# Best Peer Code Review Software - Page 3

*By [Adam Crivello](https://research.g2.com/insights/author/adam-crivello)*


Peer code review software provides the means by which code can be examined by a developer other than its author. Peer code review software allows multiple developers to see changes to the code made by other developers, reducing the risk of bugs, security vulnerabilities, and missed requirements. Peer code review software is used by software development teams in the development phase of a project which is cheaper, faster, easier, and more thorough than doing reviews during the requirements phase, testing phase, or after project delivery. Peer code review software allows developers to not only see code but also the specifics of what code was changed and to comment on those changes. Peer code review software often integrates directly into other tools including version control hosting solutions.

To qualify as a peer code review software system, a product must:

- View specific changes made by a developer
- Allow developers to write comments on specific files and changes
- Send messages when requests for code review happens or code review comments are submitted






## G2 Grid® for Peer Code Review Software
![G2 Grid® for Peer Code Review Software plotting products by satisfaction and market presence](https://www.g2.com/categories/peer-code-review/grids.png?focus%5B%5D=1392&focus%5B%5D=1466&focus%5B%5D=19003&focus%5B%5D=1196243&focus%5B%5D=167505&focus%5B%5D=2049&focus%5B%5D=16736&focus%5B%5D=100655)
Highlighted products: GitHub, Bitbucket, GitLab, Linear, Axolo, Azure DevOps Server, Crucible, and Harness Platform.
Underlying data: [Grid® JSON](https://www.g2.com/categories/peer-code-review/grids.json?focus%5B%5D=github&amp;focus%5B%5D=bitbucket&amp;focus%5B%5D=gitlab&amp;focus%5B%5D=linear&amp;focus%5B%5D=axolo&amp;focus%5B%5D=azure-devops-server&amp;focus%5B%5D=crucible&amp;focus%5B%5D=harness-platform)


## How Many Peer Code Review Software Products Does G2 Track?
**Total Products under this Category:** 65

### Category Stats (Jul 2026)
- **Average Rating**: 4.17/5 The average rating of products in this category, based on all submitted ratings
- **Top Trending Product**: Assembla (+1.52%) - Among all products in this category, Assembla recorded the largest rating increase compared to last month
*Last updated: July 17, 2026*


## How Does G2 Rank Peer Code Review Software Products?

**Why You Can Trust G2's Software Rankings:**

- 30 Analysts and Data Experts
- 5,700+ Authentic Reviews
- 65+ Products
- Unbiased Rankings

G2's software rankings are built on verified user reviews, rigorous moderation, and a consistent research methodology maintained by a team of analysts and data experts. Each product is measured using the same transparent criteria, with no paid placement or vendor influence. While reviews reflect real user experiences, which can be subjective, they offer valuable insight into how software performs in the hands of professionals. Together, these inputs power the G2 Score, a standardized way to compare tools within every category.


## Which Peer Code Review Software Is Best for Your Use Case?

- **Leader:** [GitHub](https://www.g2.com/products/github/reviews)
- **Highest Performer:** [Axolo](https://www.g2.com/products/axolo/reviews)
- **Easiest to Use:** [Axolo](https://www.g2.com/products/axolo/reviews)
- **Top Trending:** [CodeRabbit](https://www.g2.com/products/coderabbit/reviews)
- **Best Free Software:** [GitHub](https://www.g2.com/products/github/reviews)


---

**Sponsored**

### JFrog

JFrog Ltd. (Nasdaq: FROG), the creators of the unified DevOps, DevSecOps, DevGovOps and MLOps platform, is on a mission to create a world of software delivered without friction from development to production. Driven by a “Liquid Software” vision to keep software continuously flowing, secure, and always up to date, the JFrog Platform serves as the definitive software supply chain system of record. It is uniquely engineered to power organizations as they build, manage, and distribute trusted software with unprecedented speed, security, and scale across hybrid and multi-cloud environments. As software engineering evolves in the AI era, JFrog’s newest offerings address the industry&#39;s most pressing trend: the rise of agentic software development and the hidden security risks of &quot;Shadow AI.&quot; In response to threat actors increasingly targeting developer workflows including a massive surge in malicious open-source AI models and infected packages; JFrog has expanded its platform capabilities to deliver absolute end-to-end visibility and automated compliance. Key new innovations include the JFrog AI Catalog, which enables organizations to centralize, govern, and control the lifecycle of AI models approved for enterprise use. To secure autonomous coding environments, JFrog introduced the Universal MCP Registry and the Agent Skills Registry (developed alongside NVIDIA). These new solutions establish the industry’s first enterprise-grade trust layer to safely manage and store AI agent skills, monitor connections, and instantly block unsafe developer tools or malicious coding extensions right where developers work. Furthermore, the integration of advanced DevGovOps and Runtime Security tools allows teams to replace slow, manual compliance audits with continuous, background policy enforcement. By shifting security left directly into the binary pipeline, JFrog ensures that the volume of AI-assisted code does not outpace an organization&#39;s ability to verify its safety. Today, millions of users and approximately 6,600 organizations worldwide, including a majority of the Fortune 100, depend on the universal JFrog Platform to eliminate point-solution fatigue, bridge the governance gap, and securely embrace digital transformation. Learn more at www.jfrog.com or follow us on X @JFrog.



