registry consolidates this. One registry URL. One authentication flow (GitLab's). Cached images are served from GitLab's infrastructure rather than traversing the internet each time.\n\n## How it works\n\nThe model is straightforward:\n\n```text\nYour pipeline pulls:\n  gitlab.com/virtual_registries/container/1000016/python:3.13\n\nVirtual registry checks:\n  1. Do I have this cached? → Return it\n  2. No? → Fetch from upstream, cache it, return it\n\n```\n\nYou configure upstreams in priority order. When a pull request comes in, the virtual registry checks each upstream until it finds the image. The result gets cached for a configurable period (default 24 hours).\n\n```text\n┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐\n│                    CI/CD Pipeline                       │\n│                          │                              │\n│                          ▼                              │\n│   gitlab.com/virtual_registries/container/\u003Cid>/image   │\n└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘\n                           │\n                           ▼\n┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐\n│            Container Virtual Registry                   │\n│                                                         │\n│  Upstream 1: Docker Hub ────────────────┐               │\n│  Upstream 2: dhi.io (Hardened) ────────┐│               │\n│  Upstream 3: MCR ─────────────────────┐││               │\n│  Upstream 4: Quay.io ────────────────┐│││               │\n│                                      ││││               │\n│                    ┌─────────────────┴┴┴┴──┐            │\n│                    │        Cache          │            │\n│                    │  (manifests + layers) │            │\n│                    └───────────────────────┘            │\n└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘\n```\n\n## Why this matters for Docker Hardened Images\n\n[Docker Hardened Images](https://docs.docker.com/dhi/) are great because of the minimal attack surface, near-zero CVEs, proper software bills of materials (SBOMs), and SLSA provenance. If you're evaluating base images for security-sensitive workloads, they should be on your list.\n\nBut adopting them creates the same operational friction as any new registry:\n\n* **Credential distribution**: You need to get Docker credentials to every system that pulls images from dhi.io.\n* **CI/CD changes**: Every pipeline needs to be updated to authenticate with dhi.io.\n* **Developer friction**: People need to remember to use the hardened variants.\n* **Visibility gap**: It's difficulat to tell if teams are actually using hardened images vs. regular ones.\n\nVirtual registry addresses each of these:\n\n**Single credential**: Teams authenticate to GitLab. The virtual registry handles upstream authentication. You configure Docker credentials once, at the registry level, and they apply to all pulls.\n\n**No CI/CD changes per-team**: Point pipelines at your virtual registry. Done. The upstream configuration is centralized.\n\n**Gradual adoption**: Since images get cached with their full path, you can see in the cache what's being pulled. If someone's pulling `library/python:3.11` instead of the hardened variant, you'll know.\n\n**Audit trail**: The cache shows you exactly which images are in active use. Useful for compliance, useful for understanding what your fleet actually depends on.\n\n## Setting it up\n\nHere's a real setup using the Python client from this demo project.\n\n### Create the virtual registry\n\n```python\nfrom virtual_registry_client import VirtualRegistryClient\n\nclient = VirtualRegistryClient()\n\nregistry = client.create_virtual_registry(\n    group_id=\"785414\",  # Your top-level group ID\n    name=\"platform-images\",\n    description=\"Cached container images for platform teams\"\n)\n\nprint(f\"Registry ID: {registry['id']}\")\n# You'll need this ID for the pull URL\n```\n\n### Add Docker Hub as an upstream\n\nFor official images like Alpine, Python, etc.:\n\n```python\ndocker_upstream = client.create_upstream(\n    registry_id=registry['id'],\n    url=\"https://registry-1.docker.io\",\n    name=\"Docker Hub\",\n    cache_validity_hours=24\n)\n```\n\n### Add Docker Hardened Images (dhi.io)\n\nDocker Hardened Images are hosted on `dhi.io`, a separate registry that requires authentication:\n\n```python\ndhi_upstream = client.create_upstream(\n    registry_id=registry['id'],\n    