[opensourcedex]

reviewboard is a free, open source version control & collaboration project written in Python and released under MIT. It has 1,724 GitHub stars, 438 forks and 0 open issues, and was last pushed 6 hours ago. On this registry it ranks #21 of 30 tracked projects in Version Control & Collaboration, with 5 head-to-head comparisons available.

What is reviewboard?

What it is

Review Board open source web-based code document review tool. Python language. MIT license. Developer tools category. Version control collaboration category. Homepage reviewboard.org. GitHub metadata: 1727 stars. 438 forks. 0 open issues. Repo age 17 years. Last push 2026-09-10T19:23:42Z. Helps companies open source projects organizations keep quality high bug count low. Began 2006 fill hole code review market. Wanted open source flexible enough variety workflows. Wanted take pain out code review process. Today used by thousands projects companies. Small startups two people. Enterprises thousands.

Review Board tracks pending code graphics documents discussions decisions product. Diff viewer shows how code changed. Syntax highlighting. Interdiffs. Moved line detection. Indentation change indicators. Rich API extension frameworks allow custom features review UIs data analysis without fork. Supports Bazaar ClearCase CVS Git Mercurial Perforce Plastic Azure DevOps. Works with own server or Assembla Beanstalk Bitbucket Codebase GitHub GitLab Gitorious Kiln Unfuddle.

Key capabilities

  • Diff viewer syntax highlighting interdiffs moved line detection indentation change indicators.
  • Tracks pending code graphics documents discussions decisions.
  • Supports Bazaar ClearCase CVS Git Mercurial Perforce Plastic Azure DevOps.
  • Works with Assembla Beanstalk Bitbucket Codebase GitHub GitLab Gitorious Kiln Unfuddle.
  • Rich API extension framework custom features review UIs data analysis no fork.
  • Power Pack report generation PDF Office document review multi-server scalability Azure DevOps GitHub Enterprise LDAP Active Directory sync coming soon.

Who uses it and how

  • Small startups two people enterprises thousands use Review Board development process.
  • Engineering teams review pending changes across supported version control systems.
  • Reviewers inspect diffs compare revisions follow discussion threads decisions.
  • Tooling teams integrate via API extensions adapt workflows review UIs data analysis.
  • Organizations needing reports document review scalability enterprise integrations use Power Pack.

Getting started

Get Review Board via interactive guide download install self-host; RBCommons hosted option and demo available evaluation. RBTools mentioned for end-users already using Review Board.

When to use it — and when not to

Use when need open source web-based code document review across many version control systems. Good fit teams willing self-host administer platform or use RBCommons hosted. Not ideal if need only core features and Power Pack advanced features matter: reports PDF Office scalability enterprise integrations; LDAP Active Directory sync coming soon; provided facts no specific paid product comparison.

project readme (upstream, from github) — read inline

Review Board

|release-badge| |license-badge| |reviewed-with-badge| |python-badge|

Review Board_ is an open source, web-based code and document review tool built to help companies, open source projects, and other organizations keep their quality high and their bug count low.

We began writing Review Board in 2006 to fill a hole in the code review market. We wanted something open source that could be flexible enough to work with a variety of workflows, and could take the pain out of the code review process.

Today, it's a vital part of the development process at thousands of projects and companies, ranging from small startups of two people to enterprises of thousands.

.. _Review Board: https://www.reviewboard.org/

.. |release-badge| image:: https://img.shields.io/pypi/v/reviewboard :target: https://pypi.org/project/reviewboard :alt: Latest release

.. |license-badge| image:: https://img.shields.io/badge/license-MIT-green.svg :target: https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT :alt: MIT License

.. |reviewed-with-badge| image:: https://img.shields.io/badge/Review%20Board-d0e6ff?label=reviewed%20with :target: https://www.reviewboard.org :alt: Reviewed with Review Board

.. |python-badge| image:: https://img.shields.io/pypi/pyversions/reviewboard :target: https://pypi.org/project/reviewboard :alt: Compatible python versions

What does Review Board do?

Review Board tracks changes to your pending code, graphics, documents, and all discussions around all the decisions made about your product. Our diff viewer does more than just display diffs: It shows you exactly how your code was changed, with syntax highlighting, interdiffs, moved line detection, indentation change indicators, and more.

You can integrate with Review Board using its rich API and extension frameworks, allowing custom features, review UIs, data analysis, and more to be built without ever having to fork Review Board.

There's support for Bazaar, ClearCase, CVS, Git, Mercurial, Perforce, Plastic, and Azure DevOps, hosted on your own server or on Assembla, Beanstalk, Bitbucket, Codebase, GitHub, GitLab, Gitorious, Kiln, or Unfuddle.

To learn more, visit the Review Board website_.

.. _Review Board website: https://www.reviewboard.org/

Setting up Review Board

First, get Review Board _. Our helpful interactive guide will walk you through what you need to download and install Review Board.