[Visit website](https://www.g2.com/external_clickthroughs/record?secure%5Bad_program%5D=ppc&amp;secure%5Bad_slot%5D=category_product_list&amp;secure%5Bcategory_id%5D=563&amp;secure%5Bchosen_at%5D=2026-07-18T04%3A38%3A08Z&amp;secure%5Bdisplayable_resource_id%5D=658&amp;secure%5Bdisplayable_resource_type%5D=Category&amp;secure%5Bmedium%5D=sponsored&amp;secure%5Bplacement_reason%5D=neighbor_category&amp;secure%5Bplacement_resource_ids%5D%5B%5D=658&amp;secure%5Bprioritized%5D=false&amp;secure%5Bproduct_id%5D=143017&amp;secure%5Bresource_id%5D=563&amp;secure%5Bresource_type%5D=Category&amp;secure%5Bsource_type%5D=category_page&amp;secure%5Bsource_url%5D=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.g2.com%2Fcategories%2Fpeer-code-review%3Fopen_modal_url%3D%252Fproducts%252Freview-assistant%252Fwishlists%253Fhost_path%253D%25252Fcategories%25252Fpeer-code-review%2526source%253Dcategory&amp;secure%5Btoken%5D=7ca83bb907ba4011e44dada014163887b50d672372be77c8c63cb02a7eb64e63&amp;secure%5Burl%5D=https%3A%2F%2Fjfrog.com%2Fartifactory%2F%3Futm_source%3Dg2%26utm_medium%3Dcpc_social%26utm_campaign%3Dbrand_awareness_banner_ad%26utm_content%3Du-bin&amp;secure%5Burl_type%5D=custom_url)

---

## What Are the Top-Rated Peer Code Review Software Products in 2026?
### 1. [Ebert](https://www.g2.com/products/ebert/reviews)
Ebert automates code reviews for style, duplication and security issues.



**Who Is the Company Behind Ebert?**

- **Seller:** [Plataformatec](https://www.g2.com/sellers/plataformatec)
- **HQ Location:** N/A
- **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/No-Linkedin-Presence-Added-Intentionally-By-DataOps (1 employees on LinkedIn®)






### 2. [Hyrax AI](https://www.g2.com/products/hyrax-ai/reviews)
Hyrax is a GitHub-native code review and remediation platform for software engineering teams. It reviews code, finds problems, writes the fix, and submits a pull request for the team to merge. Background: AI coding tools have increased how much code teams produce, but review and remediation have not kept pace, so issues accumulate faster than engineers can address them. Hyrax handles the work between finding an issue and merging a fix. How it works: a team installs the Hyrax GitHub App on a repository. Hyrax runs a discovery pass that maps the codebase, its conventions, and its architecture, then stores that context in a .hyrax directory. From there it operates through four workflows: Scan: audits the whole repository for issues across six domains (security, correctness, maintainability, performance, architecture, and operations) before a pull request exists. Fix: writes a change using the repository&#39;s own conventions, runs the project&#39;s tests, reviews the diff, and submits a pull request. The linked ticket closes when the pull request merges. Improve: reviews incoming pull requests and re-checks existing findings against the latest commits. Govern: writes repository context back so other AI coding tools work from the same rules. Safety and control: Hyrax does not merge changes on its own. Every change runs through a 13-step verification process, and if a change cannot pass the project&#39;s tests, no pull request is created. All changes stay reviewable and reversible, and the engineering team approves every merge. Scope: Hyrax reviews all of a team&#39;s code, every commit and every pull request, not only AI-written code. It supports 18 programming languages and integrates with GitHub for source control and Linear for issue tracking. Plans and deployment: a free plan covers one repository with a monthly audit and a capped number of fixes. Paid plans add the full audit pipeline, pull request reviews, and shared usage credits billed by usage rather than per seat. Inference runs on AWS Bedrock, and Hyrax does not use customer code to train models.



