GitLab CE Git forge

Your code is often your most sensitive asset. GitHub (Microsoft), Bitbucket (Atlassian) and Azure DevOps host it outside Europe, under US law (CLOUD Act). Bunker hosts GitLab Community Edition, the open-source software forge, on your own domain and in Europe: Git repositories, continuous integration, image registry and issue tracking in one place.

Access: your own domain (for example gitlab.yourcompany.com)

Edition and trademark

The service deploys GitLab Community Edition (CE), under the free MIT licence. It is not affiliated with GitLab Inc. or its Enterprise editions; "GitLab" is a trademark of GitLab Inc.

Why GitLab CE?

GitLab CE brings into a single tool what usually needs several services: Git repository hosting, code review through merge requests, built-in CI/CD pipelines, a Container Registry for your Docker images, and issue tracking. GitLab CE is that platform deployed, maintained and backed up by Bunker, on your domain.

Your repositories and build artifacts stay on Bunker servers, in Europe.

Comparison with alternatives

Criterion	Bunker	GitHub	Bitbucket	Azure DevOps
Open source	Yes (MIT)	No	No	No
Sovereign hosting	Yes (Europe)	No (USA)	No (USA)	No (USA)
Own domain	Yes	Paid	Paid	No
Built-in CI/CD	Included	Included	Included	Included
Container Registry	Included	Included	Paid	Included
Full reversibility	Yes (git, pg_dump)	Partial	Partial	Partial
High availability	Guaranteed	Yes	Yes	Yes
Automatic backups	Yes	Plan-dependent	Plan-dependent	Plan-dependent
Ops cost	Zero	Zero	Zero	Zero

In practice

The GitLab CE source code is auditable by anyone. Under the MIT licence, no black box and no dependency on a US vendor.

Your repositories belong to you. You can leave Bunker tomorrow and reinstall GitLab CE on your own server with all of your data.

Your code and project history stay in Europe, under European law. No CLOUD Act, no access by foreign authorities.

Git repositories and merge requests

The heart of the forge hosts your Git repositories with all the collaboration around them:

• Merge requests with code review, line-by-line discussions and approvals
• Branch protection (push rules, required reviews before merge)
• Web IDE to edit a file without cloning the repository
• Code search across all your projects
• Wikis and snippets per project

Gitaly handles repository access with good performance, even on large histories.

Continuous integration (CI/CD)

Pipelines are defined in a .gitlab-ci.yml file at the root of your repository:

stages:
  - test
  - build

test:
  stage: test
  image: node:22
  script:
    - npm ci
    - npm test

build:
  stage: build
  image: docker:27
  script:
    - docker build -t $CI_REGISTRY_IMAGE:$CI_COMMIT_SHA .
    - docker push $CI_REGISTRY_IMAGE:$CI_COMMIT_SHA

Runners execute your jobs on every push. Runner sizing adapts to your needs (see also our managed GitLab Runner service for runners on Kubernetes, without privileged mode).

Container Registry

Every project has a built-in Docker image registry:

• Push and pull your images from pipelines or locally
• Layers stored on S3 object storage hosted in Europe
• Automatic cleanup of old tags (retention policies)

# Log in to the project registry
docker login registry.gitlab.yourcompany.com

# Push an image
docker push registry.gitlab.yourcompany.com/my-group/my-project:latest

Issue tracking and project management

• Issues with labels, milestones, assignment and discussion threads
• Boards to visualise the workflow
• Epics and roadmaps at group level
• Automatic links between commits, merge requests and issues

API and webhooks

GitLab CE exposes a full REST API and real-time webhooks to automate your processes:

Webhook event	Description
push	Code has been pushed to a branch
merge_request	A merge request was opened, updated or merged
pipeline	A pipeline changed state
issue	An issue was created or updated

# Example: list projects via the API
curl -H "PRIVATE-TOKEN: YOUR_TOKEN" \
  https://gitlab.yourcompany.com/api/v4/projects

Bunker vs self-hosting

You could install GitLab CE on your own server. But:

Aspect	Self-hosting	Bunker
High availability	Your responsibility	Guaranteed
Backups	To configure	Automatic
Security updates	To monitor	Applied
SSL certificates	To renew	Managed
24/7 monitoring	To set up	Included
HA database	PostgreSQL to manage	CNPG PostgreSQL (replicated)

A forge that is down blocks all your development teams. With Bunker, availability and backups are guaranteed. The database is managed by CNPG (CloudNativePG) with replication for high availability.

Quick start

1. Activate the service

1. Go to console.getbunker.net
2. Create your Bunker account or sign in
3. Activate the GitLab CE service and set the desired domain (e.g. gitlab.yourcompany.com)

2. Create a project

1. Click New project
2. Choose a name and a visibility (private, internal, public)
3. Copy the repository clone URL

3. Push your first repository

git remote add origin [email protected]:my-group/my-project.git
git push -u origin main

4. Run a pipeline

Add a .gitlab-ci.yml file at the root, push, and the pipeline starts automatically. Follow its run under CI/CD → Pipelines.

Portability

The forge hosts your teams' code assets. With GitLab CE:

• Your repositories are standard Git repositories, cloneable and movable as they are
• Metadata (issues, merge requests, users) exports via pg_dump from the PostgreSQL database
• Registry artifacts, packages and images are S3 objects you can download again
• MIT licence guaranteeing the longevity of the software

If Bunker disappears tomorrow, you export your data and reinstall GitLab CE on your own instance. Try doing that with Azure DevOps.

References

• GitLab documentation to go further
• Managed GitLab Runner for CI runners on Kubernetes
• Externalised backups for complete protection