As teams grow, unifying coding standards and improving code quality becomes increasingly important. Code review, as one of the effective ways to improve code quality, is worth implementing within the company. Help the team develop a code review habit, improve code quality, and avoid unnecessary problems in advance.

For more efficient code review, a code review tool is needed. Hence this usage report.

Below are some tools I’ve tried, along with evaluations and summaries.

1) CodeStriker

CodeStriker is a free and open-source web application that helps developers with web-based code review. Developers can ensure issues, comments, and decisions are recorded in a database, providing a comfortable workspace for actually performing code inspections.

• Price: Free
• UI: ★
• Installation & Maintenance: ★★★
• Ease of Learning: ★★★★★

Summary: CodeStriker’s functionality is basically sufficient for a code review tool. However, it hasn’t been maintained for a long time, and the UI has a vintage feel.

2) RhodeCode

RhodeCode is also a great tool for reviewing code, finding bugs and issues, and checking code after removal.

• Price: Free community edition, paid enterprise edition
• UI: ★★★★
• Installation & Maintenance: ★★★
• Ease of Learning: ★★★★★

Summary: RhodeCode performs quite well during use. Deployment with Docker is also convenient. It’s a smooth experience and can be a backup option.

3) Code Brag

Codebrag is a simple and lightweight code review tool that makes the process work for your team. It helps solve issues like non-blocking code reviews, smart email notifications, inline comments, and more.

• Price: Free
• UI: ★★★★
• Installation & Maintenance: ★★★★
• Ease of Learning: ★★★★★

Summary: Codebrag is an open-source tool that’s not hard to install. It has some social features. However, the official website is inaccessible from China, making it difficult to obtain installation resources.

4) Phabricator

Phabricator is an open-source software and web application that includes code review, hosting GIT/Hg/SVN, bug detection, source browsing, auditing, etc.

• Price: Free
• UI: ★★★★
• Installation & Maintenance: ★
• Ease of Learning: ★

Summary: Phabricator is a very powerful tool created by Facebook. Installation is extremely difficult, with over 140 pages of documentation. The learning curve also requires significant time.

5) Codifferous

This is a faster code review service. Codifferous is a free code review tool that makes it easy to review code with your team, no matter where you live or work.

• Price: Free
• UI: ★★★★
• Installation & Maintenance: ★★★
• Ease of Learning: ★★★★

Summary: The Codifferous website is inaccessible from China. After trying the demo via VPN, the tool is simple and works fine, but has no outstanding advantages.

6) Getbarkeep

Barkeep is a “friendly code review system” — a fast, fun way to review code. Engineering organizations can use it to maintain a high-quality bar. You can view commits in any Git repository, see diffs, write comments, and email those comments to committers.

• Price: Free
• UI: ★★★★
• Installation & Maintenance: ★★★
• Ease of Learning: ★★★★

Summary: Barkeep is an open-source tool with a clean UI. No major highlights or drawbacks. The official website is hard to access, making resources difficult to obtain.

7) Crucible

Crucible is another popular code review tool for developers. It provides code review, discussing changes, and identifying defects with Crucible’s flexible review workflow. It supports code review for Subversion, CVS, Perforce, etc.

• Price: Paid
• UI: ★★★★
• Installation & Maintenance: No installation required
• Ease of Learning: ★★★★

Summary: A tool from a major company. After using the free trial for half a month, it fully meets code review needs. The interface is nice and interactions are friendly. There are detailed English tutorials on YouTube.

8) Code-Review Tool

Code-Review Tool allows team members to review code in a collaborative and efficient manner by removing most of the overhead of regular formal code inspections. It provides all the benefits of formal code inspection with significantly reduced time and effort.

• Price: Paid
• UI: ★
• Installation & Maintenance: ★★★
• Ease of Learning: ★★★★

Summary: Such an ugly piece of software and it’s paid. And not cheap either.

9) Malevich

Reviewing code with Malevich is indeed very easy. Reviewers can see the original and new versions of files in the browser. To comment on a line of code, they simply click on that line and start typing. Submitting comments makes them visible to the person who requested the review and all other reviewers.

• Price: Free
• UI: ★
• Installation & Maintenance: ★★★
• Ease of Learning: ★★★★

Summary: Cannot review code from Git repositories.

10) SmartBear

Collaborator is a code review tool that helps development, testing, and management teams work together to produce high-quality code. It allows teams to peer review code, user stories, and test plans within a transparent, collaborative framework — immediately keeping the entire team up to speed on code changes.