**Who Is the Company Behind Hyrax AI?**

- **Seller:** [Hyrax AI](https://www.g2.com/sellers/hyrax-ai)
- **Year Founded:** 2026
- **HQ Location:** Miami, US
- **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/hyrax-ai (4 employees on LinkedIn®)






### 3. [Kallithea](https://www.g2.com/products/kallithea/reviews)
Kallithea, a member project of Software Freedom Conservancy, is a GPLv3&#39;d, Free Software source code management system that supports two leading version control systems, Mercurial and Git, and has a web interface that is easy to use for users and admins. You can install Kallithea on your own server and host repositories for the version control system of your choice.


**Average Rating:** 4.3/5.0
**Total Reviews:** 2
**How Do G2 Users Rate Kallithea?**

- **Quality of Support:** 5.0/10 (Category avg: 8.5/10)
- **Ease of Use:** 10.0/10 (Category avg: 8.8/10)

**Who Is the Company Behind Kallithea?**

- **Seller:** [Kallithea Project](https://www.g2.com/sellers/kallithea-project)
- **HQ Location:** Brooklyn, NY
- **Twitter:** @KallitheaSCM (149 Twitter followers)
- **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/No-Linkedin-Presence-Added-Intentionally-By-DataOps (1 employees on LinkedIn®)

**Who Uses This Product?**
- **Company Size:** 100% Small-Business



#### What Are Recent G2 Reviews of Kallithea?

**"[Good software- more support needed](https://www.g2.com/survey_responses/kallithea-review-2083117)"**

**Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars
*— Verified User in Government Administration*

[Read full review](https://www.g2.com/survey_responses/kallithea-review-2083117)

---

**"[Kallithea review](https://www.g2.com/survey_responses/kallithea-review-1683471)"**

**Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars
*— Massimiliano S.*

[Read full review](https://www.g2.com/survey_responses/kallithea-review-1683471)

---


#### What Are G2 Users Discussing About Kallithea?

- [What is Kallithea used for?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-is-kallithea-used-for)

### 4. [MergeMe](https://www.g2.com/products/mergeme/reviews)
MergeMe is a Slack integration for GitHub pull request and GitLab merge request notifications. It mirrors code review activity from GitHub.com, GitLab.com, and GitLab self-hosted into Slack so your team can see what needs review without leaving the channels they already work in. Many teams start with the official GitHub or GitLab Slack apps and hit the same wall: every event becomes a new message, channels fill with noise, @mentions do not ping the right people, and there is no easy way to route repos to the right channels. MergeMe is built for that workflow. What you get: - One updating Slack card per PR/MR - status changes edit the same message in place (opened, in review, approved, merged, closed) - Threaded review comments - GitHub/GitLab comments sync as replies under the card, not new channel posts - @mention mapping - map git usernames to Slack users so review @mentions actually ping reviewers - Per-repo channel routing - send each GitHub repo or GitLab project to its own Slack channel - Label routing - route bugs, features, and docs work to different channels by label - Multi-git per workspace - connect GitHub, GitLab.com, and self-hosted GitLab together (Team plan) - Webhook-only - MergeMe uses webhook payloads; it does not read your private source code Setup takes about 5 minutes for GitHub or GitLab.com, or about 10 minutes for self-hosted GitLab (paste a webhook URL and signing token). One Slack workspace per MergeMe workspace. Pricing: Hobby is free forever (1 channel mapping, 5 user mappings, no credit card). Team starts at £5 per developer seat/month with unlimited channel mappings and multiple code hosts. Built for software teams that want GitHub and GitLab code review visibility in Slack without notification spam - especially GitLab self-hosted teams and orgs running both GitHub and GitLab.



