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GitHub vs Review Board: What are the differences?
GitHub and Review Board are two popular tools used in software development for managing and reviewing code changes. While both serve a similar purpose, there are several key differences between the two.
Integration with Version Control Systems: One major difference between GitHub and Review Board is their integration with version control systems. GitHub is primarily designed to work with Git, a distributed version control system. On the other hand, Review Board supports various version control systems like Git, Mercurial, Subversion, and Perforce, providing more flexibility for teams using different VCS.
Online Code Hosting vs. Self-Hosted: GitHub is a cloud-based platform that offers online code hosting for open-source and private projects. It provides a user-friendly interface and takes care of setting up the infrastructure for code repositories. In contrast, Review Board is a self-hosted code review tool that requires installation on a server. It provides full control over the code review process but requires more setup and maintenance efforts.
Pull Request Workflow vs. Traditional Review: GitHub has a pull request workflow, where developers can create a branch, make changes, and submit a pull request for review. Reviewers can comment on specific lines of code and give approvals or suggestions before merging the changes. Review Board, on the other hand, follows a more traditional review process where reviewers manually upload diffs and provide comments. This approach allows for more flexibility, but it may require additional steps to manage the review process.
Community and Collaboration Features: GitHub has a strong focus on community and collaboration features. It allows developers to easily fork, clone, and collaborate on open-source projects. It also provides social features like following users, starring repositories, and contributing to public projects. Review Board, on the other hand, is more focused on the code review process itself and does not offer the same level of community and collaboration features.
Extensibility and Integration: GitHub provides a rich ecosystem of integrations and extensions. It offers a marketplace of apps and integrations that can be used to extend its functionality. This allows teams to integrate their favorite tools like build systems, project management software, and continuous integration services into their development workflow. Review Board also supports extensions, but its ecosystem is not as extensive as GitHub's.
Commercial vs. Open Source: GitHub offers both free and paid plans, with additional features and support for private repositories available in paid plans. It is primarily a commercial product owned by Microsoft. Review Board, on the other hand, is open-source software and can be used and modified freely. It is supported by a community of contributors and does not require any licensing fees.
In Summary, GitHub and Review Board differ in terms of integration with version control systems, online code hosting vs. self-hosted, pull request workflow vs. traditional review, community and collaboration features, extensibility and integration options, and commercial vs. open-source nature.
Hi, I need advice. In my project, we are using Bitbucket hosted on-prem, Jenkins, and Jira. Also, we have restrictions not to use any plugins for code review, code quality, code security, etc., with bitbucket. Now we want to migrate to AWS CodeCommit, which would mean that we can use, let's say, Amazon CodeGuru for code reviews and move to AWS CodeBuild and AWS CodePipeline for build automation in the future rather than using Jenkins.
Now I want advice on below.
- Is it a good idea to migrate from Bitbucket to AWS Codecommit?
- If we want to integrate Jira with AWS Codecommit, then how can we do this? If a developer makes any changes in Jira, then a build should be triggered automatically in AWS and create a Jira ticket if the build fails. So, how can we achieve this?
Hi Kavita. It would be useful to explain in a bit more detail the integration to Jira you would like to achieve. Some of the Jira plugins will work with any git repository, regardless if its github/bitbucket/gitlab.
I first used BitBucket because it had private repo's, and it didn't disappoint me. Also with the smooth integration of Jira, the decision to use BitBucket as a full application maintenance service was as easy as 1, 2, 3.
I honestly love BitBucket, by the looks, by the UI, and the smooth integration with Tower.
Do you review your Pull/Merge Request before assigning Reviewers?
If you work in a team opening a Pull Request (or Merge Request) looks appropriate. However, have you ever thought about opening a Pull/Merge Request when working by yourself? Here's a checklist of things you can review in your own:
- Pick the correct target branch
- Make Drafts explicit
- Name things properly
- Ask help for tools
- Remove the noise
- Fetch necessary data
- Understand Mergeability
- Pass the message
- Add screenshots
- Be found in the future
- Comment inline in your changes
Read the blog post for more detailed explanation for each item :D
What else do you review before asking for code review?
Using an inclusive language is crucial for fostering a diverse culture. Git has changed the naming conventions to be more language-inclusive, and so you should change. Our development tools, like GitHub and GitLab, already supports the change.
