We think repository hosting will be like email hosting, for most people it will be free. See https://about.gitlab.com/gitlab-com/#why-gitlab-com-will-be-...

I believe that their profit comes from selling the Enterprise Edition of GitLab and support. gitlab.com and the Community Edition are all free, and I believe they intend to keep it this way.

They basically use the hosted environment to get a better understanding of how their software runs at scale, so they can improve it.

It's all funded by enterprise licenses.

For the vast majority of users the repos use almost zero ressources except for some tiny amount of space - limiting the amount you can have is artificial. Many repositories is no different than facebooks mega repository pattern, but that is allowed, so why not give the customers what they want? If they want a "sustainable model" they'd have to set an upper limit on space and reqs/day.

a) They are vc funded

b) They give things free to drive up adoption. For example, I don't think it will be free anymore if it was as popular as GitHub. Since that would not be sustainable.

IMO, it's a poor decision by gitlab to give things out for free. Instead of innovating on features, they try to keep it cheap.

Having a free GitLab.com doesn't mean we don't innovate on features. See https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/blob/master/CHANGELO... and https://about.gitlab.com/2016/03/29/gitlab-runner-1-1-releas... for features we recently added.

Sorry, I didn't imply GitLab was not innovating. (Apologies for wording my comment poorly). In fact, quite the opposite. I want to see GitLab build a product that people willingly pay for.

(I say the same for all companies. Charge money for your product. If people see value, they will pay.)

As others said, Gitlabs business comes mostly from clients who want or have to have their own on premise solution.