**Who Is the Company Behind MergeMe?**

- **Seller:** [MergeMe](https://www.g2.com/sellers/mergeme)
- **HQ Location:** N/A
- **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/No-Linkedin-Presence-Added-Intentionally-By-DataOps (1 employees on LinkedIn®)






### 5. [Mo](https://www.g2.com/products/motionode-mo/reviews)
Mo is a developer tool that ensures code changes align with team decisions made in Slack. Mo connects to Slack and your Git provider (GitHub or GitLab) to capture approved decisions and automatically checks pull/merge requests against them. When a PR conflicts with a documented decision, Mo flags it before merge—helping teams prevent misalignment, rework, and unintended behavior. Instead of relying on memory or manual reviews, Mo creates a lightweight layer of enforcement between product decisions and code execution. It focuses specifically on decision consistency, not code quality, making it a complementary tool to existing code review workflows. Mo is designed for teams that use Slack to discuss and approve product or technical decisions and want to ensure those decisions are consistently reflected in their codebase.



**Who Is the Company Behind Mo?**

- **Seller:** [Motionode](https://www.g2.com/sellers/motionode)
- **Year Founded:** 2025
- **HQ Location:** New York, US
- **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/motionode/ (4 employees on LinkedIn®)






### 6. [Octopus Code Review](https://www.g2.com/products/octopus-code-review/reviews)
Octopus Code Review is an open-source AI code review tool built on RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) architecture with Qdrant vector search. Unlike traditional static analysis tools, Octopus understands your entire codebase context and delivers intelligent, project-specific feedback on pull requests through native GitHub integration. It identifies bugs, security issues, and architectural concerns while respecting your team&#39;s coding standards and patterns. Fully self-hostable, Octopus ensures your source code stays on your infrastructure. No vendor lock-in, no data leaving your environment. Designed for teams that want automated code review without compromising on code privacy or review quality.



**Who Is the Company Behind Octopus Code Review?**

- **Seller:** [Octopus](https://www.g2.com/sellers/octopus-37080a40-cbf2-4ff4-8229-f74f308f2459)
- **HQ Location:** London, GB
- **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/octopus-review/ (1 employees on LinkedIn®)






### 7. [Parasoft dotTEST](https://www.g2.com/products/parasoft-dottest/reviews)
Parasoft dotTEST, automates a broad range of software quality practices for your C# and VB.NET development activities. Deep code analysis uncovers reliability and security issues. Code coverage, requirements traceability, and automated compliance reporting helps achieve compliance for security standards and safety-critical industries.



**Who Is the Company Behind Parasoft dotTEST?**

- **Seller:** [Parasoft](https://www.g2.com/sellers/parasoft)
- **Year Founded:** 1987
- **HQ Location:** Monrovia, CA
- **Twitter:** @Parasoft (2,602 Twitter followers)
- **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/parasoft/ (298 employees on LinkedIn®)






### 8. [Promyze](https://www.g2.com/products/promyze/reviews)
Promyze is a platform dedicated to best practices definition and sharing for software developers. Within a team or across teams, practices should be aligned and known by everyone. Otherwise, they face knowledge loss, time-wasting during code reviews, and bugs risks. Promyze offers a new way for a team to continuously enrich their best practices repository, thanks to Craft Workshops. Using the Promyze UI, IDE (VSCode, Visual Studio Code, and JetBrains) or Web browsers plugins, developers are free to contribute to Promyze by identifying everyday best practices applied or not in their code. Then, a Craft Workshop gathers all the team together, and each contribution is reviewed during a 1-hour meeting. Teams can discuss their best practices and decide whether to keep or discard some contributions. A Workshop ends by reviewing other teams&#39; new best practices, bringing technical interactions in IT organizations. Thanks to Promyze, developers can : - Easily share knowledge from each other - Get a dedicated time for continuous improvement - Work on practices alignment and gain time in code review - Ease onboarding process thanks to best practices discovery - Get suggestions while they&#39;re coding in case they do not follow best practices Promyze&#39;s main features : - Workshop to align and review best coding practices - Catalogs to share practices - Documentation of best practices - IDE plugins &amp; Web browsers plugins - Battles to debate about technical discussions - Community of practices animation - Suggestion of best practices in IDE - Onboarding and learning of best practices



**Who Is the Company Behind Promyze?**

- **Seller:** [Promyze](https://www.g2.com/sellers/promyze)
- **HQ Location:** N/A
- **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/No-Linkedin-Presence-Added-Intentionally-By-DataOps (1 employees on LinkedIn®)






### 9. [PullRequest](https://www.g2.com/products/pullrequest/reviews)
PullRequest helps development teams ship code faster, with improved quality and lower costs.