We can also host Review Board for you at RBCommons_. Management is simple, and we'll take care of all the administrative work.

If you want to get a feel for Review Board, check out the demo_.

For additional information, see our documentation:

  • Review Board User Manual_
  • Review Board Administration Manual_
  • FAQ_

.. _RBCommons: https://rbcommons.com/ .. _demo: https://demo.reviewboard.org/ .. _Review Board User Manual: https://www.reviewboard.org/docs/manual/latest/users/ .. _Review Board Administration Manual: https://www.reviewboard.org/docs/manual/latest/admin/ .. _FAQ: https://www.reviewboard.org/docs/manual/latest/faq/

Installing Power Pack

Power Pack_ extends Review Board, adding such helpful features as:

  • Report generation_
  • PDF and Office document review_
  • Better multi-server scalability
  • Integration with Microsoft Azure DevOps_
  • Integration with GitHub Enterprise_
  • LDAP/Active Directory user sync (coming soon)

To get started, download a trial license, or read the Power Pack documentation for more information.

.. _Power Pack: https://www.reviewboard.org/powerpack/ .. _Report generation: https://www.reviewboard.org/docs/powerpack/latest/powerpack/manual/reports/ .. _PDF and Office document review: https://www.reviewboard.org/docs/powerpack/latest/powerpack/manual/doc-review/ .. _Microsoft Azure DevOps: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/devops/server/ .. _GitHub Enterprise: https://enterprise.github.com/ .. _download a trial license: https://www.reviewboard.org/powerpack/trial/ .. _Power Pack documentation: https://www.reviewboard.org/docs/powerpack/latest/

Installing RBTools

If you're an end-user already using Review Board, you'll want to install RBTools, our command line suite for working with Review Board.

RBTools makes it easy to post changes for review, land reviewed changes, patch your local tree with someone else's changes, check your workload, and much more.

RBTools can be installed _ on Windows, Linux, Mac, and other platforms. See the RBTools documentation_ for everything it can do.

.. _RBTools documentation: https://www.reviewboard.org/docs/rbtools/latest/

Getting Support

We can help you get going with Review Board, and diagnose any issues that may come up. There are two levels of support: Public community support, and private premium support.

The public community support is available on our main discussion list_. We generally respond to requests within a couple of days. This support works well for general, non-urgent questions that don't need to expose confidential information.

We can also provide more dedicated, private support _ for your organization through a support contract. We offer same-day responses (generally within a few hours, if not sooner), confidential communications, installation/upgrade assistance, emergency database repair, phone/chat (by appointment), priority fixes for urgent bugs, and backports of urgent fixes to older releases (when possible).

.. _discussion list: https://groups.google.com/group/reviewboard/

Our Happy Users

There are thousands of companies and organizations using Review Board today. We respect the privacy of our users, but some of them have asked to feature them on the Happy Users page_.

If you're using Review Board, and you're a happy user, let us know! _.

.. _Happy Users page: https://www.reviewboard.org/users/

Reporting Bugs

Hit a bug? Let us know by filing a bug report _.

You can also look through the existing bug reports _ to see if anyone else has already filed the bug.

Contributing

Are you a developer? Do you want to integrate with Review Board, or work on Review Board itself? Great! Let's help you get started.

First off, we have a few handy guides:

  • Web API Guide_
  • Extending Review Board_
  • Contributor Guide_

We accept patches to Review Board, RBTools, and other related projects on reviews.reviewboard.org _. (Please note that we do not accept pull requests.)

Got any questions about anything related to Review Board and development? Head on over to our development discussion list_.

.. _Web API Guide: https://www.reviewboard.org/docs/manual/latest/webapi/ .. _Extending Review Board: https://www.reviewboard.org/docs/manual/latest/webapi .. _Contributor Guide: https://www.reviewboard.org/docs/codebase/dev/ .. _development discussion list: https://groups.google.com/group/reviewboard-dev/

Related Projects

  • Djblets_ - Our pack of Django utilities for datagrids, API, extensions, and more. Used by Review Board.
  • RBTools_ - The RBTools command line suite.
  • ReviewBot_ - Pluggable, automated code review for Review Board.
  • rb-gateway_ - Manages Git repositories, providing a full API enabling all of Review Board's feaures.

.. _Djblets: https://github.com/djblets/djblets/ .. _RBTools: https://github.com/reviewboard/rbtools/ .. _ReviewBot: https://github.com/reviewboard/ReviewBot/ .. _rb-gateway: https://github.com/reviewboard/rb-gateway/

Frequently asked questions

Is reviewboard free to use?

reviewboard is open source under the MIT licence. There is no licence fee and no seat count — you can self-host it or, where the project offers one, pay a vendor for a managed version instead.

What does reviewboard do?

An extensible and friendly code review tool for projects and companies of all sizes.

What is reviewboard written in?

reviewboard is primarily written in Python. Its source is publicly available at https://github.com/reviewboard/reviewboard, and it has 1,724 GitHub stars.