20 Best Code Review Tools For Developers [2024 Guide]

GitHub is the most popular Git repository host, offering cloud-based services for development teams of all sizes.

Why I Picked GitHub: When I find an issue in a codebase that I can correct, I use pull requests on GitHub to add suggested code and go over it with my fellow team members. When I initiate one, it lets me compare the branch to the base so everyone can see what’s different and, if there’s a consensus, proceed to merge.

GitHub Standout Features and Integrations:

Features I like using for code review in GitHub include the option to initiate review requests. I can specify someone I want to do it or let GitHub suggest one from analyzing historical blame data.

GitHub also has protected branches where only authorized team members can merge code after review, which is useful when working with new developers or ones with little Git experience.

Integrations are pre-built for Codefactor, Codacy, Codecov, Coveralls, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Terraform, Jira, Visual Studio Code, and Visual Studio.

Bitbucket is a cloud-native Git solution from Atlassian, the company behind products like Jira, Confluence, and Trello, that powers CI/CD workflows.

Why I Picked Bitbucket: Bitbucket won me over with its native Jira integration that simplified code review by creating a bridge between the repository and the platform where the team coordinated operations. It contextualized diffs and comments against the code, and it gave me the option to create issues and assign tasks in Jira from a pull request.

Bitbucket Standout Features and Integrations:

Features I liked while using Bitbucket with Jira include the single-page view that puts my repo in the same window as my workspaces, so I didn’t have to keep going back and forth between the code and team messages. I also liked that I could add checklists to my pull requests, as I would in a regular Jira ticket, and have reviewers check them off before requests get merged.

Integrations, beyond the native Jira, are pre-built for Slack, Buddybuild, CircleCI, Cider Security, CloudCannon, Codeship, Planio, Snyk, Testim.io, and Visual Studio.

Rhodecode is an open-source code management platform that hosts everything behind a firewall for extra security.

Why I Picked Rhodecode: I chose Rhodecode because it provides multiple options for code repositories and erosion control, with support for Git, Mercurial, and Subversion (SVN). You can bring all of them into one workspace and create common workflows that translate across each one, making collaboration easy without needing to switch existing systems.

Rhodecode Standout Features and Integrations:

Features I liked in Rhodecode for centralization include the ability to migrate from SVN to Git, for example, if you want offline functionality or higher speeds, and have the system rescan and remap the full repository for you. It also provides permission management functions for your servers from behind a firewall to ensure security across different environments.

Integrations are pre-built for Jira, Jenkins, TeamCity, Travis CI, Trello, GitHub, Bitbucket, Slack, Confluence, and Redmine.

Collaborator is a code and document review tool for different teams involved in development, developed by SmartBear Software.

Why I Picked Collaborator: As the name suggests, Collaborator allowed me to involve more stakeholders in the code review process to a greater degree. I created groups and participant subscriptions where I could specify hierarchies, responsibilities, and access for team members, developers, and non-technical individuals. I could also nest groups within each other and have people be part of more than one group.

Collaborator Standout Features and Integrations:

Features I liked for cross-team code review with Collaborator include version control with color coding: additions in green, alterations in yellow, and deletions in red, making it easy to track changes in the code. Collaborator also allowed me to build my own peer review frameworks and standardize the rules for reviews, workflows, and reporting, then lock everything in when I was satisfied.

Integrations are pre-built for Perforce, Visual Studio, GitHub, Jira, and Microsoft Office.

JetBrains Space is a software development platform that covers code reviews, as well as other aspects such as continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines, Git hosting, and issue tracking.

Why I Picked JetBrains Space: JetBrains Space has built-in team management features that make collaboration easier for development groups of all sizes. For example, I only needed to define permissions for code review and version control once and then reuse the memberships whenever I created a new project with the same team members.

JetBrains Space Standout Features and Integrations:

Features I liked in JetBrains Space include the plugin that works across all of JetBrains’ IDEs, which team members could integrate into their workspaces with little hassle and make their code easier to access. I could also add guest users to my projects and define exactly what resources they had access to, something that I found useful for including freelance devs and clients in the process.

Integrations are pre-made for JetBrains IDEs such as PyCharm, RubyMine, WebStorm, IntelliJ IDEA, Rider, CLion, DataGrip, PhpStorm, GoLand, and Aqua.

Gitea is an open-source self-hosted software development solution that provides Git hosting, code review CI/CD pipelines, and package management.