**Who Is the Company Behind PullRequest?**

- **Seller:** [PullRequest](https://www.g2.com/sellers/pullrequest)
- **Year Founded:** 2017
- **HQ Location:** Austin, US
- **Twitter:** @pullrequestcom (1,221 Twitter followers)
- **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/pullrequest (15 employees on LinkedIn®)






### 10. [RBCommons](https://www.g2.com/products/rbcommons/reviews)
RBCommons is a hosted Review Board service.



**Who Is the Company Behind RBCommons?**

- **Seller:** [RBCommons](https://www.g2.com/sellers/rbcommons)
- **HQ Location:** N/A
- **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/No-Linkedin-Presence-Added-Intentionally-By-DataOps (1 employees on LinkedIn®)






### 11. [Refacto](https://www.g2.com/products/refacto/reviews)
Refacto is an AI code review tool that helps engineering teams review PRs faster and with more consistency. It integrates with Git providers and automatically analyzes code changes to identify bugs, edge cases, and best practice violations. The platform generates contextual review comments, suggests fixes, and provides PR summaries to help reviewers understand changes quickly. It also includes security checks to detect vulnerabilities before code is merged. Refacto works within existing workflows and delivers feedback in minutes, helping teams improve code quality and reduce review time.



**Who Is the Company Behind Refacto?**

- **Seller:** [DevDynamics](https://www.g2.com/sellers/devdynamics)
- **Year Founded:** 2023
- **HQ Location:** Wilmington, Delaware
- **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/devdynamics-ai/ (12 employees on LinkedIn®)






### 12. [Sennin AI](https://www.g2.com/products/sennin-ai/reviews)
Senior‑grade AI code reviews with low noise, using the whole context of the project and maximum reasoning.



**Who Is the Company Behind Sennin AI?**

- **Seller:** [Sennin AI](https://www.g2.com/sellers/sennin-ai)
- **HQ Location:** N/A
- **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/sennin-ai/ (1 employees on LinkedIn®)






### 13. [ThinkReview](https://www.g2.com/products/thinkreview/reviews)
ThinkReview is a zero-configuration AI copilot that works directly in your browser to supercharge your workflow. It helps you generate insightful comments, ask smarter questions, and cut your review time in half, all without complex CI/CD setup or repository access tokens. ​Key Features: ​AI-Generated Comments: Instantly create professional, context-aware feedback for any block of code. ​Smart Question Suggestions: Uncover potential issues and edge cases with AI-powered questions tailored to the merge request. ​Zero-Configuration: Works instantly as a browser extension. No CI/CD pipelines or access tokens required. ​Persistent Language Settings: Set your preferred language once and get all AI responses in your native tongue. ​Multi-Platform Support: Works seamlessly with GitLab, GitHub, and all Chromium-based browsers (Edge, Brave, etc.). Supports Ollama local llm models



**Who Is the Company Behind ThinkReview?**

- **Seller:** [Thinkode](https://www.g2.com/sellers/thinkode)
- **Year Founded:** 2025
- **HQ Location:** Liverpool, GB
- **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/thinkreview/ (2 employees on LinkedIn®)






### 14. [Videolink](https://www.g2.com/products/videolink/reviews)
Videolink is a product and engineering feedback tool that helps teams review features, pull requests, and bugs with clear visual context. Teams record short screen videos to explain intent, expected behavior, or issues instead of relying on long written comments or meetings. Feedback is tied to exact moments in the video, so reviewers understand what needs to change without guesswork or repeated explanations. Videolink supports screen and camera recording, visual annotations, timestamped comments, and blur tools for sensitive data. Videos can be attached directly to GitHub pull requests or issues, keeping feedback close to the code and easy to revisit. By adding visual context at review time, Videolink helps product and engineering teams reduce back-and-forth, avoid rework, and close feedback loops faster. Visit: https://govideolink.com


**Average Rating:** 5.0/5.0
**Total Reviews:** 1
**How Do G2 Users Rate Videolink?**

- **Quality of Support:** 10.0/10 (Category avg: 8.5/10)
- **Ease of Use:** 10.0/10 (Category avg: 8.8/10)

**Who Is the Company Behind Videolink?**

- **Seller:** [Agendalink](https://www.g2.com/sellers/agendalink)
- **Year Founded:** 2021
- **HQ Location:** Utrecht, NL
- **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/agendalink/ (2 employees on LinkedIn®)

