[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":789},["ShallowReactive",2],{"/en-us/blog/gitlab-is-a-slam-dunk":3,"navigation-en-us":33,"banner-en-us":433,"footer-en-us":443,"blog-post-authors-en-us-Emily von Hoffmann":685,"blog-related-posts-en-us-gitlab-is-a-slam-dunk":700,"assessment-promotions-en-us":740,"next-steps-en-us":779},{"id":4,"title":5,"authorSlugs":6,"body":8,"categorySlug":9,"config":10,"content":14,"description":8,"extension":22,"isFeatured":12,"meta":23,"navigation":24,"path":25,"publishedDate":20,"seo":26,"stem":30,"tagSlugs":31,"__hash__":32},"blogPosts/en-us/blog/gitlab-is-a-slam-dunk.yml","Gitlab Is A Slam Dunk",[7],"emily-von-hoffmann",null,"engineering",{"slug":11,"featured":12,"template":13},"gitlab-is-a-slam-dunk",false,"BlogPost",{"title":15,"description":16,"authors":17,"heroImage":19,"date":20,"body":21,"category":9},"'GitLab is a slam dunk': One team lead weighs his options","Developer Warren Postma shares his opinions on VCS, after years of trying out all the alternatives.",[18],"Emily von Hoffmann","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749663798/Blog/Hero%20Images/gitlab-is-a-slam-dunk.jpg","2016-11-27","\nWarren Postma is a team lead and \"de facto DevOps guy\" at [RamSoft](https://www.ramsoft.com/), but like so many he's gotten hooked on [contributing](https://gitlab.com/warren.postma) to GitLab in his spare time. After becoming familiar with GitHub, Atlassian, and Mercurial in previous jobs, he felt strongly that Git and GitLab were the best choice for his current team. Since reaching that conclusion, he's also assisted his peers and former colleagues in their switch to GitLab, so I wanted to hear his opinions - they're both strong and numerous, which made for a fun conversation.\n\n\u003C!--more-->\n\nHere are some highlights:\n* In a team distributed across timezones and languages, the decentralized nature of Git and GitLab is a huge win.\n* If you pair people for code review who are in the same timezone, you can prevent having merge requests stay open for days or weeks.\n* When switching to GitLab CI, the biggest barrier is training and removing ingrained habits - especially if people are also new to Git.\n\n**Can you briefly describe the kinds of projects you use GitLab for?**\n\n\n**Warren:** I use it for both personal projects and for my job. I switched a team at a small healthcare company from Subversion to Git, taught some of the team members their first steps in Git, and I switched from preferring Mercurial (another DVCS) to preferring Git, chiefly because I really like GitLab. There is nothing like GitLab for Mercurial although there is a project called RhodeCode and its fork Kallithea that comes close.  I spun up our private GitLab instance and taught our IT people how to maintain it (not hard really).\n\nI also have counseled other people to switch to GitLab, and I'm generally most active in doing so among peers. I know a guy who runs a small software company and I'm helping him switch his team over to GitLab. It feels like I could be finding my niche.\n\n**What is the makeup of your team at RamSoft, and what is your workflow like?**\n\n\n**Warren:** Our workflow and culture is evolving rapidly. My team is multi-cultural, multi-language, multi-everything, in multiple physical sites.  One part of our team is in Toronto, another part is in Vietnam. The decentralized nature of Git and GitLab is a major win for us. We have two merge request (MR) pipelines. We have all Toronto devs code-review via MR with someone in the same timezone because our MRs should be short-lived MRs, reviewed and merged quickly.  We don't have MRs that stay open for days or weeks.  We don't use WIP much yet, but I am starting to advocate for WIP merge requests for collaborative feature development. Since we're in the same office, we can mostly work in pairs when our work requires it. GitLab provides a history of our work, and our reviews, and MRs are like a project history.\n\n**How did you decide to get started with GitLab?**\n\n\n**Warren:** It was easy, I chose Ubuntu (I can't remember if it was 12 or 14) LTS and it was around GitLab 8.0, September 2015 or so, and I simply copied the installation commands from the website and pasted it into terminal.  I needed a bit of help from my IT guy to set up LDAP to our ActiveDirectory, and we were good.\nOur company is 99% composed of Windows-only technical people, I'm a Linux guy working in a Windows company.  I'd say that in many companies this is a significant barrier to getting up and running.  If I could suggest something, it would be to provide a Hyper-V and a VMWare image of a working private GitLab, which can be downloaded and run by anyone. I think that should be done in-house as opposed to via Bitnami. I have used Bitnami products, and I have nothing against them, but I see the opportunity for GitLab to provide technical support even to smaller corporations as a significant opportunity to GitLab, that it should be taking on.\n\n**Is there anything you feel you can do in GitLab that you can't do with other tools?