<p>Besides hosting your code, <a href="https://about.gitlab.com">Gitlab</a> also has CI/CD pipeline feature that allows you to automatically build, test, deploy, and monitor your applications. In this blog post, we will compare Gitlab CI/CD with Appcircle. The comparison will be based on the cloud (SAAS) version for both products. Although both Appcircle and Gitlab provide self-hosted versions, comparing SAAS versions will show which product gives the most benefit with minimal effort.</p>
<h2>​Onboarding</h2>
<p>While importing a repository, GitLab has nothing special for mobile apps. Gitlab doesn&#8217;t understand whether your project is Android or iOS. You need to configure your pipeline manually. Also, GitLab has lots of concepts for back-end development that are unnecessary for iOS and Android apps.</p>
<div id="attachment_3976" style="width: 1187px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-3976" class="size-full wp-image-3976" src="https://ac.appcircle.io/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/gitlab.png" alt="gitlab" width="1177" height="615" srcset="https://ac.appcircle.io/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/gitlab.png 1177w, https://ac.appcircle.io/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/gitlab-300x157.png 300w, https://ac.appcircle.io/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/gitlab-1030x538.png 1030w, https://ac.appcircle.io/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/gitlab-768x401.png 768w, https://ac.appcircle.io/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/gitlab-705x368.png 705w" sizes="(max-width: 1177px) 100vw, 1177px" /><p id="caption-attachment-3976" class="wp-caption-text">GitLab Onboarding Screen</p></div>
<p>On the other hand, Appcircle has been designed for mobile CI/CD and has tons of options for mobile projects. Appcircle gives default workflow for iOS, Android, Flutter, and React Native projects that are customized specifically for that platform. Appcircle even allows you to get basic metadata about your project by using the &#8220;Auto-fill&#8221; button on the configuration screen.</p>
<div id="attachment_3977" style="width: 1181px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-3977" class="size-full wp-image-3977" src="https://ac.appcircle.io/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/appcirclebuild.png" alt="Onboarding on Appcircle" width="1171" height="661" srcset="https://ac.appcircle.io/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/appcirclebuild.png 1171w, https://ac.appcircle.io/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/appcirclebuild-300x169.png 300w, https://ac.appcircle.io/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/appcirclebuild-1030x581.png 1030w, https://ac.appcircle.io/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/appcirclebuild-768x434.png 768w, https://ac.appcircle.io/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/appcirclebuild-705x398.png 705w" sizes="(max-width: 1171px) 100vw, 1171px" /><p id="caption-attachment-3977" class="wp-caption-text">Onboarding Screen on Appcircle</p></div>
<h2>​​Configuration &amp; Workflows</h2>
<p>​<br />
Configuring a pipeline on Gitlab takes a great deal of time. You need to create a <strong>.gitlab-ci.yml</strong> file in your git repository to enable CI/CD in your project using the CI/CD editor. All configurations and workflows should be designed and implemented in <strong>.gitlab-ci.yml</strong> file.</p>
<p>You must browse templates and select a suitable CI/CD template for your project. After selecting the most suitable template, you need to implement all your required steps from scratch, with their runtime requirements. It&#8217;s a tedious job if you&#8217;re not a DevOps expert.<br />
​<br />
All CI/CD configurations and workflows are kept in your git repository. Making changes on CI/CD needs git commit actions which will fill your git history with CI/CD changes. To move or copy configs between branches, you need to do git commits and git merges between branches.</p>
<p><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-3987" src="https://ac.appcircle.io/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/cicd.png" alt="" width="1162" height="617" srcset="https://ac.appcircle.io/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/cicd.png 1162w, https://ac.appcircle.io/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/cicd-300x159.png 300w, https://ac.appcircle.io/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/cicd-1030x547.png 1030w, https://ac.appcircle.io/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/cicd-768x408.png 768w, https://ac.appcircle.io/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/cicd-705x374.png 705w" sizes="(max-width: 1162px) 100vw, 1162px" />​<br />