**Who Uses This Product?**
- **Company Size:** 100% Small-Business


#### What Are Videolink's Pros and Cons?

**Pros:**

- AI Integration (1 reviews)
- Communication (1 reviews)
- Daily Use (1 reviews)
- Ease of Use (1 reviews)
- Easy Creation (1 reviews)

**Cons:**

- Limited Animation Features (1 reviews)
- Limited Editing (1 reviews)
- Slow Loading (1 reviews)
- Slow Performance (1 reviews)
- Software Glitches (1 reviews)


### What Do G2 Reviewers Say About Videolink?
*AI-generated summary from verified user reviews*

**Pros:**

- Users appreciate the **seamless AI integration** of Videolink, enhancing workflow efficiency and improving video quality.
- Users value the **seamless communication** features of Videolink, enhancing workflow efficiency and client interactions.
- Users value the **ease of use** of Videolink, making it an essential part of their daily workflow.
- Users love the **ease of use** of Videolink, seamlessly integrating it into their workflow for various purposes.
- Users love the **easy creation** features of Videolink, streamlining workflows and enhancing video collaboration effectively.

**Cons:**

- Users find the **limited animation features** of Videolink lacking, desiring more advanced editing options for better versatility.
- Users find **limited editing options** in Videolink, wishing for more advanced features to enhance their editing experience.
- Users experience **slow loading** times for large file uploads, particularly on weaker internet connections.
- Users report **slow performance** during large file uploads, especially with weaker internet connections impacting their experience.
- Users experience **software glitches** , particularly with slow large file uploads and limited editing features that hinder usability.

#### What Are Recent G2 Reviews of Videolink?

**"[Cuts Meetings, Speeds Communication, and Simplifies Recruitment](https://www.g2.com/survey_responses/videolink-review-11537540)"**

**Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars
*— Volodymyr T.*

[Read full review](https://www.g2.com/survey_responses/videolink-review-11537540)

---



### 15. [WhatTheDiff](https://www.g2.com/products/whatthediff/reviews)
What The Diff helps you and your team writing better pull request descriptions, reviewing and merging them faster and even keep your non-technical team members in the loop.



**Who Is the Company Behind WhatTheDiff?**

- **Seller:** [WhatTheDiff](https://www.g2.com/sellers/whatthediff)
- **HQ Location:** N/A
- **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/No-Linkedin-Presence-Added-Intentionally-By-DataOps (1 employees on LinkedIn®)







## What Is Peer Code Review Software?

[Source Code Management Software](https://www.g2.com/categories/source-code-management)

## What Software Categories Are Similar to Peer Code Review Software?

- [Bug Tracking Software](https://www.g2.com/categories/bug-tracking)
- [Version Control Hosting Software](https://www.g2.com/categories/version-control-hosting)
- [Secure Code Review Software](https://www.g2.com/categories/secure-code-review)


---

## How Do You Choose the Right Peer Code Review Software?

### What You Should Know About Peer Code Review Software

### What is Peer Code Review Software?

Peer code review software facilitates a collaborative feedback and quality assurance process during software development. This software provides an organized means by which code can be examined, adjusted, and commented on by a developer other than the code’s author.

The code review process allows multiple developers to see changes to the code made by other developers, reducing the risk of bugs, security vulnerabilities, and missed requirements. Peer code review software also allows teams to check code for clarity and readability, which is an important aspect of programming. In a sense, the peer code review process facilitated by these tools is akin to the peer review processes used for writing projects. The fundamental value of these tools lies in the overall reduced possibility of human errors. However, these tools are also useful for onboarding newly hired developers. Developers with more experience on the team can review and comment on new developers’ code to instill team-specific best practices that aren’t necessarily universal. Even fully functional code can be improved by peer code review software. Team members can offer each other suggestions that result in better code, even if the original code is usable. Code review tools are used by software development teams in a project&#39;s development phase, which is cheaper, faster, easier, and more thorough than doing reviews during the requirements phase, testing phase, or after project delivery. By catching problematic code early, teams reduce the possibility of having to redo excess amounts of work.

Peer code review software allows developers to view not only code but also the specifics of what code was changed and to comment on those changes. These code review tools often integrate directly into other tools, including version control hosting solutions. This integration enables teams to smoothly incorporate the peer code review process into their standardized software development process.