**\n\n\n**Warren:** GitLab is about integration of tools. I don't want to set everything up separately. GitLab provides an all-in-one version control server, bug tracker (issues), kanban board (issues in progress, completed, in production), merge request handling (code reviews). All those tools exist in many flavors, but none so well integrated, and I can self-host.\n\nYour closest competitor is Bitbucket, in my opinion, which can be run privately but the private Bitbucket is closed-source I believe, and you can't get it for free, so GitLab CE is really without peer. Since I don't work in very large companies, GitLab EE is something I haven't spent much time on, but I can see that even a serious small company might want to buy GitLab EE because having support is a major feature. If I wasn't working at my current company, the level of Linux knowledge in house would take a major dive, and they'd probably want to buy a support contract to fix their GitLab if it went down, or help diagnose major issues.\n\nPrivately Hosted (on my computer or VM) + Free + OpenSource = Made of Win. I can't see choosing anything else. I see GitHub as problematic, something I [blogged about]( http://linuxcodemonkey.blogspot.ca/2016/11/gitlab-all-things.html)\n\n**What is the main reason you would recommend GitLab to another dev?**\n\n\n**Warren:** Once the choice is made to use Git, to me, GitLab is a slam dunk decision. Software companies, whether small, medium, or large, and even single developers who are professionals who get paid, should be hosting their own in-house GitLab, and perhaps having that back up to some off-site repo (say Bitbucket or GitLab.com). Single developers could be quite happy with Bitbucket also. I happen to still love Bitbucket, but happen to distrust GitHub. I only use GitHub when I have to use it, which is to make MRs to projects that are on GitHub.\n\nPeople who I have talked to, and I have even given presentations to people at user groups, are usually interested in GitLab because:\n\n1. It lets you host your own private Git server.\n2. It has a pretty impressive set of features, issue tracking, merge request handling, and [continuous integration server](https://about.gitlab.com/topics/ci-cd/continuous-integration-server/) built in.\n\nI am working on a community blog post on switching a small healthcare software company from Jenkins to GitLab CI. So far, I have found that the only difficulty is in training team members. Moving ingrained practices and working against ingrained tendencies is the hardest thing. We previously had a single-branch trunk-based monorepo culture, and switching to Git, to me, was only sensible if we changed our practices to work how Git is meant to be used.\n\nA pet peeve of mine can be summed up in the saying \"When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.\" In the world of Subversion and Git, what I see over and over is people who take a 10 - 50 GiB Subversion monorepo and then just \"import all 50 GiB, and all 500,000 svn commit revs into Git\". They are seldom impressed with the results of this, and it seldom occurs to them to question their initial preconception that this was the right and obvious way to move from SVN to Git. I am not sure if there exists a comprehensive re-education plan for Subversion users, but I think perhaps I should write one. There was a start towards this when Joel Spolsky tried something called \"[hginit.com](http://hginit.com/)\", retraining Subversion victims in how to work with Mercurial. A similar practice for corporate teams moving from Subversion to Git would be a great educational resource that I think GitLab could provide. Some pretty good material in that vein is already on the internet and is provided by Atlassian, as part of their Bitbucket docs.\n\nIn terms of companies and products that I consider to be almost \"peers\" of GitLab, perhaps Bitbucket is closest. I prefer GitLab because the product is open source, the people are great, and the growing community around GitLab is also great. Oh and the product is growing at a fantastic pace. Just watching it from mid 2015 to today, the pace of innovation has been boggling. I have also collaborated with GitLab community members to create add-ons and tools. One guy made a Python-based tool that uses the GitLab API to [expire and delete old artifacts](https://github.com/JonathonReinhart/gitlab-artifact-cleanup) *site-wide*. Another guy made a Go-based tool that copies Issues and Issue labels from one project to another. All great plugins from the community!\n\n_If your team uses GitLab and is interested in sharing your story, please fill out this [form]( https://docs.google.com/a/gitlab.com/forms/d/1K8ZTS1QvSSPos6mVh1ol8ZyagInYctX3fb9eglzeK70/edit) and we’ll get in touch!