Review: Codebase

Codebase, made by British company aTech Media, is a source code management web app.  It uses git, and provides ticketing, milestones, time tracking and full web-based repository management.  They’re also working to support deployments, which will streamline the workload for a lot of web developers.

If you use GitHub you’ll already have a lot of the skills you need to use Codebase.  The Dashboard page provides activity views just like GitHub, and the repository management interface is similar too.  They’re also close in terms of functionality.  Since Codebase provides mirroring you could mirror your existing GitHub projects and use Codebase to provide project management features for your clients.  Or mirror your open source projects and use the milestone and ticket tools.

In fact I found the import process very fast and simple.  Codebase includes a helpful import progress screen:

Beyond the basics, the repository browser provides some useful tools.  There’s a Tasks tab which displays code you’ve prefixed with TASK:, FIXME:, BUG: or OPTIMIZE.  This is great for developers who keep TODO notes throughout their code.  Codebase makes it easy to turn one of these comments into a ticket too.

All of Codebase’s features are very simple, but seem to be in the right place just when you need them most.  There’s also a lot of small features that make life much easier, like status updates and ssh key management for repositories. I like seeing what people are doing on the people pages:

The interface is slick without being heavy and slow.  They’ve taken queues from sites like Basecamp and GitHub but added their own ideas: you’ll be at once familiar with the interface and surprised by the little touches.  For example, most pages eschew a navigation bar, displaying a help panel instead.  Buttons are large and easy to read, so I was never left hunting for an add or edit button.

Pricing varies between £5 a month and £40 depending on package.  This is great value for money when you consider that the lower packages will suffice for many small software companies.