### What are the Common Features of Peer Code Review Software?

The following are some core features within peer code review software that can help users facilitate a smooth and effective code review process:

**Commenting:** Code commenting is perhaps the most fundamental feature of peer code review software, as it allows developers other than a code’s author to provide feedback asynchronously. Developers reviewing someone else’s code can highlight relevant parts of the code to leave comments on. If multiple developers are reviewing the code in question, peer code review software allows them to group or chain comments from different developers pertaining to the same lines of code. Then, the code’s author can hover over the highlighted code to view those comments and adjust as necessary.

**Notifications:** Peer code review software uses notifications to alert relevant users as the code review process progresses. When the code’s author determines that their work is ready for review, the code review tool will notify their peer review partner or partners. Then, when the peer review is complete, the software will notify the original author so that they can adjust their code against the completed peer review. Teams can also set the granularity for these notifications. If desired, the code’s author can be alerted to each individual comment or change made by a peer reviewer.&amp;nbsp;

**Prioritization:** Most peer code review software allows reviewers to mark the severity of their comments. For example, if a peer reviewer finds an app-breaking error in the author’s code, they can both leave a comment and mark it as urgent or severe. This is usually accomplished via color coding or iconography such as an exclamation mark, drawing the author’s attention to the most important suggestions and corrections. Prioritization allows developers to delineate between minor preference differences and major flaws.

**Standardized best practices:** Most peer code review software allow teams to set and edit standardized best practices and metrics, which will be displayed prominently as a reference for peer reviewers to follow. Some peer code review software even automatically detect code that appears flawed and flags it for review, along with a description of the probable error. By making a team’s best practices and metrics more visible throughout the peer code review process, peer code review software reduces the possibility of human error and overlooked issues.&amp;nbsp;

### What are the Benefits of Peer Code Review Software?

The benefits of peer code review software are as mentioned below:

**Quality assurance:** Coding, like writing, produces complex and unique work depending on the author. While automated testing tools are important and useful in the software development process, a thorough and efficient peer code review process is vital to assuring code quality. Peer code review software helps team members evaluate each other’s work personally, which helps teams adhere to best practices and catch potential issues early. By validating code against other software developers’ judgment, code authors can better ensure their code’s readability and quality.

**Collaboration:** A peer code review process without the assistance of peer code review software is possible but tedious. Peer code review software facilitates easy and effective collaboration by structuring the peer code review process and notifying relevant users as the process progresses. Some peer code review software also help facilitate remote pair programming. Pair programming typically refers to a software development method involving two developers working on the same task together, with one programmer writing the code while the other makes comments and suggestions. With peer code review software, teams can engage with pair programming remotely by allowing disparate teammates to code and leave comments in real time.

**Efficiency:** In the software development world, it’s always better for issues to be caught early. When an issue goes unrecognized until the later stages of application development, it can result in a large amount of work needing to be redone. For example, if several elements of an application’s programming rely on the same foundational piece of code, and that code turns out to be flawed, then each of those elements is also flawed and may need to be reworked. Peer code review software helps ensure that problems are either addressed early or avoided entirely, which speeds up the development process and reduces headaches.

### Who Uses Peer Code Review Software?

The following personnel can make use of peer code review software:

**Senior developers:** Peer code review software allows senior developers to review junior developers’ work. This facilitates knowledge sharing and mentorship within the team while also ensuring quality by getting experienced developers’ eyes on the code.

**Junior developers:** Developers of all skill levels use peer code review software, and those developers with less experience benefit from the practice of reviewing their peers’ code. This enables them to better understand their team’s best practices and share the knowledge.

**Managers:** Managers on software development teams sometimes review code changes using peer code review software, though it tends to happen at an infrequent cadence. This ensures that managers are keeping an eye on their team’s code quality and offering mentorship where applicable.

#### Software Related to Peer Code Review Software

Related solutions that can be used together with peer code review software include:

[Secure code review software](https://www.g2.com/categories/secure-code-review) **:** Secure code review software enables either automated or manual code examination to seek out vulnerabilities and security risks. These solutions are similar to peer code review software, but they are specifically focused on ensuring security best practices as opposed to general coding best practices, and some solutions execute automated code remediation rather than enabling peer review.&amp;nbsp;

[Software testing tools](https://www.g2.com/categories/software-testing) **:** Software testing software gives development teams the methods and tools to determine the quality of their software creation and improvement projects. Development teams use software testing tools to assess whether the software is usable, performs properly, meets development team goals, and meets overall requirements.&amp;nbsp;

[Automation testing software](https://www.g2.com/categories/automation-testing) **:** Test automation software controls the execution of software tests. It simplifies the testing process for software engineers by using the minimum set of scripts, saving their teams time and money. These tools, typically utilized by large enterprises, allow teams to run pre-scripted tests on their applications before they are pushed into production.