url=\"https://dhi.io\",\n    name=\"Docker Hardened Images\",\n    username=\"your-docker-username\",\n    password=\"your-docker-access-token\",\n    cache_validity_hours=24\n)\n```\n\n### Add other upstreams\n\n```python\n# MCR for .NET teams\nclient.create_upstream(\n    registry_id=registry['id'],\n    url=\"https://mcr.microsoft.com\",\n    name=\"Microsoft Container Registry\",\n    cache_validity_hours=48\n)\n\n# Quay for Red Hat stuff\nclient.create_upstream(\n    registry_id=registry['id'],\n    url=\"https://quay.io\",\n    name=\"Quay.io\",\n    cache_validity_hours=24\n)\n```\n\n### Update your CI/CD\n\nHere's a `.gitlab-ci.yml` that pulls through the virtual registry:\n\n```yaml\nvariables:\n  VIRTUAL_REGISTRY_ID: \u003Cyour_virtual_registry_ID>\n\n  \nbuild:\n  image: docker:24\n  services:\n    - docker:24-dind\n  before_script:\n    # Authenticate to GitLab (which handles upstream auth for you)\n    - echo \"${CI_JOB_TOKEN}\" | docker login -u gitlab-ci-token --password-stdin gitlab.com\n  script:\n    # All of these go through your single virtual registry\n    \n    # Official Docker Hub images (use library/ prefix)\n    - docker pull gitlab.com/virtual_registries/container/${VIRTUAL_REGISTRY_ID}/library/alpine:latest\n    \n    # Docker Hardened Images from dhi.io (no prefix needed)\n    - docker pull gitlab.com/virtual_registries/container/${VIRTUAL_REGISTRY_ID}/python:3.13\n    \n    # .NET from MCR\n    - docker pull gitlab.com/virtual_registries/container/${VIRTUAL_REGISTRY_ID}/dotnet/sdk:8.0\n```\n\n### Image path formats\n\nDifferent registries use different path conventions:\n\n| Registry | Pull URL Example |\n|----------|------------------|\n| Docker Hub (official) | `.../library/python:3.11-slim` |\n| Docker Hardened Images (dhi.io) | `.../python:3.13` |\n| MCR | `.../dotnet/sdk:8.0` |\n| Quay.io | `.../prometheus/prometheus:latest` |\n\n### Verify it's working\n\nAfter some pulls, check your cache:\n\n```python\nupstreams = client.list_registry_upstreams(registry['id'])\nfor upstream in upstreams:\n    entries = client.list_cache_entries(upstream['id'])\n    print(f\"{upstream['name']}: {len(entries)} cached entries\")\n\n```\n\n## What the numbers look like\n\nI ran tests pulling images through the virtual registry:\n\n| Metric | Without Cache | With Warm Cache |\n|--------|---------------|-----------------|\n| Pull time (Alpine) | 10.3s | 4.2s |\n| Pull time (Python 3.13 DHI) | 11.6s | ~4s |\n| Network roundtrips to upstream | Every pull | Cache misses only |\n\n\n\n\nThe first pull is the same speed (it has to fetch from upstream). Every pull after that, for the cache validity period, comes straight from GitLab's storage. No network hop to Docker Hub, dhi.io, MCR, or wherever the image lives.\n\nFor a team running hundreds of pipeline jobs per day, that's hours of cumulative build time saved.\n\n## Practical considerations\nHere are some considerations to keep in mind:\n\n### Cache validity\n\n24 hours is the default. For security-sensitive images where you want patches quickly, consider 12 hours or less:\n\n```python\nclient.create_upstream(\n    registry_id=registry['id'],\n    url=\"https://dhi.io\",\n    name=\"Docker Hardened Images\",\n    username=\"your-username\",\n    password=\"your-token\",\n    cache_validity_hours=12\n)\n```\n\nFor stable, infrequently-updated images (like specific version tags), longer validity is fine.\n\n### Upstream priority\n\nUpstreams are checked in order. If you have images with the same name on different registries, the first matching upstream wins.\n\n### Limits\n\n* Maximum of 20 virtual registries per group\n* Maximum of 20 upstreams per virtual registry\n\n## Configuration via UI\n\nYou can also configure virtual registries and upstreams directly from the GitLab UI—no API calls required. Navigate to your group's **Settings > Packages and registries > Virtual Registry** to:\n\n* Create and manage virtual registries\n* Add, edit, and reorder upstream registries\n* View and manage the cache\n* Monitor which images are being pulled\n\n## What's next\n\nWe're actively developing:\n\n* **Allow/deny lists**: Use regex to control which images can be pulled from specific upstreams.\n\nThis is beta software. It works, people are using it in production, but we're still iterating based on feedback.\n\n## Share your feedback\n\nIf you're a platform engineer dealing with container registry sprawl, I'd like to understand your setup:\n\n* How many upstream registries are you managing?