buddy vs coderabbit

Same job, different address

CodeRabbit is the best-known hosted AI reviewer and it is a polished product. The questions that usually decide between them are not about review quality: where does the diff go, who pays for the tokens, and how many tools are you running.

AI code review Your CI, your keys All comparisons

the whole integration

# no app to install, no account to create,
# no OAuth scope to justify to security.
name: Buddy
on:
  pull_request:
    types: [opened, synchronize]

jobs:
  review:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    permissions:
      contents: read
      pull-requests: write
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
        with: { fetch-depth: 0 }
      - uses: oven-sh/setup-bun@v2
      - run: bunx @buddysh/buddy review ${{ github.event.pull_request.number }}
        env:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
          ANTHROPIC_API_KEY: ${{ secrets.ANTHROPIC_API_KEY }}

🏠

Your diff does not leave your pipeline

A hosted reviewer needs an app with read access to your source, and your diffs pass through its infrastructure. Buddy's diff goes from your runner to the model provider you configured — and with --light, to nobody at all. For a lot of organisations that is the difference between a two-week security review and a pull request.

🧠

You pick the model

Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, OpenRouter, or any OpenAI-compatible endpoint — including one inside your own network. Tokens are billed to your account at your rate.

🧾

Not priced per developer

Buddy is MIT-licensed. Cost scales with the reviews you actually ran, not with headcount.

📦

It does dependencies as well

The Renovate and Dependabot job — grouping, changelogs, advisories, dashboard, auto-merge — across eleven ecosystems. That is one fewer vendor.

💻

Runs before the PR exists

buddy review reads the working tree; --light runs the analyzers offline, fast enough for a pre-commit hook. A hosted reviewer cannot see code that has not been pushed.

📖

Open source, MIT

Read the prompts, read the sandbox, fork it. Nothing about how a finding was produced is behind an API.

Side by side

	Buddy	CodeRabbit
AI pull request review	✅	✅
In-thread `@bot` commands	✅	✅
Committable suggestions	✅	✅
Merge gates as check runs	✅	✅
Dependency updates	✅	—
Workflow supply-chain audit	✅	—
CI repair	✅	—
Local pre-push review	✅	—
Works with no API key	✅ analyzers	—
Runs entirely in your CI	✅	Hosted app
Bring your own model	✅	—
Pricing model	MIT + your tokens	Per developer, hosted
Open source	✅ MIT	—

Product capabilities change; check CodeRabbit's own documentation before deciding on any single row.

Where CodeRabbit is the better choice

You want it working in five minutes with no CI work. Install the app, approve the scopes, done. Buddy needs a workflow file and a provider key, which buddy setup writes for you but is still more than clicking install.
You want a hosted dashboard and a support contract. Buddy has neither. It has a GitHub repository and a Discord.
You do not have a model provider account and do not want one. Buddy's AI features need a key; CodeRabbit's pricing includes the inference.
You want the product's own accumulated review tuning rather than the prompts and analyzers Buddy ships, which you can read and change but also have to live with.

Where Buddy is different

Two jobs. Most teams running CodeRabbit also run Renovate or Dependabot. Buddy is one binary, one config and one set of workflows for both — and either half runs alone.

No third-party app. The security review is short: your runner invokes a CLI, using a token your workflow already has, and the only outbound call is the one to the provider you chose. There is no vendor backend and no telemetry.

A floor with no model at all. buddy review --light runs secret scanning, workflow auditing, actionlint, shellcheck, hadolint, markdownlint and syntax checks with no key and no network. Every repository gets that for nothing, including the ones nobody would pay a per-seat licence for.

Local review. The fastest review is the one before the pull request exists:

buddy review                      # working tree, staged included
buddy review --format agent | claude

Running both

Nothing stops you. Buddy's findings are posted by your own token under your own bot identity, so the two do not collide. A common shape is CodeRabbit for the hosted review experience and Buddy for dependencies, gates and the offline pre-commit hook — then a decision once you can see what each is actually catching.

AI code review · Your CI, your keys · Local review · All comparisons