I've used GitLab before as an enterprise type installation and it was okay but I had no idea you offered GitHub like hosting. When I visit your site it looks like there are no free options but Google Code was meant to house open source projects for free just like GitHub and BitBucket.
Do you have free hosting for open source? If not then I don't think it makes sense for them to mention your service.
Edit: As pointed out below GitLab.com actually has free public and private repository hosting. It took me a while to find it on the website. That's pretty cool!
It is the third link on the homepage, that says "Sign up for GitLab.com with unlimited free (private) repositories and collaborators.". But we're open to suggestions to make it more obvious. It is hard to communicate downloads and a saas.
I think that's because you are promoting the Gitlab Enterprise edition. It is very easy to miss the third blurb which promotes the free repos. Compare this to bitbucket.org front page (Free private repos are upfront). Github.com frontpage is not as clear but they don't need to
I think what Gitlab.com needs is a template like this
- Free Private Repos - Host it on Gitlab.com
- Need to host it on your servers? Get our open source edition
- Need enterprise support/features? Get our enterprise edition and host it on your servers
Btw do you offer enterprise features on gitlab.com? It was not very clear
Also your pricing page needs to be clear about the different versions. There are at least 3 different Gitlab products (free gitlab.com, gitlab ce, gitlab ee) but the information is easy to miss.
In your homepage, the three blurbs (download and install.., pricing for spport.., signup for gitlab.com..) feel like 3 product features rather than 3 different products.
2. Gitlab.com as a product name is very confusing. When I first checked out gitlab.com my thought was "I'm already on gitlab.com, what's this other gitlab.com" :)
So I have changed it to Gitlab Hosted to make it more clear
Other Potential Improvements
This section - https://cloudup.com/c4vipl-QFBU tries to do everything. Explain features, introduce 3 different products and has a lot of text that could be removed
I would suggest making the entire block about features but in a layered way. i.e first introduce common features and then differentiate the products.
Some text could be removed - Subscriptions blurb can be replaced by "See our enterprise pricing page for subscriptions" or something similar. The way it is laid out now, it seems it is separate from Github Enterprise.
The current feature text blurb is too much text and too little text at the same time :) Too much because it is just
long lines of text. Too little because none of your features are explained elegantly. There is also a "much more" syndrome :)
Just see - https://about.gitlab.com/features/ - Powerful Code review - "Merge requests with line-by-line comments, CI and issue tracker integrations and much more" with a giant image. Text doesn't say much and ends with an ambiguous "much more" and the image is intimidating unless you are familiar with Gitlab.
Images are not much help but they help in avoiding a wall of text and all the sub features are explained
The actual experience of using Bitbucket is not that great but they are doing a good job of explaining features :). Github enterprise also does something similar.
I think you should also move "Better than Github" to a different section like say "Why use GitLab?" Having it right at the top seems very defensive and a bit distracting.
One last thing - Link to some interesting projects using Gitlab and make it easy to find. You can even link to Gitlab.org somewhere. Looking around a repo gives a better feel for the product.
Well for me personally I always head straight to the pricing page of any service I'm interested in and I didn't see any mention of the repository hosting you do there. Is that just for support / enterprise installations? Might be helpful to mention it there.
It is mentioned there but pretty low on the page, "Sign up for our free GitLab.com service if you want to use GitLab without installing it.". What do you think?
Do you have free hosting for open source? If not then I don't think it makes sense for them to mention your service.
Edit: As pointed out below GitLab.com actually has free public and private repository hosting. It took me a while to find it on the website. That's pretty cool!