Configuring iOS or Android projects is super easy on Appcircle. Appcircle has default workflows for both iOS and android apps. Default workflows work for most projects without any manual configuration. After the initial run, you may add extra steps according to your project structure, for example, code signing, static code analysis, unit tests, etc. All steps have useful defaults which are compatible with most projects but you can also change the parameters as you wish.</p>
<p><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-3979" src="https://ac.appcircle.io/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/appcircleworkflow.png" alt="workflows in appcircle" width="1173" height="662" srcset="https://ac.appcircle.io/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/appcircleworkflow.png 1173w, https://ac.appcircle.io/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/appcircleworkflow-300x169.png 300w, https://ac.appcircle.io/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/appcircleworkflow-1030x581.png 1030w, https://ac.appcircle.io/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/appcircleworkflow-768x433.png 768w, https://ac.appcircle.io/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/appcircleworkflow-705x398.png 705w" sizes="(max-width: 1173px) 100vw, 1173px" /></p>
<p>All CI/CD configurations and workflows are isolated from your git repository. So you won&#8217;t mess up your git repository with CI/CD specific code and configs. Also, you can give access to only related people in your team to reach and maintain CI/CD on Appcircle, which decouples your CI/CD from the rest of the team. Also decoupling CI/CD configuration from the repository makes you move or copy configs between branches easily without any commit in git.</p>
<h2>​Building Android Apps</h2>
<p>​<br />
GitLab CI has some important concepts that affect your pipeline runtime and you should implement them carefully if you need them. Understanding them well can give you faster runs but the wrong pipeline design will result in significant trouble. For example, the <strong>Android.latest.gitlab-ci.yml</strong> CI/CD template comes with 2 jobs and 2 stages. Jobs are running in parallel and the next stage is executed only if all jobs from the previous stage are completed successfully. All jobs and stages may run in different runners on the cloud which causes re-installation and re-configuration of the mobile CI/CD environment. To reduce that cost, you need to find a preconfigured docker image or build from scratch by yourself.<br />
​</p>
<p><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-3987" src="https://ac.appcircle.io/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/cicd.png" alt="" width="1162" height="617" srcset="https://ac.appcircle.io/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/cicd.png 1162w, https://ac.appcircle.io/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/cicd-300x159.png 300w, https://ac.appcircle.io/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/cicd-1030x547.png 1030w, https://ac.appcircle.io/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/cicd-768x408.png 768w, https://ac.appcircle.io/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/cicd-705x374.png 705w" sizes="(max-width: 1162px) 100vw, 1162px" /></p>
<p>Appcircle provides you with preconfigured and optimized runners for mobile CI/CD pipelines. So for most projects, you don&#8217;t need to install anything to build your project. All steps work sequentially on the same runner. One pipeline is an atomic operation. You can view and follow logs for the entire pipeline in a single window. It&#8217;s equivalent to a single stage and single job in GitLab terms. So there is a minimal cost of learning and all concepts are related only to mobile apps.​</p>
<h2>​Building iOS Apps</h2>
<p>GitLab has no clear way of building iOS apps. The only official template for iOS is <strong>iOS-Fastlane.gitlab-ci.yml</strong> at the time of writing this article. It&#8217;s not ready to use and it&#8217;s Fastlane dependent. The best option is using self-hosted runners for iOS projects since GitLab does not provide public macOS runners. SaaS runners on macOS are in beta for now and only available for approved open-source programs and customers in Premium and Ultimate plans. Using the cloud for iOS builds is hard and expensive at the time of writing this article.<br />
​<br />
If you choose to go on with a self-hosted GitLab runner on your own macOS, you need to install and configure the whole pipeline toolchain for iOS projects. Also, you should consider code signing, provisioning profiles, and certificates to submit your app to App Store. Doing everything in-house should not be the first choice due to its high cost of setup and maintenance when you consider a mobile developer. It needs a significant amount of time and DevOps experience to get the pipeline working.</p>
