My organization currently uses Bamboo for CI/CD, mostly because we’re already invested in the full Atlassian stack. But honestly, Bamboo feels a bit outdated and clunky compared to what’s out there now. We’re considering switching to GitLab in the next year or two.
For those who’ve used Bamboo in real-world pipelines, what’s your take? Is it still viable for CI/CD at scale, or are we better off moving on? Would love to hear experiences from others who’ve made the transition.
I’ve used Bamboo for about 4 years in a large enterprise, and I totally get where you’re coming from. When it’s integrated with Bitbucket and Jira, it works, but to be honest, Bamboo feels like it’s stuck in the past. The UI? Not the most intuitive.
The build logs are difficult to navigate, and scaling parallelism requires extra investment in remote agents, which isn’t ideal. We made the switch to GitLab CI last year, and it’s been a game-changer.
Pipelines are lightning-fast, the YAML configuration is much cleaner, and the Docker support is head and shoulders above what Bamboo offers. If you’re seriously considering modernization, I’d say GitLab is definitely worth the transition.
Plus, it integrates so smoothly with modern development practices, it just feels like the future of CI/CD.
I’m still using Bamboo, so I definitely feel you on the pain points. It’s solid when you’re deeply integrated into the Atlassian stack, especially with Jira and Confluence. But honestly, Bamboo hasn’t evolved much. Setting up pipelines feels like it requires a dozen clicks, and the UI often lags, which can be frustrating.
On the flip side, we’ve been testing GitLab CI for side projects, and wow, the UX is night and day, especially with version-controlled .gitlab-ci.yml files. It’s more intuitive, and automating with cloud-native tools seems much smoother.
Bamboo might still be viable for smaller teams or legacy systems, but if you’re looking to scale and streamline your CI/CD, GitLab is definitely the smarter long-term choice. You’ll save a lot of time, effort, and energy, trust me.
I’ve worked with both Bamboo and GitLab quite extensively, and it really depends on your setup. Bamboo does the job, especially if you’re in a highly regulated environment where Atlassian integration is key.
But when it comes to speed, maintainability, and support, GitLab takes the crown. We migrated to GitLab last year and it was one of the best decisions. We wrote custom scripts to migrate our Bamboo plans to GitLab pipelines, and honestly, we never looked back.
GitLab’s built-in container registry, CI templates, and Auto DevOps features were an absolute win.
Bamboo is still a solid choice, but it’s a bit more maintenance-heavy and doesn’t offer the same level of flexibility. If you’re already thinking of switching, I’d say start testing GitLab now, it’ll make the transition smoother when you finally make the jump.
I have the same question