Why I Picked Gitea: I chose Gitea because it’s written in Go, which makes it fast and lightweight enough to be relatively manageable on self-hosted development platforms. The documentation says it needs 1GB of memory and a dual-core processor for small projects, and this tracks with my tests which I carried out on a Raspberry Pi. As far as self-hosted Git solutions go, I’d say it’s more than workable.

Gitea Standout Features and Integrations:

Features I liked in Gitea include Actions, an integrated CI/CD pipeline that allowed me to create custom workflows with YAML. This made it easy to incorporate a dedicated step for code review in the software development lifecycle. Gitea also supports more than 20 public and private package managers, including Chef, PyPl, Maven, and npm, that I could use to set things up in my self-hosted environment.

Integrations are pre-built for Jenkins, Bitbucket, GitLab, GitHub, Visual Studio Code, Docker, YouTrack, and Agola.

Snyk is a developer security platform that provides software composition analysis (SCA), infrastructure-as-code (IAC), static applications security testing (SAST), and containerization functionality.

Why I Picked Snyk: Snyk made it easy for me to keep track of both direct and transitive dependencies, so whenever I was doing code review, I knew how far out any changes were going to ripple. It also analyzed my projects, then located and notified me of vulnerable dependencies so I could get out ahead of potential disasters.

Snyk Standout Features and Integrations:

Features I liked in Snyk include the fact that it reviews code and provides a report that ranks the risks it finds in order of severity, so it’s easier to prioritize fixes if you’re not sure where to start.

Whenever it finds a vulnerability, it also provides clear remediation advice, whether you’re working within a CLI or IDE. For the latter, it works on some of the most popular IDEs, including Visual Studio, VS Code, and every option from JetBrains, making it easy for most developers to include it in their workstations.

Integrations are pre-built for Visual Studio, Visual Studio Code, Jenkins, CircleCI, RubyMine, WebStorm, IntelliJ IDEA, PyCharm, Eclipse, and Bitbucket.

Azure DevOps, formerly called Visual Studio Teams Services, is a collection of tools for CI/CD, agile, and DevOps development workflows from Microsoft.

Why I Picked Azure DevOps: Azure DevOps provides a suite of tools that streamline cross-department collaboration, tools I believe are good for involving all major stakeholders in code review. Most of these tools can also be integrated into CI/CD pipelines; at the center of everything is Azure Repos, the Git-based tool that I used to host the code and share it with team members.

Azure DevOps Standout Features and Integrations:

Features I liked for DevOps with Azure DevOps include Artifacts, a package management tool that supports Python, npm, Maven, and NuGet from public and private sources. With Boards, a project management tool that connects directly to Repos, I could track code review feedback and requests from my team members.

Integrations are pre-built for Docker, Jenkins, Slack, GitHub, Jira, Visual Studio Code, IntelliJ IDEA, GitLab, Xcode, and ServiceNow.

AWS CodeCommit is a fully managed platform that hosts Git repositories for source control and security.

Why I Picked AWS CodeCommit: CodeCommit leverages several features native to AWS that you can use for code reviews. For example, I could control access to the code itself by user, time, and location using AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) and Key Management Service (KMS).

AWS CodeCommit Standout Features and Integrations:

Features that made me recommend CodeCommit for companies working within AWS include the ability to create repos using whatever method you prefer from AWS SDKs, CLI, or the Management Console. You can also monitor the repositories closely when they’re live with CloudTrail and CloudWatch, both of which track several metrics and give you detailed status logs.

Integrations are native for other AWS products and services, including S3, KMS, IAM, DynamoDB, CloudTrail, CloudWatch, SDK, Management Console, CLI, and SNS.

Codebeat is an open-source automated code analysis and review tool with dedicated support for some of the most popular web and mobile programming languages.

Why I Picked Codebeat: As I’ve stated above, Codebeat provides dedicated, built-in support for specific programming languages that are commonly used for mobile and web development. Currently, it supports automated code review for Javascript, Python, Go, Typescript, Ruby, Java, Kotlin, Swift, and Objective-C, with six more languages in beta.

Codebeat Standout Features and Integrations:

Features that stood out to me while I was testing Codebeat include the GPA feature that scans the code in a namespace for various violations, applies penalties if necessary, and gives you a score out of 4. It also provides light project management features with functions like access levels that let you work better with both internal team members as well as open-source contributors.

Integrations are pre-built for GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, Slack, and HipChat.