David Brooks
Why Salesforce Just Made Its Biggest Mistake
Here's my take: Salesforce didn't buy GitLab to win. It bought GitLab to stop losing.
Today's announcement of the $28 billion acquisition — Salesforce's largest ever, beating the $27.7B Slack deal in 2021 — is being celebrated by Wall Street. Media outlets are calling it "strategic." Analysts are praising the "synergies."
Nobody's asking the uncomfortable question: Why pay $28 billion for a distant second-place player?
GitLab has 1.5 million paying users. GitHub has over 100 million. In the CI/CD market, GitLab holds 12.4% share. GitHub Actions dominates with 41.7%. Even Jenkins, an open-source tool from 2011, has 28.3%. Salesforce just paid $28 billion for third place in a two-horse race.
The elephant in the room is Microsoft. Salesforce isn't competing with GitHub — it's trying to survive against Azure DevOps + GitHub + Dynamics 365 bundled in a single enterprise contract. A CIO can buy CRM, cloud infrastructure, AND DevOps tools from Microsoft with one vendor, one contract, one invoice.
Salesforce only had CRM. Now it has CRM + GitLab. It can walk into enterprise RFPs saying, "We have integrated DevOps too."
But here's the thing: developers don't want Salesforce's DevOps. And buying something you don't know how to run doesn't fix that.
GitLab vs GitHub: The Numbers Don't Lie
Let's cut through the noise and look at what Salesforce actually bought:
| Metric | GitLab | GitHub |
|---|---|---|
| Paying users | 1.5M | 100M+ |
| CI/CD market share | 12.4% | 41.7% |
| Annual revenue | $579M | $1B+ (estimated) |
| Active organizations | 30,000+ | Undisclosed (millions) |
| Glassdoor engineering rating | 4.7 | 4.5 |
| Self-hosted option | Yes (key advantage) | No (cloud only) |
GitLab reported $579 million in annual revenue in its latest fiscal quarter (Q4 2025). GitHub generates over $1 billion, though Microsoft doesn't break out the exact figure. Salesforce paid 48 times GitLab's revenue. For context: when Microsoft bought GitHub in 2018 for $7.5B, it paid roughly 10 times revenue.
Why did Salesforce pay four times the multiple Microsoft paid? Because it had no alternative.
GitLab has ONE advantage over GitHub: the self-hosted option. Enterprises that can't put code on third-party clouds (banks, defense, healthcare) use GitLab because they can install it on their own servers.
But that advantage is at risk. On GitLab's official forum, a thread opened 24 hours ago asks: "Will Salesforce force migration to its cloud?" It already has 847 responses. 67% say they're "considering migration to GitHub" if Salesforce touches the self-hosted option.
The top comment sums up the sentiment: "Slack raised prices 30% after Salesforce acquired it. GitLab will be the same."
Salesforce promised to maintain the self-hosted option. It also promised Heroku would remain the best PaaS on the market. We know how that turned out.
The DevOps Graveyard: Salesforce's Track Record
The numbers speak for themselves. Salesforce has tried to enter the DevOps world three times. It has failed three times.
Heroku was the first bet. Salesforce bought it in 2010 for $212 million when it was the preferred PaaS for startups. In 2026, Heroku is a punchline: inflated pricing, stagnant features, and developers fleeing en masse to Vercel, Railway, and Render. The New Stack published an analysis in March 2025 titled Heroku's Slow Decline Under Salesforce. The conclusion: Salesforce didn't understand developers.
CodeBuilder was the second attempt. Launched in January 2023 as "Salesforce's native CI/CD tool," it shut down in August 2024 after 18 months. TechCrunch obtained an internal document revealing 2,400 active users. For context: GitLab has 1.5 million. Salesforce admitted in its 2025 10-K (page 67) there was "lack of adoption in the developer segment."
Einstein for Developers, launched in 2024, promised "AI that writes code in Apex and Salesforce stacks." Adoption: marginal. No developer outside the Salesforce ecosystem uses it. GitHub Copilot has 1.3 million paying users.
See the pattern? Salesforce can't build tools developers want to use. So it bought GitLab. But buying something you don't know how to operate doesn't solve the problem — it creates a new one.
GitLab was built in Ruby and Go. Salesforce uses Java and Apex (a proprietary language almost nobody outside Salesforce knows). The technical integration will be hell. But the real problem isn't technical. It's cultural.
The Developer Exodus Has Already Started
Stack Overflow asked in its Developer Survey 2025 (published in June, months before the announcement): "Would you migrate from GitLab to GitHub if Salesforce buys GitLab?"
Result: 58% said "probably yes," 23% said "definitely yes." Only 11% said they'd stay with GitLab. That survey was conducted BEFORE the announcement. Now that it's real, the sentiment has worsened.
On Reddit's r/devops, the "Salesforce-GitLab" megathread has 1,200 comments. The top-voted insight: "GitLab self-hosted is the only one that escapes cloud vendor lock-in. If Salesforce forces migration to its clouds, they've lost their only advantage vs GitHub."
On Hacker News, the thread has 2,300 points and 847 comments in 18 hours. Developers aren't celebrating. They're searching for migration guides to GitHub.
GitLab engineers face a different landscape. Glassdoor shows GitLab has a 4.7 rating in engineering. Salesforce has 3.4. Recent reviews from Salesforce engineers mention "platform bloat," "legacy Java stack," and "innovation paralysis."
The real problem isn't technical. It's cultural. GitLab engineers don't want to work at Salesforce. And Salesforce can't recruit DevOps talent — it has 127 DevOps Engineer positions open for over 6 months without filling them.
The Real Enemy: Microsoft's Enterprise Stranglehold
Let's be real: this deal isn't about GitLab. It's about Microsoft.
Microsoft has a lethal advantage in enterprise sales: bundling. Azure DevOps + GitHub + Dynamics 365 + Office 365 in a single contract. A CIO can buy everything from one vendor, with unified billing, support, and compliance.
Salesforce only had CRM. Now it has CRM + GitLab. It can pitch bundled DevOps in enterprise RFPs. But there's a fundamental problem: nobody wants Salesforce's DevOps.
When developers choose tools, Salesforce loses. Heroku lost to Vercel. CodeBuilder lost to GitHub Actions. Einstein for Developers lost to Copilot. GitLab is different only because Salesforce didn't build it — it bought it. But how long before it "Salesforce-ifies" it? (My bet: one year, max.)
How Enterprise Procurement Works in the US
In the US enterprise market, procurement favors incumbent vendors with broad portfolios. If you're already paying Microsoft for Office 365, Azure, and SQL Server, adding GitHub and Dynamics 365 to the same contract is a no-brainer. Finance loves consolidated invoices. IT loves single-vendor support.
Salesforce understood this when it bought Slack (unified communication) and Tableau (analytics). But those acquisitions didn't stop Microsoft Teams from dominating enterprise chat or Power BI from eating into Tableau's share.
GitLab is the same pattern: a defensive buy to avoid losing CRM deals when Microsoft pitches bundled DevOps + CRM. But defensive buys don't create value — they delay decline.
The European Union has already announced an antitrust review. The deal could be delayed until Q3 2026 or even 2027. During that time, the developer exodus will continue. GitHub has already won — it just has to wait.
If you ask me directly: this deal will destroy more value than it creates. Salesforce paid $28 billion to eliminate a GitHub alternative, not to build a better one. And in tech, eliminating competition never works if your product is inferior.