\n* What's your biggest pain point with the current state?\n* Would something like this help, and if not, what's missing?\n\nPlease share your experiences in the [Container Virtual Registry feedback issue](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/work_items/589630).\n## Related resources\n- [New GitLab metrics and registry features help reduce CI/CD bottlenecks](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/new-gitlab-metrics-and-registry-features-help-reduce-ci-cd-bottlenecks/#container-virtual-registry)\n- [Container Virtual Registry documentation](https://docs.gitlab.com/user/packages/virtual_registry/container/)\n- [Container Virtual Registry API](https://docs.gitlab.com/api/container_virtual_registries/)",[714,715,716],"tutorial","product","features",{"featured":12,"template":13,"slug":718},"using-gitlab-container-virtual-registry-with-docker-hardened-images",{"content":720,"config":729},{"title":721,"description":722,"authors":723,"heroImage":725,"date":726,"category":9,"tags":727,"body":728},"How IIT Bombay students are coding the future with GitLab","At GitLab, we often talk about how software accelerates innovation. But sometimes, you have to step away from the Zoom calls and stand in a crowded university hall to remember why we do this.",[724],"Nick Veenhof","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1750099013/Blog/Hero%20Images/Blog/Hero%20Images/blog-image-template-1800x945%20%2814%29_6VTUA8mUhOZNDaRVNPeKwl_1750099012960.png","2026-01-08",[24,611,25],"The GitLab team recently had the privilege of judging the **iHack Hackathon** at **IIT Bombay's E-Summit**. The energy was electric, the coffee was flowing, and the talent was undeniable. But what struck us most wasn't just the code — it was the sheer determination of students to solve real-world problems, often overcoming significant logistical and financial hurdles to simply be in the room.\n\n\nThrough our [GitLab for Education program](https://about.gitlab.com/solutions/education/), we aim to empower the next generation of developers with tools and opportunity. Here is a look at what the students built, and how they used GitLab to bridge the gap between idea and reality.\n\n## The challenge: Build faster, build securely\n\nThe premise for the GitLab track of the hackathon was simple: Don't just show us a product; show us how you built it. We wanted to see how students utilized GitLab's platform — from Issue Boards to CI/CD pipelines — to accelerate the development lifecycle.\n\nThe results were inspiring.\n\n## The winners\n\n### 1st place: Team Decode — Democratizing Scientific Research\n\n**Project:** FIRE (Fast Integrated Research Environment)\n\nTeam Decode took home the top prize with a solution that warms a developer's heart: a local-first, blazing-fast data processing tool built with [Rust](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/secure-rust-development-with-gitlab/) and Tauri. They identified a massive pain point for data science students: existing tools are fragmented, slow, and expensive.\n\nTheir solution, FIRE, allows researchers to visualize complex formats (like NetCDF) instantly. What impressed the judges most was their \"hacker\" ethos. They didn't just build a tool; they built it to be open and accessible.\n\n**How they used GitLab:** Since the team lived far apart, asynchronous communication was key. They utilized **GitLab Issue Boards** and **Milestones** to track progress and integrated their repo with Telegram to get real-time push notifications. As one team member noted, \"Coordinating all these technologies was really difficult, and what helped us was GitLab... the Issue Board really helped us track who was doing what.\"\n\n![Team Decode](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1767380253/epqazj1jc5c7zkgqun9h.jpg)\n\n### 2nd place: Team BichdeHueDost — Reuniting to Solve Payments\n\n**Project:** SemiPay (RFID Cashless Payment for Schools)\n\nThe team name, BichdeHueDost, translates to \"Friends who have been set apart.\" It's a fitting name for a group of friends who went to different colleges but reunited to build this project. They tackled a unique problem: handling cash in schools for young children. Their solution used RFID cards backed by a blockchain ledger to ensure secure, cashless transactions for students.