Quarterly earnings results are a good time to check in on a company’s progress, especially compared to its peers in the same sector. Today we are looking at GitLab (NASDAQ:GTLB) and the best and worst performers in the software development industry.

As legendary VC investor Marc Andreessen says, "Software is eating the world", and it touches virtually every industry. That drives increasing demand for tools helping software developers do their jobs, whether it be monitoring critical cloud infrastructure, integrating audio and video functionality, or ensuring smooth content streaming.

The 11 software development stocks we track reported a mixed Q2. As a group, revenues beat analysts’ consensus estimates by 1.6% while next quarter’s revenue guidance was in line.

Stocks--especially those trading at higher multiples--had a strong end of 2023, but this year has seen periods of volatility. Mixed signals about inflation have led to uncertainty around rate cuts. However, software development stocks have held steady amidst all this with share prices up 1.9% on average since the latest earnings results.

Best Q2: GitLab (NASDAQ:GTLB)

Founded as an open-source project in 2011, GitLab (NASDAQ:GTLB) is a leading software development tools platform.

GitLab reported revenues of $182.6 million, up 30.8% year on year. This print exceeded analysts’ expectations by 3.1%. Overall, it was a strong quarter for the company with an impressive beat of analysts’ billings estimates and a narrow beat of analysts’ ARR (annual recurring revenue) estimates.

“Organizations need to deliver software faster to accelerate performance and respond to intense competition,” said Sid Sijbrandij, GitLab CEO and co-founder.

GitLab achieved the fastest revenue growth and highest full-year guidance raise of the whole group. Unsurprisingly, the stock is up 23.4% since reporting and currently trades at $55.15.

Read why we think that GitLab is one of the best software development stocks, our full report is free.

PagerDuty (NYSE:PD)

Started by three former Amazon engineers, PagerDuty (NYSE:PD) is a software-as-a-service platform that helps companies respond to IT incidents fast and make sure that any downtime is minimized.

PagerDuty reported revenues of $115.9 million, up 7.7% year on year, in line with analysts’ expectations. The business performed better than its peers, but it was unfortunately a softer quarter with underwhelming revenue guidance for the next quarter and decelerating customer growth.

Although it had a fine quarter compared its peers, the market seems unhappy with the results as the stock is down 3.2% since reporting. It currently trades at $17.69.