Stillcode › Two-factor authentication › GitLab
A hardware key or a generated code — GitLab offers no texted one. What that rules out, where its own instructions are, and what happens when the device holding your codes is gone.
These are the second factors GitLab offers on gitlab.com. Which ones you
see can depend on your plan and your country;
what each of the seven actually costs you is set out once.
| Method | What it is | |
|---|---|---|
| Authenticator app (TOTP) | Supported | Computed on your own device; nothing is sent to produce it. |
| Hardware security key | Supported | A physical key you tap; the one option phishing does not beat. |
| Supported | Sent to your mailbox, which then sets the ceiling. | |
| SMS text message | Not offered | Texted to your number, so your carrier is part of the lock. |
Data sourced from 2FA Directory by 2factorauth. Snapshot 2026-09-24.
GitLab offers no SMS or voice option at all. That is worth noticing rather than skipping past: it removes the SIM-swap route onto the account entirely, and it means an authenticator app is the baseline here, not an upgrade.
A hardware security key is also accepted. It is stronger than any code, because a code can be typed into a convincing fake page and a key cannot. The usual arrangement is a key as the primary factor and an authenticator app as the backup that fits in a pocket.
There is an email fallback, which quietly makes this account as protected as the mailbox behind it. If that mailbox has weaker two-factor than this account does, the weaker one is the real setting.
Of the fifty services on this site, ten accept a hardware security key while offering no texted code,
and GitLab is one of them. Two of the fifty accept exactly this combination, so the same
decision comes up on one other
service here. Among the five services filed under developer, every
one accepts a hardware security key.
The directory files GitLab under developer, records three of the seven second
factors it tracks, and points at instructions published at
docs.gitlab.com/user/profile/account/two_factor_authentication.
GitLab's own instructions: GitLab — two-factor authentication — linked, never copied, because a stale menu path here locks people out.
GitLab publishes no dedicated page for losing your second factor, which in practice means the route back is ordinary account recovery: proving who you are to support, on their timetable.
Background: how the codes work · what still works when the phone is gone.
An iPhone, iPad and Mac authenticator for these codes that makes no network calls at all. What is free and what Pro adds. Get it on the App Store