Review Board

Review Board is a web-based code review and document review platform designed to review changes from many version control systems and repositories in a consistent UI. It focuses on rich diff viewing, threaded discussions, and structured review workflows that can integrate with existing developer tools.

Key Features

• Supports multiple SCMs/repositories (commonly Git, Subversion, Perforce, Mercurial, CVS) through repository backends
• Rich diff viewer with inline comments, interdiffs (diff between revisions), file viewing, and reviewable file attachments
• Review requests with reviewers/groups, approvals/ship-its, issue tracking, and “fix it then close” style workflows
• Email notifications and configurable review/notification behavior
• Integrations/hooks for external systems (e.g., bug trackers and CI) and extensibility via extensions/plugins
• Admin UI for repository configuration, authentication options, and site-wide policy controls

Use Cases

• Team code review for on-prem or regulated environments needing a dedicated review tool
• Reviewing patches/changes across heterogeneous repositories (e.g., Git and Perforce in the same org)
• Design/spec/document review using file attachments alongside code diffs

Limitations and Considerations

• Some advanced integrations/workflows may require additional configuration or companion components (e.g., RBTools/CI hooks)
• UI/feature set is optimized for Review Board’s review-request model rather than Git hosting “pull request” semantics

Review Board fits teams that want a mature, SCM-agnostic review system with strong diff tooling and structured review requests. It is especially useful where organizations need consistency across multiple repository types and prefer a dedicated review UI integrated into existing infrastructure.