diff --git a/.gitlab-ci.yml b/.gitlab-ci.yml
index 30a8cd8fe4c08fd3fe0f3f98aaa56b83cb623086..bfac6b0012cb067657567381752a600736e7d788 100644
--- a/.gitlab-ci.yml
+++ b/.gitlab-ci.yml
@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@
 #
 # Copyright (C) 2018 Research Group Biomedical Physics,
 # Max-Planck-Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization Göttingen
-# Copyright (C) 2019 Henrik tom Wörden 
+# Copyright (C) 2019 Henrik tom Wörden
 #
 # This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
 # it under the terms of the GNU Affero General Public License as
@@ -113,14 +113,34 @@ info:
   script:
     - *env
 
-unittest:
+unittest_py3.9:
   tags: [cached-dind]
-  image: docker:20.10
   stage: test
   image: $CI_REGISTRY_IMAGE
   script:
       - tox
 
+unittest_py3.8:
+  tags: [cached-dind]
+  stage: test
+  image: python:3.8
+  script: &python_test_script
+    # install dependencies
+    - pip install pytest pytest-cov
+    # TODO: Use f-branch logic here
+    - pip install git+https://gitlab.indiscale.com/caosdb/src/caosdb-pylib.git@dev
+    - pip install git+https://gitlab.indiscale.com/caosdb/src/caosdb-advanced-user-tools.git@dev
+    - pip install .
+    # actual test
+    - caosdb-crawler --help
+    - pytest --cov=caosdb -vv ./unittests
+
+unittest_py3.10:
+  tags: [cached-dind]
+  stage: test
+  image: python:3.10
+  script: *python_test_script
+
 inttest:
   tags: [docker]
   services:
@@ -224,7 +244,7 @@ build-testenv:
 
       - docker login -u gitlab-ci-token -p $CI_JOB_TOKEN $CI_REGISTRY
         # use here general latest or specific branch latest...
-      - docker build 
+      - docker build
         --build-arg PYLIB=${PYLIB}
         --build-arg ADVANCED=${ADVANCED:dev}
         --file .docker/Dockerfile