I mean Element's website says very little about installing it and encourages using mobile apps which require going through the app store, while GitLab has all kinds of resources for self-hosting. They do try to steer you to self-hosting the ee version though.
GitLab: all the things https://about.gitlab.com/install/ at the bottom is the Debian package, but if you go to the Docker Page and click the username you can see gitlab-ce there as well.
Element: landing page https://element.io/solutions/self-hosted-or-cloud-collaborat...
GitLab: all the things https://about.gitlab.com/install/ at the bottom is the Debian package, but if you go to the Docker Page and click the username you can see gitlab-ce there as well.