GitLab Duo vs ThinkReview: Which AI Code Review Tool is Right for You in 2025?

GitLab Duo is Great. But Do You Need to Pay $39/mo?

If you work in GitLab, you’ve seen the banners for GitLab Duo. It promises to be the ultimate AI companion, integrated directly into your DevSecOps workflow.

And honestly? It’s a solid product. But for many developers, it comes with two massive hurdles:

1. The Price: It’s locked behind the Ultimate tier or requires a $39/user/month add-on (Duo Enterprise).
2. The Red Tape: You can’t just "turn it on." You need procurement to approve it, admins to configure it, and your company to sign off on the data privacy policy.

ThinkReview exists for developers who want AI code reviews today, without the enterprise sales cycle.

Here is the honest breakdown of when you should fight for a Duo license, and when you should just install the ThinkReview extension.

The Core Difference: Platform vs. Plugin

GitLab Duo is a server-side behemoth. It lives inside the GitLab infrastructure. This is great for CI/CD pipelines, but it means you are at the mercy of your organization's subscription tier.

ThinkReview is a client-side browser extension. It lives in your browser.

• Zero Config: You install it, and it works immediately on GitLab, Azure DevOps, and GitHub.
• No Admin Needed: It reads the DOM of the Merge Request page you’re looking at.
• Model Flexibility: Access the absolute latest models (GPT-5.2, Gemini 3 Pro, Claude Haiku 4.5) or run locally with Ollama.

Feature Showdown

Why Developers Choose ThinkReview

1. Tiered Pricing that Makes Sense

GitLab Duo creates a "have vs. have-not" culture where only some devs get licenses. ThinkReview offers a tier for everyone:

• Free Tier ($0/mo): Perfect for individual devs. You get 5 reviews/day and analysis for PRs up to 2,000 Lines of Code. Includes Smart Follow-Up questions.
• Lite Tier ($7/mo): For serious contributors. 15 reviews/day, 10,000 LOC context, and support for Azure DevOps & Self-Hosted GitLab domains. Powered by efficient models like GPT-5.1-mini and Gemini 2.5.
• Professional Tier ($12/mo): For power users. 25 reviews/day with massive context (30,000 LOC) and premium models like GPT-5.2-codex and Claude Haiku 4.5.

2. Access to "Bleeding Edge" Models

GitLab Duo updates its underlying models slowly to ensure enterprise stability. ThinkReview gives you access to the newest tech immediately. Our Professional tier runs on Gemini 3 Pro, Grok 4 Fast, and GPT-5.2. If a better model comes out tomorrow, we add it. You are never stuck with last year's AI.

3. Smart Follow-Up Questions (Available on All Tiers)

Most AI tools just dump a summary and leave. ThinkReview creates an interactive thread. After reviewing an MR, it suggests contextual questions like:

• "Did the user handle the edge case in the auth function?"
• "Are there any N+1 query risks in this loop?"

You can click these questions to "interrogate" the code dynamically. It’s like having a senior engineer sitting next to you.

The Verdict: Which One Should You Use?

Buy GitLab Duo if:

• Your company is already paying for GitLab Ultimate.
• You need AI autocompletion inside your IDE (VS Code/JetBrains).
• You want AI to automatically fix broken pipelines in CI/CD.

Install ThinkReview if:

• You want a second pair of eyes on Merge Requests right now.
• You need to review large PRs (up to 30k LOC with Pro).
• You work across multiple platforms (GitLab, Azure DevOps, GitHub).
• You want access to specific high-performance models like GPT-5.2 or Gemini 3 Pro.

Stop Tabbing Out to ChatGPT

You’re likely already copying code snippets into ChatGPT to check for bugs. That’s tedious, loses context, and breaks your flow.

ThinkReview brings that intelligence directly into the GitLab "Changes" tab. It reads the diffs, understands the context, and helps you review faster.

Install ThinkReview for Chrome (Free) Starts Free. No credit card required.

Last Updated: February 8, 2026 | ThinkReview v1.4.0 | GitLab Duo 18.4