[Bug tracking software](https://www.g2.com/categories/bug-tracking) **:** Bug tracking software, or issue tracking software, refers to software used by quality assurance (QA) and software development teams to report software bugs and problems. Bug tracking software provides a repository that explains how to reproduce a bug and how widespread an issue is, allowing a business to separate, prioritize, sequence, and provide communications about different bugs across many projects or applications.

### Challenges with Peer Code Review Software

Software solutions can come with their own set of challenges.&amp;nbsp;

**Effective notifications:** Companies should ensure that the peer code review software they’re interested in buying meets their requirements for effective notification. If the routes and methods that a peer code review tool uses to notify users of new comments don’t do enough to alert team members effectively, the entire process is slowed down. Notifications need to be clear, and developers should be able to click them once to jump right into the relevant section of the codebase.&amp;nbsp;

**Standardized peer review:** Standardizing the peer code review process helps companies ensure consistent code quality. With that in mind, companies should look for peer code review software that helps them standardize the process. An ideal solution should make best practices clear and remind users of important metrics so that each review is thorough and productive.

### Which Companies Should Buy Peer Code Review Software?

Any company with a software development team should use peer code review software, as it is a fundamental part of quality assurance and team collaboration.

### How to Buy Peer Code Review Software

#### Requirements Gathering (RFI/RFP) for Peer Code Review Software

G2.com can assist buyers in finding the best peer code review software, whether a buyer is searching for solutions for the first time or looking to replace legacy software.

Generally, the most important considerations are price, feature set, and integration with the company’s existing development workflow. One of the primary purposes of peer code review software is to make quality assurance more efficient and effective, so ensuring that the tool of choice fits seamlessly atop the company’s existing development environment is often essential. Using G2 reviews as a reference, buyers can determine the features that will best help them manage their peer code review process, ensuring a pain-free onboarding process and comprehensive solution.&amp;nbsp;

After narrowing down a potential pool of products, teams can then apply further considerations for budget, requirements, and more. Using this approach, buyers can confidently move forward in the buying process, referencing their checklist in conjunction with G2 scores to find the right solution for their needs.

#### Compare Peer Code Review Software Products

**Create a long list**

Buyers should consider the multiple peer code review solutions on the market. Some tools include automated remediation suggestions, which attempt to improve code even before another human developer gets their eyes on it. Others shine as real-time collaborative tools that facilitate pair programming. Buyers should consider options like these to produce a long list of potentially viable products.

**Create a short list**

Once a long list is created, buyers should employ a more granular approach to trim it down. Along with a matrix of must-have functionality and pricing, buyers can use G2 reviews to explore any potential advantages and disadvantages among the products they’re considering. With these factors in mind, buyers should narrow down their search to a list of three to five products.

**Conduct demos**

All software products on a company’s short list must be investigated firsthand via demos to ensure that real-time functionality matches on-paper expectations. During demos, buyers should make inquiries based on the requirements gathering they’ve done prior; for example, one might ask to be walked through a peer code review tool’s collaborative content management features to ensure the company’s needs will be met.&amp;nbsp;

#### Selection of Peer Code Review Software

**Choose a selection team**

Companies of any size should try to involve the most relevant personas when beginning the peer code review software selection process. Large companies might have the resources to include individual team members to fill roles such as team manager, decision maker, and senior developer. Smaller companies can overlap roles to compensate for their relatively fewer employees.&amp;nbsp;

**Negotiation**

Some vendors offer software solutions that can handle peer code review but do far more than what the buyer requires. While some vendors may only offer an all-or-nothing package, buyers who want to optimize spending should try to negotiate a fairly priced package, including only the functionalities that matter to them. For example, a product’s pricing page could show that the buyer’s must-have features are only included with an expensive all-in-one package, whereas a sales conversation may prove otherwise.&amp;nbsp;

**Final decision**

To conclude the process, performing a trial run with a small pool of developers is essential. This will aid buyers in ensuring that their chosen peer code review software is easy to use, integrates seamlessly with existing workflows, and facilitates highly effective collaboration. If the solution is received well and doesn’t slow down the development process, the buyer’s selection is probably the right one. If not, it may be time to try another product from the short list.




