Gerrit
Hacker ApprovedRanked 2 of 17 code review tools by recommenders
People recommend Gerrit for commit-by-commit code review, stacked changes, and comments kept tied to code between commits. The most common caveat is a steep learning curve.
People recommend Gerrit for commit-by-commit code review, stacked changes, and comments kept tied to code between commits. The most common caveat is a steep learning curve.
72 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 60
- criticize it
- 12
- approval share
- 83%
Recommended in 12 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 60 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 12 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Stacked, commit-by-commit review
“I personally find the rebase and stacking commit focused method of integration that Gerrit uses to be easier and cleaner”
Comment from 30 Nov 2025 in “Migrating Dillo from GitHub” “I thought it was great being able to shape my diffs into stacked chunks that reviewers could effortlessly navigate”
Comment from 17 May 2026 in “Git Is Not Fine” “I've found stacked diffs (with Phabricator and Gerrit at least...) to massively simplify my workflow”
Comment from 31 Jul 2026 in “Stacked PRs are now live on GitHub” - Comment from 14 Apr 2026 in “GitHub Stacked PRs”
- Comment from 31 Jul 2026 in “Stacked PRs are now live on GitHub”
- Comment from 17 Feb 2026 in “Gentoo on Codeberg”
- Comment from 23 Mar 2026 in “Migrating to the EU”
Better review UI than GitHub
“I personally think Gerrit works much better than whatever GitHub et al. have for code reviews.”
Comment from 1 May 2026 in “If I Could Make My Own GitHub” “I continue to use gerrit explicitly because I cannot stand github reviews”
Comment from 13 Apr 2026 in “GitHub Stacked PRs” “Gerrit instances (which had better PR UI than GH implementation)”
Comment from 18 Aug 2026 in “Ask HN: Alternatives to GitHub” - Comment from 17 Dec 2025 in “Pricing Changes for GitHub Actions”
- Comment from 26 Aug 2026 in “Maiao: Gerrit-style code review workflow for GitHub, GitLab, Gitea, others”
Diff-based review, not branch-based
“which IMO is a much better experience than the branch-review-squash model that GitHub normalized”
Comment from 22 Sep 2026 in “Looking forward to Git 2.56 – and 3.0” “I really like Gerrit's workflow with diff reviews as opposed to pull requests”
Comment from 1 May 2026 in “If I Could Make My Own GitHub” “I liked to work with gerrit, where the unit of the review is the commit.”
Comment from 23 Mar 2026 in “Migrating to the EU” Comments stay tied across commits
“The number one thing that gerrit does that is important is keep comments tied to the code between commits.”
Comment from 1 May 2026 in “If I Could Make My Own GitHub” “they don't support proper tracking of review commits like e.g. Gerritt does”
Comment from 3 Dec 2025 in “Zig quits GitHub, says Microsoft's AI obsession has ruined the service”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Steep learning curve, hard onboarding
“Gerrit looks ugly and is not very easy to use at first, but at least it's not slow like GitLab and GitHub.”
Comment from 21 Feb 2026 in “Trunk Based Development” “dedicate a few additional hours of his life to create an account and figure out how to use some obscure”
Comment from 3 Dec 2025 in “Zig quits GitHub, says Microsoft's AI obsession has ruined the service” “phabricator/reviewable/gerritt all have significant onboarding hurdles”
Comment from 14 Apr 2026 in “What is jj and why should I care?” - Comment from 29 Apr 2026 in “HashiCorp co-founder says GitHub 'no longer a place for serious work'”
Other code review tools people recommend
The four most recommended other code review tools, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GitHub Stacked PRs | 64 | 63 | 50% | 3 | — | — |
| GerritThis page | 60 | 12 | 83% | 12 | — | Approved |
| Graphite code review | 52 | 16 | 76% | 9 | — | Approved |
| CodeRabbit | 34 | 32 | 52% | 11 | — | — |
| Stage | 32 | 11 | 74% | 3 | — | — |
What people said
40 of the 97 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“which IMO is a much better experience than the branch-review-squash model that GitHub normalized”
“Gerrit helped my team a lot, if for no other reason than enforcing a "one commit equals one change" model”
“As someone who much prefers Gerrit's UI/UX over GitHub's UI”
“Gerrit instances (which had better PR UI than GH implementation)”
“Code review workflow is the nub / hub of collaboration, and should never be blocked on anything else failing, including itself.”
“I've found stacked diffs (with Phabricator and Gerrit at least...) to massively simplify my workflow”
“JJ, Gerrit, codebutler, and I think a couple of others have all basically agreed upon a syntax for change IDs”
“Gerrit manages stacked changes with standard git tooling, except for the tiny change-id hook.”
“That is nowhere close to the experience Gerrit and Phabricator have”
“I thought it was great being able to shape my diffs into stacked chunks that reviewers could effortlessly navigate”
“Gerrit has a "Change-Id" it adds to the git commit which is independent of the git hash”
“a non-maintainer could review be allowed to give a +1 or -1, but not a -2 or +2”
“I think there is a strong argument that Gerrit is the current evolution of the patches workflow”
“The number one thing that gerrit does that is important is keep comments tied to the code between commits.”
“I agree Gerrit is the superior code review model. but without the other 3 pieces you don't have a product.”
“I personally think Gerrit works much better than whatever GitHub et al. have for code reviews.”
“I really like Gerrit's workflow with diff reviews as opposed to pull requests”
“it was a steep learning curve for the des but it's fine”
“phabricator/reviewable/gerritt all have significant onboarding hurdles”
“With Gerrit I can use all the built-in Git rebase/squash/fixup tools to manage the commit stack”
“I continue to use gerrit explicitly because I cannot stand github reviews”
“I liked to work with gerrit, where the unit of the review is the commit.”
“Gerrit looks ugly and is not very easy to use at first, but at least it's not slow like GitLab and GitHub.”
“The concept of "PR that depends on another PR" is a really useful one”
“the commit message and everything is part of the artifact under review exactly like the diff.”
“it's a big and sustained productivity win once everyone is past the learning curve”
“I miss Gerrit - it was the first code review tool I used at work.”
“specially since it seems to be going the Jujutsu route in the future”
“I much prefer the Phabricator/Gerrit ability to consider each commit independently”
“I use it myself to stream notifications from multiple sources (GitHub and Gerrit)”
“Instead of carefully crafting a logical series of patches that are all well documented with commit messages”
“how lovely the Gerrit experience is when compared to GitHub”
“it's so much extra effort for drive by contributions that I don't care”
“I'm more interested in gerrit/git-codereview for stacked commits than jj”
“they don't support proper tracking of review commits like e.g. Gerritt does”
“dedicate a few additional hours of his life to create an account and figure out how to use some obscure”
“It's hyper-focused on code review and CI integration, which it does really well.”
“I personally find the rebase and stacking commit focused method of integration that Gerrit uses to be easier and cleaner”
“I’m a little put off on the google connection but it seems like it could run rather independently.”
“Gerrit is structured as a Java app with no external dependencies like databases, and stores all it's configuration and runtime information on the filesystem”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.