Crucible vs. Review Assistant

Depends on the version control and devops process your development teams adopt. Git (via Bitbucket, GitHub, GitLab, etc...) has become the new industry norm, and using pull requests can often provide the same code review features Crucible is used for. However, if you require code review beyond change/diff based (i.e. via pull request), then Crucible allows you to review code with more granular control, such as on per file basis.

Incentivized

Combined with Code Compare and running Review Assistant on the TFS server, it provides a good way to share code and comments amount our team. It does everything we need it to do for code reviews and has a reporting tool.

• Easily add comments, identify defects, gather peer input.
• 24/7 input from peers eases developer schedules and location independence.
• Email notifications filtered by group or individuals provide control of who gets notifications, and who can submit comments.

Incentivized

• Review Assistant does everything that I was hoping the default Visual Studio reviews would do. The iterations through accept/reject were the key winner.
• The functionality for code reviews is great, especially the ability to comment on specific lines of code.
• You don't have to leave the IDE.

• It can sometimes be a bit slow to load. A server reboot for us tends to solve that issue. I'm not sure if it is a server issue, or maybe Crucible may have some caching issues.
• I wish that you could easily stop the review creation process, rather than abandoning it.

Incentivized

• Integration with JIRA is missing.
• Ability to search, filter and order comments.
• There is no support for Visual Studio Code.

Good support overall being an Atlassian product, with options including free/paid official support and community provided help.

Incentivized

Gitlab and GitHub are very comparable to Crucible, and would probably be my first choice if those were the tools used for versioning as they are directly linked to git. Crucible was chosen by a current client and I had no choice in its selection. I would probably have chosen GitHub if given a say.

Incentivized

Microsoft provides a handy feature for code review inside the Visual Studio IDE. Review Assistant, though providing a similar code review user experience, supports work scenarios that are not covered by the Microsoft's IDE. Moreover, the version control systems support is broader in Review Assistant.

• I am not involved in the acquisition of Crucible so I cannot comment on the financial investment but I believe it is a necessary tool to have in any software shop, small or big.
• As a developer, having Crucible as the code review process is a great asset and will save time and reduce risks which I believe is a positive return of investment.

Incentivized

• The tool saves a huge amount of time while reviewing the code. Review Assistant supports threaded comments, so team members can discuss code without scheduled meetings.