<p>On the other hand, Appcircle has lots of features for iOS projects. First of all, its default configuration and workflow steps for iOS work out of the box. You can easily edit steps, change their order and add new steps for your specific requirements.<br />
​<br />
It provides macOS runners on all tiers with the latest iOS toolchain installed and configured. You can choose between Intel and M1 architectures anytime you need. You can also choose between different versions of Xcode with a single click. So you don&#8217;t need to deal with self-hosted runners and configure them from scratch.</p>
<h2>​Signing</h2>
<p>Gitlab doesn&#8217;t have a dedicated signing module to keep your Keystore, certificates, or provisioning profiles. Developers are responsible to keep them updated. Gitlab also doesn&#8217;t have any mechanisms to get notifications related to certificate expiry dates.<br />
​<br />
Appcircle has a &#8220;Signing Identities&#8221; module where you can manage all your certificates and provisioning profiles. You can keep your secrets safe and use them in your pipeline easily when required. Appcircle includes built-in notifications to alert developers when their certificates or keystores are about to expire. Appcircle has tight integration with App Store which enables you to use &#8220;automatic code signing&#8221;.</p>
<h2>​Distribution</h2>
<p>Gitlab has no distribution module for artifacts. To submit your apps to internal testers or different stores, you need to use Fastlane or third-party services.</p>
<p>Appcircle supports a variety of distribution methods such as internal distribution, Firebase App Distribution. App Store, Google Play, and Huawei App Galery. You can create release notes automatically and send them to stores within your workflows.</p>
<p>You don&#8217;t need to deal with Fastlane or custom scripts to send your artifacts. Everything can be configured by using a simple UI.</p>
<h2>​Test Reports</h2>
<p>In order to get test reports from a pipeline, you need to label &#8220;artifacts&#8221; and set its &#8220;reports&#8221; property with a suitable type. For example, you can use &#8220;artifacts:reports:junit&#8221; for JUnit tests. GitLab supports viewing some types of test reports but most of them are related to back-end stacks.</p>
<p>iOS and Android-specific test reports are not available out of the box. You need to download test reports from pipeline artifacts and view them locally to find out the issues. You can render test results as HTML and integrate them with GitLab pages to view them inside GitLab but it&#8217;s a tedious job for a mobile developer. It has a high cost of learning if you&#8217;re not a GitLab expert.</p>
<p>Appcircle supports iOS and Android test reports natively. <a href="https://blog.appcircle.io/article/introducing-test-reports-for-ios-and-android"><strong>Test reports</strong></a> component can generate both test and coverage reports. This component supports the following formats: Xcode, JUnit, JaCoCo, Cobertura, Icov.info. All test and coverage reports are kept with your builds, side-by-side, and always reachable.<br />
​<br />
All test artifacts such as screenshots are displayed with your test cases. It can be super helpful to identify the cause of failing tests.</p>
<p><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-3986" src="https://ac.appcircle.io/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/test-results-detail.png" alt="" width="3070" height="1472" srcset="https://ac.appcircle.io/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/test-results-detail.png 3070w, https://ac.appcircle.io/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/test-results-detail-300x144.png 300w, https://ac.appcircle.io/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/test-results-detail-1030x494.png 1030w, https://ac.appcircle.io/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/test-results-detail-768x368.png 768w, https://ac.appcircle.io/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/test-results-detail-1536x736.png 1536w, https://ac.appcircle.io/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/test-results-detail-2048x982.png 2048w, https://ac.appcircle.io/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/test-results-detail-1500x719.png 1500w, https://ac.appcircle.io/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/test-results-detail-705x338.png 705w" sizes="(max-width: 3070px) 100vw, 3070px" /></p>
<h2>​Conclusion</h2>
<p>Gitlab CI/CD can be quite useful for frontend or backend projects, it is not designed for the specific needs of mobile projects. Every step must be configured and tested to get a successful build. Since Appcircle has been designed specifically for mobile applications, it takes less time to configure your project and add the necessary steps to build, test and distribute your applications.</p>


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