Yeah, being unable to host Gitlab under 512MB is just too bloaty for me. I know Gogs doesn't have this issue for the same features I use. I still use Gitlab though because it's the mainstream.
well we use it because alternatives that costs money always takes years to finish a simple feature and tell people that they can extend it via their plugin repository.
and we also use it for their CI integration. It's just simpler than setting up a Jenkins instance for simple jobs (well gitlab ci is slower but not so much that it is painful)
well gitlab ci is slower on our machine than jenkins.
also push based ci might be better for performance when having many workers. while gitlab ci is pull based which can net in negative performance.
of course pull based is way less painful when nodes go down/etc..
actually the biggest problems of slowness also comes from docker and caching. I think our docker setup for jenkins/gitlab-ci is not equal. for some jobs we will probably migrate away from docker, as soon as we are able to have a good story for running parallel tests.
and we also use it for their CI integration. It's just simpler than setting up a Jenkins instance for simple jobs (well gitlab ci is slower but not so much that it is painful)