Having used both for about 9 years I would say that's not correct at all.
Github may have beaten Gitlab to the punch with Pages (whoopee) but CI is a far more important feature, and Gitlab CI existed for years before GA, and continued to be a far superior solution for a long time (and maybe it still is?).
Also, because Gitlab targeted enterprises they had a bunch of features that Github did not. Self hosting, Identity and role based access, weighted issues, project milestones and burndown charts, private issues, support for "innersourcing" of internal repositories. The list goes. Unlike Pages, which is useful but can be replaced by any other wiki, things like role based access to projects are really important. When I switched jobs a few years ago and had to use Github, it felt more like a hobbyist's web-based toy version, lacking a lot of "big-boy" features.
The one truly essential feature that separated them "for the 99%" was CI. Once Github introduced that, it shrunk Gitlab's lead.
But Gitlab are by no means playing catchup to to Github.
Github may have beaten Gitlab to the punch with Pages (whoopee) but CI is a far more important feature, and Gitlab CI existed for years before GA, and continued to be a far superior solution for a long time (and maybe it still is?).
Also, because Gitlab targeted enterprises they had a bunch of features that Github did not. Self hosting, Identity and role based access, weighted issues, project milestones and burndown charts, private issues, support for "innersourcing" of internal repositories. The list goes. Unlike Pages, which is useful but can be replaced by any other wiki, things like role based access to projects are really important. When I switched jobs a few years ago and had to use Github, it felt more like a hobbyist's web-based toy version, lacking a lot of "big-boy" features.
The one truly essential feature that separated them "for the 99%" was CI. Once Github introduced that, it shrunk Gitlab's lead.
But Gitlab are by no means playing catchup to to Github.