Code Climate Named #1 in G2's Software Development Analytics Tools Results Index — Best Results Spring 2023 Ranking

This post is part of our historical archive. It represents the beliefs, actions, products, and services of Code Climate as of its publication date. Today, Code Climate focuses on providing enterprise leaders the software development data, context layer, and playbooks needed to build the AI-native software organization their enterprise needs. Head to codeclimate.com to learn more.

Code Climate is proud to have once again earned Leader and Leader Mid-Market badges from G2, the most trusted software marketplace and the largest in the world.

Apr 5, 2023 • 3 min read

Code Climate is proud to have once again earned Leader and Leader Mid-Market badges from G2, the most trusted software marketplace and the largest in the world.

In G2’s Best Results Spring 2023 ranking, Code Climate Velocity has been named #1 with the highest overall Results rating for G2's Software Development Analytics Tools Results Index.

For the second quarter in a row, Code Climate Velocity ranked #1 for G2's Mid-Market Grid® Report for Software Development Analytics Tools, having been highly rated by G2 users and our customers, and earning substantial Satisfaction and Market Presence scores.

Velocity also ranked #2 for G2's Grid® Report for Software Development Analytics Tools for the second quarter in a row.

Who We Are

With Velocity, our flagship Software Engineering Intelligence (SEI) platform, Code Climate has helped thousands of engineering organizations improve their team health and DevOps, and align with the strategic priorities of their businesses.

Our platform provides the strongest process and team health insights of any tool on the market, including a year’s worth of historical data, resource allocation insights, benchmarks, and the ability to add context to key reports.

Our customers are prominent and visionary organizations, and our enterprise-ready platform has the scaling and security features required by startups and Fortune 500 companies alike.

What engineers are saying about Velocity

“I use Velocity every sprint. I can track my own performance; it's great for my own reviews when it comes to being able to track what I've done and how I'm compared against my prior attempts." — Andrew Brown, Software Engineer II, EverQuote

What leaders are saying about Velocity

“The cost of extracting and crunching software engineering metrics is sometimes prohibitive. Tools like Code Climate Velocity provide you with this ability with a small configuration effort and a very flexible reporting and analytics tool for a fair price. Furthermore, Code Climate Velocity helps you educate your management team with metrics important for managing software engineering teams.” — Thiago R., Director of Engineering, RD Station

“Code Climate Velocity has been a great addition to our software development process. It has helped us identify and address potential issues early on, saving us time and resources in the long run. The ability to enforce coding standards and best practices has also been crucial in maintaining a maintainable and easy-to-work-with codebase. The user-friendly interface and customization options have made it easy for us to track our progress and tailor the experience to our needs. While there is always room for improvement, we have found that Code Climate Velocity is a valuable tool for managers looking to optimize their team's productivity and success.” — Pedro C., Engineering Lead

For more testimonials or to leave your own review of Velocity, visit our G2 page .

Why a Strategy Matters

At the heart of every successful software engineering team is a drive for three things:

1. A culture of continuous improvement
2. The ability to move from idea to impact quickly, frequently, and with confidence
3. A software organization delivering meaningful value

These goals sound simple enough, but in reality, achieving them requires more than just wishing for better performance. It takes data, action, and, most importantly, a cultural shift. And here's the catch: those three things don't come together by accident.

Step 1: Define Your Purpose

The first step in any successful engineering insights strategy is defining why you're doing this in the first place. If you're rolling out developer productivity metrics or an insights platform, you need to make sure there’s alignment on the purpose across the board.

Too often, organizations dive into this journey without answering the crucial question: Why do we need this data? If you ask five different leaders in your organization, are you going to get five answers, or will they all point to the same objective? If you can’t answer this clearly, you risk chasing a vague, unhelpful path.

One way I recommend approaching this is through the "Five Whys" technique. Ask why you're doing this, and then keep asking "why" until you get to the core of the problem. For example, if your initial answer is, “We need engineering metrics,” ask why. The next answer might be, “Because we're missing deliverables.” Keep going until you identify the true purpose behind the initiative. Understanding that purpose helps avoid unnecessary distractions and lets you focus on solving the real issue.

Step 2: Understand Your People

Once the purpose is clear, the next step is to think about who will be involved in this journey. You have to consider the following:

1. Who will be using the developer productivity tool/insights platform?
2. Are these hands-on developers or executives looking for high-level insights?
3. Who else in the organization might need access to the data, like finance or operations teams?

It’s also crucial to account for organizational changes. Reorgs are common in the enterprise world, and as your organization evolves, so too must your insights platform. If the people responsible for the platform’s maintenance change, who will ensure the data remains relevant to the new structure? Too often, teams stop using insights platforms because the data no longer reflects the current state of the organization. You need to have the right people in place to ensure continuous alignment and relevance.

Step 3: Define Your Process

The next key component is process—a step that many organizations overlook. It's easy to say, "We have the data now," but then what happens? What do you expect people to do with the data once it’s available? And how do you track if those actions are leading to improvement?

A common mistake I see is organizations focusing on metrics without a clear action plan. Instead of just looking at a metric like PR cycle times, the goal should be to first identify the problem you're trying to solve. If the problem is poor code quality, then improving the review cycle times might help, but only because it’s part of a larger process of improving quality, not just for the sake of improving the metric.

It’s also essential to approach this with an experimentation mindset. For example, start by identifying an area for improvement, make a hypothesis about how to improve it, then test it and use engineering insights data to see if your hypothesis is correct. Starting with a metric and trying to manipulate it is a quick way to lose sight of your larger purpose.

Step 4: Program and Rollout Strategy

The next piece of the puzzle is your program and rollout strategy. It’s easy to roll out an engineering insights platform and expect people to just log in and start using it, but that’s not enough. You need to think about how you'll introduce this new tool to the various stakeholders across different teams and business units.

The key here is to design a value loop within a smaller team or department first. Get a team to go through the full cycle of seeing the insights, taking action, and then quantifying the impact of that action. Once you've done this on a smaller scale, you can share success stories and roll it out more broadly across the organization. It’s not about whether people are logging into the platform—it’s about whether they’re driving meaningful change based on the insights.

Step 5: Choose Your Platform Wisely

And finally, we come to the platform itself. It’s the shiny object that many organizations focus on first, but as I’ve said before, it’s the last piece of the puzzle, not the first. Engineering insights platforms like Code Climate are powerful tools, but they can’t solve the problem of a poorly defined strategy.

I’ve seen organizations spend months evaluating these platforms, only to realize they didn't even know what they needed. One company in the telecom industry realized that no available platform suited their needs, so they chose to build their own. The key takeaway here is that your platform should align with your strategy—not the other way around. You should understand your purpose, people, and process before you even begin evaluating platforms.

Looking Ahead

To build a successful engineering insights strategy, you need to go beyond just installing a tool. An insights platform can only work if it’s supported by a clear purpose, the right people, a well-defined process, and a program that rolls it out effectively. The combination of these elements will ensure that your insights platform isn’t just a dashboard—it becomes a powerful driver of change and improvement in your organization.

Remember, a successful software engineering insights strategy isn’t just about the tool. It’s about building a culture of data-driven decision-making, fostering continuous improvement, and aligning all your teams toward achieving business outcomes. When you get that right, the value of engineering insights becomes clear.

Want to build a tailored engineering insights strategy for your enterprise organization? Get expert recommendations at our free insights strategy workshop. Register here.