\n\n**How they used GitLab:** They utilized [GitLab CI/CD](https://about.gitlab.com/topics/ci-cd/) to automate the build process for their Flutter application (APK), ensuring that every commit resulted in a testable artifact. This allowed them to iterate quickly despite the \"flaky\" nature of cross-platform mobile development.\n\n![Team BichdeHueDost](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1767380253/pkukrjgx2miukb6nrj5g.jpg)\n\n### 3rd place: Team ZenYukti — Agentic Repository Intelligence\n\n**Project:** RepoInsight AI (AI-powered, GitLab-native intelligence platform)\n\nTeam ZenYukti impressed us with a solution that tackles a universal developer pain point: understanding unfamiliar codebases. What stood out to the judges was the tool's practical approach to onboarding and code comprehension: RepoInsight-AI automatically generates documentation, visualizes repository structure, and even helps identify bugs, all while maintaining context about the entire codebase.\n\n**How they used GitLab:** The team built a comprehensive CI/CD pipeline that showcased GitLab's security and DevOps capabilities. They integrated [GitLab's Security Templates](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/tree/master/lib/gitlab/ci/templates/Security) (SAST, Dependency Scanning, and Secret Detection), and utilized [GitLab Container Registry](https://docs.gitlab.com/user/packages/container_registry/) to manage their Docker images for backend and frontend components. They created an AI auto-review bot that runs on merge requests, demonstrating an \"agentic workflow\" where AI assists in the development process itself.\n\n![Team ZenYukti](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1767380253/ymlzqoruv5al1secatba.jpg)\n\n## Beyond the code: A lesson in inclusion\n\nWhile the code was impressive, the most powerful moment of the event happened away from the keyboard.\n\nDuring the feedback session, we learned about the journey Team ZenYukti took to get to Mumbai. They traveled over 24 hours, covering nearly 1,800 kilometers. Because flights were too expensive and trains were booked, they traveled in the \"General Coach,\" a non-reserved, severely overcrowded carriage.\n\nAs one student described it:\n\n*\"You cannot even imagine something like this... there are no seats... people sit on the top of the train. This is what we have endured.\"*\n\nThis hit home. [Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/company/culture/inclusion/) are core values at GitLab. We realized that for these students, the barrier to entry wasn't intellect or skill, it was access.\n\nIn that moment, we decided to break that barrier. We committed to reimbursing the travel expenses for the participants who struggled to get there. It's a small step, but it underlines a massive truth: **talent is distributed equally, but opportunity is not.**\n\n![hackathon class together](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1767380252/o5aqmboquz8ehusxvgom.jpg)\n\n### The future is bright (and automated)\n\nWe also saw incredible potential in teams like Prometheus, who attempted to build an autonomous patch remediation tool (DevGuardian), and Team Arrakis, who built a voice-first job portal for blue-collar workers using [GitLab Duo](https://about.gitlab.com/gitlab-duo/) to troubleshoot their pipelines.\n\nTo all the students who participated: You are the future. Through [GitLab for Education](https://about.gitlab.com/solutions/education/), we are committed to providing you with the top-tier tools (like GitLab Ultimate) you need to learn, collaborate, and change the world — whether you are coding from a dorm room, a lab, or a train carriage. **Keep shipping.**\n\n> :bulb: Learn more about the [GitLab for Education program](https://about.gitlab.com/solutions/education/).\n",{"slug":730,"featured":12,"template":13},"how-iit-bombay-students-code-future-with-gitlab",{"content":732,"config":740},{"title":733,"description":734,"authors":735,"heroImage":736,"date":737,"category":9,"tags":738,"body":739},"Artois University elevates research and curriculum with GitLab Ultimate for Education","Artois University's CRIL leveraged the GitLab for Education program to gain free access to Ultimate, transforming advanced research and computer science curricula.",[724],"https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1750099203/Blog/Hero%20Images/Blog/Hero%20Images/blog-image-template-1800x945%20%2820%29_2bJGC5ZP3WheoqzlLT05C5_1750099203484.png","2025-12-10",[611,24,715],"Leading academic institutions face a critical challenge: how to provide thousands of students and researchers with industry-standard, **full-featured DevSecOps tools** without compromising institutional control. Many start with basic version control, but the modern curriculum demands integrated capabilities for planning, security, and advanced CI/CD.