GitLab is a comprehensive DevOps platform that unifies source control, CI/CD, security scanning, project management, and deployment in one application. GitLab provides everything from issue tracking to source control to CI/CD to security scanning to deployment in a single, integrated application. Your entire software delivery lifecycle lives in one place with one permission model, one interface, and one source of truth.
With GitLab VPS hosting on Kamatera’s high-performance cloud infrastructure, you can experience the speed and control that keeps your builds fast, your data private, and your deployments seamless.
Why Run GitLab on Kamatera?
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GitLab hosting refers to running GitLab—a complete DevOps platform—on server infrastructure where you can manage your software development lifecycle. By self-managing GitLab on a private server, you gain total control over your intellectual property and sensitive API keys, ensuring they reside on a private, isolated instance. This approach eliminates the friction of “per-user” licensing and strict CI/CD minute caps.
Performance is where this route truly excels, specifically through Kamatera’s NVMe-powered architecture. GitLab is a resource-intensive suite that relies heavily on fast disk I/O for database queries, repository indexing, and container registry operations. By leveraging dedicated Intel Xeon processors and high-speed storage, the Kamatera route ensures that heavy CI/CD pipelines and complex merge requests process at peak velocity, reducing developer downtime and accelerating your time-to-market.
Gitlab VPS hosting provides the unmatched flexibility required for long-term growth. Unlike static SaaS plans, Kamatera allows you to scale your server resources vertically in seconds, like adding more RAM for a growing user base or expanding storage for a massive container registry. You have the freedom to choose your preferred Linux distribution and security configurations.
GitLab has specific installation requirements. Here is a brief overview:
CPU
CPU requirements depend on the number of users and expected workload. The workload includes your users’ activity, use of automation and mirroring, and repository size. For a maximum of 20 requests per second or 1,000 users, you should have 8 vCPU.
Storage
The necessary storage space largely depends on the size of the repositories you want to have in GitLab. As a guideline, you should have at least as much free space as all your repositories combined.
The Linux package requires about 2.5 GB of storage space for installation.
Memory
Memory requirements depend on the number of users and expected workload. The workload includes your users’ activity, use of automation and mirroring, and repository size. For a maximum of 20 requests per second or 1,000 users, you should have 16 GB of memory.
For more details, refer to the Gitlab installation requirements.
Kamatera allows for easy storage expansion. If your repositories or container registry grow faster than expected, you can add additional block storage or increase your primary disk size instantly through the dashboard without losing data.
GitLab is database and disk-intensive. Every time a developer pushes code, runs a pipeline, or accesses the container registry, the server performs heavy I/O operations. Kamatera’s NVMe SSDs are significantly faster than standard SSDs, ensuring that the GitLab UI remains snappy and the background tasks finish without bottlenecks.
GitLab provides comprehensive backup and restore capabilities critical for protecting your development infrastructure. The built-in backup tool creates complete backups including repositories, database, configuration, artifacts, uploads, and container registry data. Kamatera’s backup services, including comprehensive protection for your cloud servers, include a daily snapshot at 00:00, based on the data center location.
Kamatera also offers highly sophisticated disaster recovery solutions, including 24/7 real-time data replication, which ensures that a current version of your database is always accessible for immediate restoration.
Kamatera provides a cloud firewall that allows you to restrict access to your GitLab instance. You can also whitelist specific office IP addresses, set up a VPN, and ensure that sensitive ports (like the SSH and Admin ports) are not exposed to the public internet.
Most teams use GitLab on Kamatera to centralize their entire DevOps lifecycle. The most common use cases are:
Consolidating toolchains: Replacing multiple separate tools (Jira, Jenkins, and Bitbucket) with one integrated platform.
Secure internal development: Creating a fortress for internal code that cannot be hosted on public clouds due to strict compliance or intellectual property requirements.
Automated testing and deployment: Using GitLab Runners on Kamatera to speed up build times and ensure code quality before it hits production.
Building a private registry: Storing proprietary Docker images securely within a company’s own network.
The most popular alternatives include GitHub, Bitbucket, and Gitea. GitHub is the industry leader for open-source and social coding, offering extensive third-party integrations. Bitbucket, part of the Atlassian suite, is often favored by teams already using Jira and Confluence. Gitea is a lightweight, self-hosted option that provides a simple Git interface with significantly lower hardware requirements than GitLab.
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Kamatera offers a free 30-day trial period. This free trial offers services worth up to $100 on 1 server. After signing up, you can use the management console to deploy a server and test our infrastructure. You can select a data center, operating system, CPU, RAM, storage, and other system preferences.