Every project manager handling a crew of software developers and engineers knows how challenging it is to deal with increasing code volumes. Project managers can easily lose visibility while diagnosing an ever-increasing list of spot blockers and problems within their engineering teams. Plus, the average number of software engineers in each project has also increased in the past year, making management all the more difficult. To avoid such obstacles while meeting strict deadlines, project managers can now turn to Git analytics tools or development analytics tools. They help project managers analyze the outputs of their team. Hence, it’s easier to assess how much value they’re adding to a project on a daily basis.
SonarQube, Jellyfish, Waydev, and Code Climate Velocity are all Git analytics tools that have become immensely popular in the past three years. In this article, we will assess CodeClimate Velocity and whether there are better tools in the market.
CodeClimate – What is It?
CodeClimate offers a stable solution to project managers. It’s well-developed and comes with various features. Naturally, it has gained popularity amongst the ‘big players.’ But, CodeClimate does lack some vital functionalities. That’s why many of its long-term users are looking to switch to alternative solutions.
Why Software Engineers Don’t Like CodeClimate?
Let’s start with the good features of CodeClimate that made it popular in the first place. It’s one of the best tools to improve a team’s work performances by turning data from commits/pulling requests. The high-quality Velocity metrics enable project leaders to improve and maintain their teams’ work performances. Some of CodeClimate’s good qualities include –
- Supports a large number of frameworks, technologies, and languages.
- The UI is crisp and very easy to use.
- Visibility deployment.
- It has a well-preserved test coverage feature gem.
- Supports various browser extensions.
- Project leaders receive detailed charts and trends.
- There are customized dashboards that make it easy to monitor specific details related to engineer performances. Project leaders also receive customized reports.
- Open and active pull requests.
- The health-check feature is very useful.
- Users receive stand-up reports and emails on a daily basis.
Overall, CodeClimate has proven to be extremely stable. That’s why various ‘big players’ like Pivotal and New Relic use this Git Analytics tool. However, CodeClimate doesn’t allow project leaders to connect with GitLab, GitHub, Bitbucket, or Azure DevOps.
Plus, API access is only available on its super-expensive Enterprise plan. That’s why many businesses are actively seeking alternatives to CodeClimate Velocity. Some other disadvantages of CodeClimate include –
- It’s mainly effective for web development projects that use JavaScript or Ruby.
- The API in beta versions of the tool is highly unpredictable.
- Users don’t receive any support for Objective-C.
- There’s no way to search or filter issues. Users only get a bulk list of all the potential issues.
- There are no comprehensive descriptions of the issues either. Project managers only get to see headlines mentioning the issues with source codes.
- Pricing – most importantly, CodeClimate is super-expensive given the limited features.
On top of these disadvantages, the CodeClimate team’s attitude towards customer suggestions has been fairly negative. Users don’t expect the team to address the obvious issues that are plaguing this software development analytics tool.
Waydev – The Best Alternative?
Businesses looking for CodeClimate alternatives that offer similar/better functionalities must consider using Waydev. The free version of this software development analytics tool allows limited features, so it’s worth trying out. A 15-user team can save $2,160 per year just by using Waydev’s free version. In terms of features, Waydev is very similar to CodeClimate Velocity. Only the pricing is different as Waydev is way cheaper than CodeClimate.
- Waydev has a UI that’s just as good as CodeClimate. Features like Developer Summaries and Weekly Reports make engineer supervision much easier.
- Waydev is an official GitLab partner, so there’s an assurance of quality and reliability.
- Waydev is constantly improving, with new features being added every month. It’s twice as fast as CodeClimate when it comes to releasing new features.
- There are no limitations on teams or users.
- Users receive instant support directly from the founders of this development analytics tool.
- Waydev’s pricing plans are very flexible. Businesses can pay per active engineer. So, businesses only have to pay for the number of engineers they’re tracking.
- Supports on-premise installation.
Unlike CodeClimate Velocity, Waydev offers businesses a sharp ROI. All upgrades are cost-effective, and businesses have the option to pay more only if they’re happy with the services.