\n\nThe **GitLab for Education program** is designed to solve this by providing access to **GitLab Ultimate** for qualifying institutions, allowing them to scale their operations and elevate their academic offerings. \n\nThis article showcases a powerful success story from the **Centre de Recherche en Informatique de Lens (CRIL)**, a joint laboratory of **Artois University** and CNRS in France. After years of relying solely on GitLab Community Edition (CE), the university's move to GitLab Ultimate through the GitLab for Education program immediately unlocked advanced capabilities, transforming their teaching, research, and contribution workflows virtually overnight. This story demonstrates why GitLab Ultimate is essential for institutions seeking to deliver advanced computer science and research curricula.\n\n## GitLab Ultimate unlocked: Managing scale and driving academic value\n\n**Artois University's** self-managed GitLab instance is a large-scale operation, supporting nearly **3,000 users** across approximately **19,000 projects**, primarily serving computer science students and researchers. While GitLab Community Edition was robust, the upgrade to GitLab Ultimate provided the sophisticated tooling necessary for managing this scale and facilitating advanced university-level work.\n\n***\"We can see the difference,\" says Daniel Le Berre, head of research at CRIL and the instance maintainer. \"It's a completely different product. Each week reveals new features that directly enhance our productivity and teaching.\"***\n\nThe institution joined the GitLab for Education program specifically because it covers both **instructional and non-commercial research use cases** and offers full access to Ultimate's features, removing significant cost barriers.\n\n### Key GitLab Ultimate benefits for students and researchers\n\n* **Advanced project management at scale:** Master's students now benefit from **GitLab Ultimate's project planning features**. This enables them to structure, track, and manage complex, long-term research projects using professional methodologies like portfolio management and advanced issue tracking that seamlessly roll up across their thousands of projects.\n\n* **Enhanced visibility:** Features like improved dashboards and code previews directly in Markdown files dramatically streamline tracking and documentation review, reducing administrative friction for both instructors and students managing large project loads.\n\n## Comprehensive curriculum: From concepts to continuous delivery\n\nGitLab Ultimate is deeply integrated into the computer science curriculum, moving students beyond simple `git` commands to practical **DevSecOps implementation**.\n\n* **Git fundamentals:** Students begin by visualizing concepts using open-source tools to master Git concepts.\n\n* **Full CI/CD implementation:** Students use GitLab CI for rigorous **Test-Driven Development (TDD)** in their software projects. They learn to build, test, and perform quality assurance using unit and integration testing pipelines—core competency made seamless by the integrated platform.\n\n* **DevSecOps for research and documentation:** The university teaches students that DevSecOps principles are vital for all collaborative work. Inspired by earlier work in Delft, students manage and produce critical research documentation (PDFs from Markdown files) using GitLab, incorporating quality checks like linters and spell checks directly in the CI pipeline. This ensures high-quality, reproducible research output.\n\n* **Future-proofing security skills:** The GitLab Ultimate platform immediately positions the institution to incorporate advanced DevSecOps features like SAST and DAST scanning as their research and development code projects grow, ensuring students are prepared for industry security standards.\n\n## Accelerating open source contributions with GitLab Duo\n\nAccess to the full GitLab platform, including our AI capabilities, has empowered students to make impactful contributions to the wider open source community faster than ever before.