DEV Community

Cover image for Setting Up AI Code Review in Bitbucket: A Practical Guide and Comparison⚖️
Kiran Naragund
Kiran Naragund Subscriber

Posted on

Setting Up AI Code Review in Bitbucket: A Practical Guide and Comparison⚖️

Hello Devs 👋

If your team uses Bitbucket and you’re exploring AI code review tools, you might have noticed that many discussions online focus on GitHub. But Bitbucket is widely used too especially companies deep in the Atlassian ecosystem, and the experience with AI review tools varies a lot depending on platform support.

In this post, we’ll cover:

  • How tools integrate with Bitbucket
  • Setup complexity and time to value
  • Review quality you can expect
  • A comparison of Qodo, SonarQube, and CodeRabbit

Let’s get started 🚀

Bitbucket + AI Code Review: What You Should Know

Most Bitbucket teams use one of these:

  • Bitbucket Cloud
  • Bitbucket Data Center (self-hosted)
  • Bitbucket Pipelines for CI/CD

A good AI review tool should:

  • Support Bitbucket Cloud (minimum)
  • Ideally support Data Center too
  • Fit directly into your Pull Request workflow

There are usually 2 integration styles:

✅ Native Integration

You install the app from the marketplace, grant workspace access, and it comments directly on PRs using official APIs.

🔁 Webhook / API Setup

You generate tokens, connect via webhook, and the tool listens for PR events.

Both work, but the difference is how much setup and maintenance you deal with.

What I Look For in an AI Review Tool

When evaluating tools for Bitbucket teams, I focused on four things:

🔌 Integration Requirements

How easy is it to connect to Bitbucket Cloud or Data Center?

🧰 Setup Complexity

  • How long until you get value?
  • Is there heavy configuration?

🧠 Review Quality

  • Is the feedback useful?
  • Is it noisy?
  • Does it understand context?
  • Or does it only analyze diffs?

🔁 Ongoing Maintenance

Do I need to constantly tune rules and tokens?

🧩 Qodo: Context-Aware AI Reviews

Qodo supports Bitbucket integration and provides official setup documentation for both Cloud and Data Center.

Integration & Setup

Bitbucket Cloud

  1. Sign in to Qodo.
  2. Install the Bitbucket app.
  3. Grant workspace access.
  4. Select repositories.

That’s it.

Once connected, Qodo starts reviewing pull requests automatically.

Bitbucket Data Center

  • Upload plugin/app
  • Configure authentication tokens
  • Connect repositories

It works well if you’re self-hosted and have admin access.

Bitbucket Pipelines

You can trigger Qodo in CI using Bitbucket Pipelines.

Important:
PR comments come from the app integration, not directly from pipelines.

What You Get

  • Native PR comments
  • Multi-repo support
  • Team-level workflow integration

Review Quality

Qodo builds context from:

  • Your codebase
  • PR history
  • Related files

Not just the diff.

This usually means:

  • Higher signal
  • Less random noise
  • Better architectural feedback

Setup Complexity

Medium.

It’s mostly a one-time setup if you have workspace admin access.

🧩 SonarQube: Static Analysis Inside Bitbucket

SonarQube is a well-known static analysis tool. It integrates cleanly with Bitbucket.

But important thing is:

  • It’s not AI code review.
  • It’s static analysis.

Integration & Setup

  • Install SonarQube (Cloud or self-hosted).
  • Connect Bitbucket repositories.
  • Add analysis step in Bitbucket Pipelines.
  • Configure Quality Gates.

Once configured, it:

  • Decorates PRs with issues
  • Fails builds if quality gates fail
  • Tracks coverage and duplication

Review Quality

Excellent for:

  • Security scanning
  • Code smells
  • Technical debt
  • Coverage metrics

But it does not:

  • Reason about architecture
  • Explain design trade-offs
  • Provide AI-style improvement suggestions

Setup Complexity

Medium.

You need CI configuration. After that, it runs consistently.

🧩 CodeRabbit: Fast PR Feedback

CodeRabbit supports Bitbucket Cloud and focuses on quick PR reviews.

Integration & Setup

  • Create a Bitbucket service account.
  • Generate an API token.
  • Connect CodeRabbit to workspace.
  • Webhook is installed automatically.
  • It starts reviewing PRs right away.

What You Get

  • PR summaries
  • Inline comments
  • Basic customization options

Where It Struggles

CodeRabbit is mostly diff-first.

  • It focuses on what changed in the PR.
  • In simple projects, that works well.
  • In complex systems with interdependencies, it can:
  • Miss deeper architectural issues
  • Produce noisy suggestions

Setup Complexity

Low to Medium.

Token + webhook setup takes a few minutes.

Side-by-Side Comparision

Tool Bitbucket Support Setup Effort Review Style Best For
Qodo Cloud & Data Center Medium Context-aware AI Larger teams & complex codebases
SonarQube Cloud & Server Medium Static analysis Compliance & quality gates
CodeRabbit Cloud Low-Medium Diff-first AI Small teams & quick feedback

🛠 Quick Setup Summary

Qodo + Bitbucket

  • Install Bitbucket app
  • Grant workspace access
  • Select repos
  • Optional: Add Pipeline triggers
  • Open PR → Get AI feedback

SonarQube + Bitbucket

  • Deploy SonarQube
  • Connect repos
  • Add Pipeline step
  • Configure Quality Gates
  • PRs get decorated with analysis

CodeRabbit + Bitbucket

  • Create service account
  • Generate API token
  • Connect workspace
  • Webhook installs automatically
  • PRs get inline feedback

🏁 Final Thoughts

All the three tools bring value. But they solve different problems:

  • Qodo → deeper, context-aware AI review
  • SonarQube → strict quality & compliance checks
  • CodeRabbit → fast, lightweight PR feedback

There’s no single best tool.

The right choice depends on:

  • Team size
  • Codebase complexity
  • How deep you want reviews to go
  • Whether you need compliance gates

If you’re running serious workloads on Bitbucket, AI review absolutely helps but only if the tool fits your workflow.

Thank You!!🙏

Thank you for reading this far. If you find this article useful, please like and share this article. Someone could find it useful too.💖

Connect with me on X, GitHub, LinkedIn

Top comments (1)

Some comments may only be visible to logged-in visitors. Sign in to view all comments.