Gerrit Code Review vs GitHub: What are the differences?
Introduction
Gerrit Code Review and GitHub are both popular code collaboration platforms used by developers. While they share some similarities, there are key differences between the two. In this article, we will explore the main differences between Gerrit Code Review and GitHub.
1. Access Control
Gerrit Code Review provides a powerful access control system, allowing administrators to define fine-grained permissions for different actions on the codebase. This includes the ability to set up pre-commit code reviews, ensuring that no code makes it into the repository without thorough review. On the other hand, GitHub's access control options are more limited, mainly revolving around repository-level permissions.
2. Workflow
Gerrit Code Review is often used in conjunction with Git, providing a workflow that revolves around code reviews before merging changes into the main repository. It enforces a strict process for submitting changes, involving code reviews, feedback, and approvals. GitHub, on the other hand, follows a more flexible workflow, allowing developers to work directly with branches and easily merge changes into the main branch.
3. Integration with CI/CD
Gerrit Code Review provides seamless integration with various continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) systems. It allows developers to trigger automated tests and builds based on code changes, ensuring that the code is always in a deployable state. GitHub also supports CI/CD integration, but the level of control and customization is more limited compared to Gerrit Code Review.
4. Code Collaboration Features
GitHub offers a rich set of collaboration features, such as pull requests, issues tracking, and project management tools. These features facilitate communication and collaboration among team members, making it easy to discuss changes, track progress, and manage tasks. While Gerrit Code Review does offer some collaboration features, such as inline commenting, it doesn't provide the same level of comprehensive collaboration tools as GitHub.
5. Community and Ecosystem
GitHub has a vibrant and large community, making it easy to discover and contribute to open-source projects. It offers a wide range of third-party integrations, plugins, and extensions, allowing developers to customize and extend their workflows. Gerrit Code Review, on the other hand, has a smaller community and a more limited ecosystem in terms of integrations and extensions.
6. Code Ownership
Gerrit Code Review emphasizes code ownership by associating each change with a specific reviewer. This means that there is a clear accountability for code quality, as each change has a designated reviewer responsible for reviewing and approving it. In GitHub, while reviewers can be assigned to pull requests, there is less emphasis on explicit code ownership.
In summary, Gerrit Code Review offers a more structured and controlled approach to code collaboration, with powerful access control, strict workflows, and seamless CI/CD integrations. On the other hand, GitHub provides a more flexible and feature-rich environment for code collaboration, with a larger community and a wider range of collaboration tools.