Blog What is GitLab's feature deprecation strategy?
Published on: February 21, 2020
1 min read

What is GitLab's feature deprecation strategy?

We release a lot of new features every month! Curious how we're thinking about deprecation?

gitlab-values-cover.png

What is our deprecation strategy for features? We add a ton of features to our product every single month. It can be a not-great user experience or development experience, if you don't deprecate any of them. When we have features that are widespread in the codebase but don't have a lot of usage, it holds us back.

We deprecate features for the same reasons a lot of other companies do, including not generating revenue and not being utilized. I think what's really important is technical debt interest rate. For a feature that exists, it's important to consider how it prevents future features from being added and how it may be infecting existing or potential features with code that could be a higher quality.

Our mission is Everyone Can Contribute. Every time you add a new feature, it needs to be a solid base for people to build on.

Here are some more of my thoughts on how we deprecate features:

We want to hear from you

Enjoyed reading this blog post or have questions or feedback? Share your thoughts by creating a new topic in the GitLab community forum. Share your feedback

Ready to get started?

See what your team could do with a unified DevSecOps Platform.

Get free trial

Find out which plan works best for your team

Learn about pricing

Learn about what GitLab can do for your team

Talk to an expert