GitLab CE requires 8GB+ RAM minimum

resolved GitLab CE performance Reported 2026-01-02 Verified 2026-03-03

GitLab CE consistently uses 6-8GB of RAM at idle, making it unsuitable for small VPS instances. OOM kills are common on 4GB servers.

Error Messages

Cannot allocate memoryOOM killed

Resolutions (1)

high confidence 42 verified

Disable unnecessary services in /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb:

prometheus_monitoring['enable'] = false
grafana['enable'] = false
sentinel['enable'] = false
puma['worker_processes'] = 2
sidekiq['concurrency'] = 10

This reduces idle RAM to ~4GB. For <4GB servers, consider Gitea instead.

Verified by 42 users across versions Added 2026-01-05

Applies to: 16.8, 17.0 on docker, bare-metal