\n\nTwo Master's students recently completed direct contributions to the GitLab product, adding the **ORCID identifier** into user profiles. Working on GitLab.com, they leveraged **GitLab Duo's AI chat and code suggestions** to navigate the codebase efficiently.\n\n***\"This would not have been possible without GitLab Duo,\" Daniel Le Berre notes. \"The AI features helped students, who might have lacked deep codebase knowledge, deliver meaningful contributions in just two weeks.\"***\n\nThis demonstrates how providing students with cutting-edge tools **accelerates their learning and impact**, allowing them to translate classroom knowledge into real-world contributions immediately.\n\n## Empowering open research and institutional control\n\nThe stability of the self-managed instance at Artois University is key to its success. This model guarantees **institutional control and stability** — a critical factor for long-term research preservation.\n\nThe institution's expertise in this area was recently highlighted in a major 2024 study led by CRIL, titled: \"[Higher Education and Research Forges in France - Definition, uses, limitations encountered and needs analysis](https://hal.science/hal-04208924v4)\" ([Project on GitLab](https://gitlab.in2p3.fr/coso-college-codes-sources-et-logiciels/forges-esr-en)). The research found that the vast majority of public forges in French Higher Education and Research relied on **GitLab**. This finding underscores the consensus among academic leaders that self-hosted solutions are essential for **data control and longevity**, especially when compared to relying on external, commercial forges.\n\n## Unlock GitLab Ultimate for your institution today\n\nThe success story of **Artois University's CRIL** proves the transformative power of the GitLab for Education program. By providing **free access to GitLab Ultimate**, we enable large-scale institutions to:\n\n1.  **Deliver a modern, integrated DevSecOps curriculum.**\n\n2.  **Support advanced, collaborative research projects with Ultimate planning features.**\n\n3.  **Empower students to make AI-assisted open source contributions.**\n\n4.  **Maintain institutional control and data longevity.**\n\nIf your academic institution is ready to equip its students and researchers with the complete DevSecOps platform and its most advanced features, we invite you to join the program.\n\nThe program provides **free access to GitLab Ultimate** for qualifying instructional and non-commercial research use cases.\n\n**Apply now [online](https://about.gitlab.com/solutions/education/join/).**\n",{"slug":741,"featured":28,"template":13},"artois-university-elevates-curriculum-with-gitlab-ultimate-for-education",{"promotions":743},[744,758,769],{"id":745,"categories":746,"header":748,"text":749,"button":750,"image":755},"ai-modernization",[747],"ai-ml","Is AI achieving its promise at scale?","Quiz will take 5 minutes or less",{"text":751,"config":752},"Get your AI maturity score",{"href":753,"dataGaName":754,"dataGaLocation":242},"/assessments/ai-modernization-assessment/","modernization assessment",{"config":756},{"src":757},"https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1772138786/qix0m7kwnd8x2fh1zq49.png",{"id":759,"categories":760,"header":761,"text":749,"button":762,"image":766},"devops-modernization",[715,557],"Are you just managing tools or shipping innovation?",{"text":763,"config":764},"Get your DevOps maturity score",{"href":765,"dataGaName":754,"dataGaLocation":242},"/assessments/devops-modernization-assessment/",{"config":767},{"src":768},"https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1772138785/eg818fmakweyuznttgid.png",{"id":770,"categories":771,"header":773,"text":749,"button":774,"image":778},"security-modernization",[772],"security","Are you trading speed for security?",{"text":775,"config":776},"Get your security maturity score",{"href":777,"dataGaName":754,"dataGaLocation":242},"/assessments/security-modernization-assessment/",{"config":779},{"src":780},"https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1772138786/p4pbqd9nnjejg5ds6mdk.png",{"header":782,"blurb":783,"button":784,"secondaryButton":789},"Start building faster today","See what your team can do with the intelligent orchestration platform for DevSecOps.\n",{"text":785,"config":786},"Get your free trial",{"href":787,"dataGaName":49,"dataGaLocation":788},"https://gitlab.com/-/trial_registrations/new?glm_content=default-saas-trial&glm_source=about.gitlab.com/","feature",{"text":493,"config":790},{"href":53,"dataGaName":54,"dataGaLocation":788},1773350802773]