_\n\n_Follow Warren on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/warrenpostma)_\n\n_Tweet [@GitLab](https://twitter.com/gitlab) and check out our [job openings](/jobs/)._\n","yml",{},true,"/en-us/blog/gitlab-is-a-slam-dunk",{"title":15,"description":16,"ogTitle":15,"ogDescription":16,"noIndex":12,"ogImage":19,"ogUrl":27,"ogSiteName":28,"ogType":29,"canonicalUrls":27},"https://about.gitlab.com/blog/gitlab-is-a-slam-dunk","https://about.gitlab.com","article","en-us/blog/gitlab-is-a-slam-dunk",[],"KObyRdfdOE7g4A0MJ2cLF0K91XuxCAz77nTibJhfgPs",{"data":34},{"logo":35,"freeTrial":40,"sales":45,"login":50,"items":55,"search":363,"minimal":394,"duo":413,"pricingDeployment":423},{"config":36},{"href":37,"dataGaName":38,"dataGaLocation":39},"/","gitlab 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inclusion and belonging (DIB)",{"href":661,"dataGaName":662,"dataGaLocation":451},"/diversity-inclusion-belonging/","Diversity, inclusion and belonging",{"text":325,"config":664},{"href":327,"dataGaName":328,"dataGaLocation":451},{"text":335,"config":666},{"href":337,"dataGaName":338,"dataGaLocation":451},{"text":340,"config":668},{"href":342,"dataGaName":343,"dataGaLocation":451},{"text":670,"config":671},"Modern Slavery Transparency Statement",{"href":672,"dataGaName":673,"dataGaLocation":451},"https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/legal/modern-slavery-act-transparency-statement/","modern slavery transparency statement",{"items":675},[676,679,682],{"text":677,"config":678},"Terms",{"href":503,"dataGaName":504,"dataGaLocation":451},{"text":680,"config":681},"Cookies",{"dataGaName":513,"dataGaLocation":451,"id":514,"isOneTrustButton":24},{"text":683,"config":684},"Privacy",{"href":508,"dataGaName":509,"dataGaLocation":451},[686],{"id":687,"title":688,"body":8,"config":689,"content":691,"description":8,"extension":22,"meta":695,"navigation":24,"path":696,"seo":697,"stem":698,"__hash__":699},"blogAuthors/en-us/blog/authors/emily-von-hoffmann.yml","Emily Von Hoffmann",{"template":690},"BlogAuthor",{"name":18,"config":692},{"headshot":693,"ctfId":694},"https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749659488/Blog/Author%20Headshots/gitlab-logo-extra-whitespace.png","evhoffmann",{},"/en-us/blog/authors/emily-von-hoffmann",{},"en-us/blog/authors/emily-von-hoffmann","zBEVnM69VnbjDNRxhqMvtqH47MYHt1wraGaN6nBYmAU",[701,716,729],{"content":702,"config":714},{"title":703,"description":704,"authors":705,"heroImage":707,"date":708,"body":709,"category":9,"tags":710},"How to use GitLab Container Virtual Registry with Docker Hardened Images","Learn how to simplify container image management with this step-by-step guide.",[706],"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/)",[711,712,713],"tutorial","product","features",{"featured":12,"template":13,"slug":715},"using-gitlab-container-virtual-registry-with-docker-hardened-images",{"content":717,"config":727},{"title":718,"description":719,"authors":720,"heroImage":722,"date":723,"category":9,"tags":724,"body":726},"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.",[721],"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",[255,607,725],"open source","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":728,"featured":12,"template":13},"how-iit-bombay-students-code-future-with-gitlab",{"content":730,"config":738},{"title":731,"description":732,"authors":733,"heroImage":734,"date":735,"category":9,"tags":736,"body":737},"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.",[721],"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",[607,255,712],"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":739,"featured":24,"template":13},"artois-university-elevates-curriculum-with-gitlab-ultimate-for-education",{"promotions":741},[742,756,767],{"id":743,"categories":744,"header":746,"text":747,"button":748,"image":753},"ai-modernization",[745],"ai-ml","Is AI achieving its promise at scale?","Quiz will take 5 minutes or less",{"text":749,"config":750},"Get your AI maturity score",{"href":751,"dataGaName":752,"dataGaLocation":237},"/assessments/ai-modernization-assessment/","modernization assessment",{"config":754},{"src":755},"https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1772138786/qix0m7kwnd8x2fh1zq49.png",{"id":757,"categories":758,"header":759,"text":747,"button":760,"image":764},"devops-modernization",[712,553],"Are you just managing tools or shipping innovation?",{"text":761,"config":762},"Get your DevOps maturity score",{"href":763,"dataGaName":752,"dataGaLocation":237},"/assessments/devops-modernization-assessment/",{"config":765},{"src":766},"https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1772138785/eg818fmakweyuznttgid.png",{"id":768,"categories":769,"header":771,"text":747,"button":772,"image":776},"security-modernization",[770],"security","Are you trading speed for security?",{"text":773,"config":774},"Get your security maturity score",{"href":775,"dataGaName":752,"dataGaLocation":237},"/assessments/security-modernization-assessment/",{"config":777},{"src":778},"https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1772138786/p4pbqd9nnjejg5ds6mdk.png",{"header":780,"blurb":781,"button":782,"secondaryButton":787},"Start building faster today","See what your team can do with the intelligent orchestration platform for DevSecOps.\n",{"text":783,"config":784},"Get your free trial",{"href":785,"dataGaName":44,"dataGaLocation":786},"https://gitlab.com/-/trial_registrations/new?glm_content=default-saas-trial&glm_source=about.gitlab.com/","feature",{"text":489,"config":788},{"href":48,"dataGaName":49,"dataGaLocation":786},1773350838452]