GitLab B.V. CEO here, thanks for using GitLab since version 3. We know that there have been some painful upgrades. Since we have packages the upgrades have been much easier. Please consider switching to a package install.
That's where I find GitLab super useful. My use-case however is just me, a single user, on a tiny VPS so GitLab is overkill. Awesome software though, and I'm a massive fan