GitHub Pull Requests
Ranked 12 of 17 code review tools by recommenders
People recommend it for reviewing and editing code in GitHub's familiar interface, which they already use and have an account for. Critics report slow page loads, outages and clunky handling of large changes.
People recommend it for reviewing and editing code in GitHub's familiar interface, which they already use and have an account for. Critics report slow page loads, outages and clunky handling of large changes.
27 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 7
- criticize it
- 20
- approval share
- 26%
Recommended in 5 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 7 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 0.3 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 5 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
Familiar interface already used daily
“I like reviewing using GitHub's interface, so I often do a thorough review in that familiar interface”
Comment from 31 Mar 2026 in “Some uncomfortable truths about AI coding agents” “a system I'm already familiar with and have a login/account for”
Comment from 3 Dec 2025 in “Zig quits GitHub, says Microsoft's AI obsession has ruined the service” Better review experience than alternatives
“This is often a much better UX than trying to make sure every single linter or thing is consistent”
Comment from 6 Oct 2026 in “JetBrains reports revenue growth, net financial loss for 2025” “The improvements to PR review have been nice though”
Comment from 23 Mar 2026 in “GitHub appears to be struggling with measly three nines availability”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Slow, unreliable pages and outages
“probably the worst UX downgrade so far, almost no PRs are "fully available" on page load”
Comment from 23 Mar 2026 in “GitHub appears to be struggling with measly three nines availability” “github pull requests are not performant”
Comment from 19 Sep 2026 in “Replacing Pull Requests with Delta” “These are not working for me right now”
Comment from 10 Jun 2026 in “GitHub Authentication issues related to API requests” - Comment from 26 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: Fast, Static GitHub Pull Requests”
Clunky for large or complex changes
“GitHub's entire pull request workflow is this massively clunky thing that makes no sense from a 100-foot view”
Comment from 2 Apr 2026 in “Reinventing the Pull Request” “GH PRs encourage a bad habit of making large, complex and unrelated changes in a single PR”
Comment from 1 Aug 2026 in “Stacked PRs are now live on GitHub” “the pull request interface is terrible for anything other than small changes”
Comment from 3 Dec 2025 in “Zig quits GitHub, says Microsoft's AI obsession has ruined the service” Repeated login prompts
“all of them were spamming GitHub PR extension requiring login alert at me”
Comment from 10 Jun 2026 in “GitHub Authentication issues related to API requests” “repeatedly harassing me about needing to log in again”
Comment from 10 Jun 2026 in “GitHub Authentication issues related to API requests” Comments vanish or work poorly
“Comment threads certainly work better through email than on GitHub PRs”
Comment from 21 Feb 2026 in “The bare minimum for syncing Git repos” “making comments disappear when you change a diff at that line”
Comment from 14 Apr 2026 in “GitHub Stacked PRs”
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 | — | — |
| Gerrit | 60 | 12 | 83% | 12 | — | Approved |
| Graphite code review | 52 | 16 | 76% | 9 | — | Approved |
| CodeRabbit | 34 | 32 | 52% | 11 | — | — |
| GitHub Pull RequestsThis page | 7 | 20 | 26% | 5 | — | — |
What people said
25 of the 27 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“I've never liked GitHub PRs”
“This is often a much better UX than trying to make sure every single linter or thing is consistent”
“they each introduce vendor lock-in to varying degrees”
“github pull requests are not performant”
“GH PRs encourage a bad habit of making large, complex and unrelated changes in a single PR”
“using a branch PR as the basic unit of change seems like an arbitrary choice to me”
“That is nowhere close to the experience Gerrit and Phabricator have”
“reviewing commits is adhoc, inconsistent, and awkward”
“all of them were spamming GitHub PR extension requiring login alert at me”
“repeatedly harassing me about needing to log in again”
“These are not working for me right now”
“Github Pull Requests are down to 1 nine of availability”
“Yesterday we saw PR pages that displayed no error, just displayed wrong info.”
“they chose for some reason to make my computer fans turn on to show some red and green lines on a text file”
“making comments disappear when you change a diff at that line”
“GitHub's entire pull request workflow is this massively clunky thing that makes no sense from a 100-foot view”
“I like reviewing using GitHub's interface, so I often do a thorough review in that familiar interface”
“probably the worst UX downgrade so far, almost no PRs are "fully available" on page load”
“The improvements to PR review have been nice though”
“Comment threads certainly work better through email than on GitHub PRs”
“It's pretty straightforward: you checkout a PR, move around, and either make some edits (that you can commit and push to the feature branch) or add comments.”
“how slow GitHub PRs are for awhile”
“I no longer need to worry about rebasing or squashing my commits locally”
“the pull request interface is terrible for anything other than small changes”
“a system I'm already familiar with and have a login/account for”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.