I feel like the world of code review has somewhat stagnated. Most people use a variation on GitHub Pull Requests, which slowly began to catch up to the kinds of features we have in Review Board, but never quite got there. Good enough for many, but could be better for most.
In a similar vein, the world of code review has stagnated in what and where people can review. You pretty much have to be on a bespoke Git-based service, which leaves out companies with decades of history backed on Subversion, Perforce, and others. And you’re limited to just reviewing source code, when there’s so much more that goes into a product.
We built Review Board at a time before pull requests and the prevalence of Git, a time when code review was barely a thought in the minds of most software developers. As the concepts we worked to pioneer began to take hold, and more solutions entered the market, we watched them begin to coalesce around an overly-simple model that left little room for the non-code assets that comprise so many projects. We watched as cloud-based solutions began to dominate and on-prem got left behind along with all those legacy customers.
And now we’re watching the older waves of on-prem solutions begin to disappear, leaving customers stuck. Watching the rise of AI-focused and AI-only solutions threaten further slop in projects, with minimal human oversight.
And with all this, whole industries of creators are still being passed over.
We’re building better solutions
We have a few major things in the works for Review Board I’m so happy to begin talking about:
AI functionality is coming, and we’re building it with humans in mind. We believe in building stronger engineering teams instead of replacing them with AI. I’ll be talking about what’s coming as we get closer to launch, but this isn’t just another “throw code at the AI and hope its feedback is worth it.”
EDA Design is a major new feature we’ve got in the prototype phase. It allows designs for schematics and PCBs to be viewed, analyzed, and diffed across revisions. We announced that today for anyone interesting in signing up for a beta.
Crucible Import is also in progress. For decades, many industries depended on Crucible for their development, but in 2028 Crucible will be dead. Review Board is a good, modern fit for Crucible users, and we’re making it easy to import your history and pick up where you left off. There’s no need to move away from Perforce, Subversion, or whatever else you’ve got, but at the same time you can begin to review code hosted on GitHub, GitLab, Jujutsu, or others. Crucible users can sign up for a beta.
And we’re staying on-prem. Others want to bring you into their fold so they can own your whole environment. We believe in the portability and choice of tools, on-prem or in the cloud, and are holding firm on that.