SourceLevel deals very nicely with repositories that changed the master branch to a more appropriate word. Besides, you can use the grep linter the look for exclusive terms contained in the source code.
As the inclusive language gap may happen in other aspects of our lives, have you already thought about them?
One of the magic tricks git performs is the ability to rewrite log history. You can do it in many ways, but git rebase -i
is the one I most use. With this command, Itโs possible to switch commits order, remove a commit, squash two or more commits, or edit, for instance.
Itโs particularly useful to run it before opening a pull request. It allows developers to โclean upโ the mess and organize commits before submitting to review. If you follow the practice 3 and 4, then the list of commits should look very similar to a task list. It should reveal the rationale you had, telling the story of how you end up with that final code.
Out of most of the VCS solutions out there, we found Gitlab was the most feature complete with a free community edition. Their DevSecops offering is also a very robust solution. Gitlab CI/CD was quite easy to setup and the direct integration with your VCS + CI/CD is also a bonus. Out of the box integration with major cloud providers, alerting through instant messages etc. are all extremely convenient. We push our CI/CD updates to MS Teams.
Gitlab as A LOT of features that GitHub and Azure DevOps are missing. Even if both GH and Azure are backed by Microsoft, GitLab being open source has a faster upgrade rate and the hosted by gitlab.com solution seems more appealing than anything else! Quick win: the UI is way better and the Pipeline is way easier to setup on GitLab!
At DeployPlace we use self-hosted GitLab, we have chosen GitLab as most of us are familiar with it. We are happy with all features GitLab provides, I canโt imagine our life without integrated GitLab CI. Another important feature for us is integrated code review tool, we use it every day, we use merge requests, code reviews, branching. To be honest, most of us have GitHub accounts as well, we like to contribute in open source, and we want to be a part of the tech community, but lack of solutions from GitHub in the area of CI doesnโt let us chose it for our projects.
Pros of GitHub
- Open source friendly1.8K
- Easy source control1.5K
- Nice UI1.3K
- Great for team collaboration1.1K
- Easy setup867
- Issue tracker504
- Great community486
- Remote team collaboration483
- Great way to share451
- Pull request and features planning442
- Just works147
- Integrated in many tools132
- Free Public Repos121
- Github Gists116
- Github pages112
- Easy to find repos83
- Open source62
- It's free60
- Easy to find projects60
- Network effect56
- Extensive API49
- Organizations43
- Branching42
- Developer Profiles34
- Git Powered Wikis32
- Great for collaboration30
- It's fun24
- Clean interface and good integrations23
- Community SDK involvement22
- Learn from others source code20
- Because: Git16
- It integrates directly with Azure14
- Standard in Open Source collab10
- Newsfeed10
- It integrates directly with Hipchat8
- Fast8
- Beautiful user experience8
- Easy to discover new code libraries7
- Smooth integration6
- Cloud SCM6
- Nice API6
- Graphs6
- Integrations6
- It's awesome6
- Quick Onboarding5
- Reliable5
- Remarkable uptime5
- CI Integration5
- Hands down best online Git service available5
- Uses GIT4
- Version Control4
- Simple but powerful4
- Unlimited Public Repos at no cost4
- Free HTML hosting4
- Security options4
- Loved by developers4
- Easy to use and collaborate with others4
- Ci3
- IAM3
- Nice to use3
- Easy deployment via SSH3
- Easy to use2
- Leads the copycats2
- All in one development service2
- Free private repos2
- Free HTML hostings2
- Easy and efficient maintainance of the projects2
- Beautiful2
- Easy source control and everything is backed up2
- IAM integration2
- Very Easy to Use2
- Good tools support2
- Issues tracker2
- Never dethroned2
- Self Hosted2
- Dasf1
- Profound1
Pros of Review Board
- Simple to use. Great UI3
- Review Bots1
- Diff between review versions1
- Open Source1
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Cons of GitHub
- Owned by micrcosoft54
- Expensive for lone developers that want private repos38
- Relatively slow product/feature release cadence15
- API scoping could be better10
- Only 3 collaborators for private repos9
- Limited featureset for issue management4
- Does not have a graph for showing history like git lens3
- GitHub Packages does not support SNAPSHOT versions2
- No multilingual interface1
- Takes a long time to commit1
- Expensive1