• Price: Paid
• UI: ★★★★
• Installation & Maintenance: ★★★
• Ease of Learning: ★★★★

Summary: More than sufficient for code review. Many major companies use it. After trying the demo, it feels like an excellent tool.

11) Veracode

Code review is an examination of computer source code. Its purpose is to find and fix bugs introduced during development, improving overall software quality and developer skills. Code review takes various forms including pair programming, informal walkthroughs, and formal inspections.

• Price: Paid
• UI: ★★★★
• Installation & Maintenance: ★★★
• Ease of Learning: ★★★★

12) Gerrit

Gerrit is a web-based code review system that facilitates online code review for projects using the Git version control system.

• Price: Free
• UI: ★★★★
• Installation & Maintenance: ★★★
• Ease of Learning: ★★★★

Summary: This is a code review tool from Google. The UI is already of an ancient style.

13) Review Assistant

Review assistant is a simple and better code review tool for Visual Studio.

1. Add your comments at the review level, or on specific source code blocks or lines.
2. Initiate code discussions with your team members without scheduled meetings.
3. Mark comments and issues that need to be fixed.
4. Comments display in the code editor.
5. Instantly switch between inspecting code and comments.

• Price: Free
• UI: ★★★★
• Installation & Maintenance: ★★★
• Ease of Learning: ★★★★

Summary: Requires integration with development tools, not suitable for our current situation.

14) Review Board

Review Board is a better code review tool that saves programmers time, money, and sanity. Your code is syntax-highlighted for faster reading. It shows you features inline, what text has changed, etc.

• Price: Free
• UI: ★★★★
• Installation & Maintenance: ★★★
• Ease of Learning: ★★★★

Summary: The UI is a bit retro but also somewhat clean. I tried it and the functionality is sufficient. It can serve as a backup option.

15) Peer Review Plugin

This plugin aims to eliminate time-consuming code review meetings by giving developers the ability to review code in their own time within a user-friendly web environment.

• Price: Free
• UI: ★★★★
• Installation & Maintenance: ★★★
• Ease of Learning: ★★★★

Summary: Cannot review code from Git repositories, so not under consideration.

16) Codereview

• Price: Free
• UI: ★
• Installation & Maintenance: ★★★
• Ease of Learning: ★★★★

Summary: Cannot review code from Git repositories, so not under consideration.

17) Code-Reviewer

CodeReviewer is a free, simple, easy-to-deploy and use code review tool from SmartBear, the company that invented Collaborator, the industry’s first commercial code review tool.

• Price: Free
• UI: ★
• Installation & Maintenance: ★★★
• Ease of Learning: ★★★★

Summary: The interface is already quite old, and Git support is not great.

18) Code Analysis Tool

CAST code analysis technology addresses two fundamental problems. First, most modern IT systems consist of thousands of components, created by multiple teams and many developers. Measuring software quality across multiple technologies in such systems requires careful calibration of versions and clear identification of application boundaries.

• Price: Paid
• UI: ★★★
• Installation & Maintenance: ★★★
• Ease of Learning: ★

Summary: The tool is too complex and not suitable for promotion within the company.

19) jArchitect

JArchitect simplifies managing complex Java codebases. It analyzes code structure, allows you to specify design rules, perform effective code reviews, and master evolution by comparing different versions of code.

• Price: Paid
• UI: ★★★
• Installation & Maintenance: ★★★
• Ease of Learning: ★

Summary: The interface is quite old, but documentation is comprehensive. Many large companies use it.

20) Reviewable

Reviewable is a new code review tool that helps improve code quality with syntax highlighting, bug/issue detection, making code better, a clean interface, custom code fonts, and much more.

• Price: Free community edition
• UI: ★★★★★
• Installation & Maintenance: ★★★
• Ease of Learning: ★★★★★

Summary: Friendly interactions, easy installation with Docker. The community edition is free. This tool is worth considering.

21) Gitlab

GitLab is an open-source project for repository management systems, using Git as the code management tool and building a web service on top of it, supporting code review.

• Price: Free community edition
• UI: ★★★★★
• Installation & Maintenance: ★★★
• Ease of Learning: ★★★★★

Summary: Our company is already using this tool. Extending it further makes it an excellent code review tool. The learning cost for the team is also relatively low, making it easy to promote.

21) Upsource

Upsource is a code review tool by JetBrains.

• Price: Paid
• UI: ★★★★★
• Installation & Maintenance: ★★★★
• Ease of Learning: ★★★★★

Summary: Currently the best code review tool I’ve found. It basically meets all the requirements of a code review platform. The free version is limited to 8 users.

Reference: 20 Best Code Review Tools for Developers

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