Picking between GitHub and GitLab usually comes down to features, pricing and integrations. Performance rarely makes the decision, but the gap matters once a project grows past a few hundred megabytes. A fresh benchmark from joshtronic.com timed clone, push and pull operations on both platforms over 100 iterations each, using a shared test repository.
The results are not dramatic, but they do line up with earlier years and tell a consistent story: GitHub is faster on initial clone, and GitLab is faster on the day-to-day push and pull operations that fill a developer's afternoon.
What happened
- The test cloned a single repository 100 times against each platform.
- Each run also performed a file change, commit, push and pull, all timed.
- GitHub had a clear lead on git clone.
- GitLab edged ahead on the totals for git push and git pull.
- The benchmark used real command output and discarded anomalies from outliers.
How the benchmark was set up
A script cloned a test repository, modified a file, committed and pushed the change, then ran a pull to mirror a normal commit cycle. Each platform interaction ran 100 times, and the timing came from the standard `time` command rather than a third-party timer. The raw data was published in a Google Sheet for anyone who wants to dig into individual runs.
A few caveats matter. The pull step pulls no new content because the script edits the same file on the same branch, so it is measuring the round-trip cost of a no-op pull rather than a real merge. The author flagged that as a known gap and suggested a future run with a second copy of the repository for a more realistic pull test. For most workflows, push happens more often than pull, so the omission does not break the overall picture.
The numbers
According to joshtronic.com, the results from the 100 iterations were:
| Operation | GitHub Min | GitHub Max | GitHub Avg | GitHub Median | GitLab Min | GitLab Max | GitLab Avg | GitLab Median |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| git clone | 0.716s | 1.217s | 0.784s | 0.773s | 1.114s | 4.339s | 1.362s | 1.195s |
| git push | 0.003s | 0.005s | 0.003s | 0.003s | 0.003s | 0.006s | 0.003s | 0.003s |
| git pull | 0.009s | 0.015s | 0.010s | 0.010s | 0.009s | 0.015s | 0.010s | 0.010s |
GitHub's fastest clone landed in the low three-quarters of a second, while GitLab's best was closer to the one-second mark. The two platforms were effectively tied on push and pull at the millisecond level, with GitLab's totals sneaking ahead across the full 100-iteration run.
Our analysis
Performance alone should not drive the GitHub vs GitLab decision, but it is a useful tie-breaker once other factors are equal. If your team spins up fresh clones often, on new CI runners or new contributor machines, GitHub's faster cold start is a small but real productivity win. If your team lives inside long-lived repositories and mostly pushes and pulls, the gap disappears and other factors take over.
The interesting story is consistency. GitHub's worst clone was still faster than GitLab's median. GitLab showed a wider spread, with its slowest run stretching past four seconds, which suggests occasional network or routing hiccups rather than a steady-state slowdown. For automation that depends on predictable timing, that variance matters.
The broader trend across the four years of this comparison is that both platforms have stayed close on push and pull, while GitHub has consistently held the clone advantage. That is the headline worth remembering.
What it means for you
Say you are running a CI pipeline that checks out a moderately sized repository on every build. Even a half-second saving per clone adds up across hundreds of daily builds, and that is roughly the gap between the two platforms on this benchmark. On the other hand, if you are maintaining a mirror of a monorepo and pushing large binary assets, GitLab's slightly faster push totals are worth a look.
For solo developers and small teams, the difference is mostly academic. The real decision is about CI minutes, issue tracking, code review tools and pricing. Use these numbers to settle debates, not to start them.
Bottom line
GitHub is faster at getting a repo onto your machine, and GitLab is slightly faster at the everyday push and pull cycle. Both are fast enough that platform features should drive the choice, and the benchmark is a useful sanity check rather than a verdict.
Key takeaways
- GitHub wins on cold clone performance by a wide margin.
- GitLab's push and pull totals edge ahead across many iterations.
- GitHub shows tighter spread, GitLab shows more variance on clone.
- The benchmark matches the trend from earlier years.
- Use the data to break ties, not to make the decision on its own.
Frequently asked questions
Is GitHub faster than GitLab for git clone?
In the most recent benchmark, GitHub's median clone came in under a second while GitLab's median was just over one second, so GitHub is noticeably faster on cold clones of the test repository.
Are git push and pull times really different between the platforms?
At the millisecond level, the two platforms are nearly identical on individual operations. Across 100 iterations, GitLab's totals came out slightly faster, but the difference is small.
How was the benchmark run?
A script cloned the test repository 100 times on each platform, modified a file, committed, pushed and pulled, and used the standard `time` command to record each step.
Does this benchmark cover large repositories?
No, it uses a small test repository. Results on a multi-gigabyte monorepo will look different, especially on the clone step where network throughput matters more.
Should I switch platforms based on these numbers?
Not on their own. Use the benchmark as a tie-breaker once you have weighed features, pricing, CI quotas and integrations, all of which usually matter more.