revive

Free plan Self-hosted

What revive is

revive is a free, self-hosted linter for Go and a drop-in replacement for golint. It checks more than 100 rules involving style, naming, complexity, errors, and Go idioms. A TOML configuration file lets users enable or disable rules and set each rule’s severity and exit code. Comments can suppress one rule or the entire linter for a file or selected line range. Output can be formatted as friendly, stylish, plain, Unix, JSON, NDJSON, checkstyle, or SARIF. Teams can add custom rules or formatters, and developers can embed revive as a linting library in another library or command-line application. Documentation covers Homebrew, Go source, Docker, and precompiled-binary installation, plus VS Code, GoLand, Vim, GitHub Actions, golangci-lint, and MegaLinter integrations. The project reports twice golint’s speed with the same rules and over six times the speed when permitted type checking is disabled. Revive is MIT licensed.

Who it suits

revive is intended for Go codebases, including projects using editor or CI integrations. It suits teams that need configurable rules, machine-readable output, or a linter library.

What it does well

100+ rules for Go code quality
TOML settings control severity and exit codes
Multiple terminal and CI output formats
Custom rules and formatters supported
Free, self-hosted, MIT licensed

What to know first

Type-checking rules depend on GOROOT and GOPATH
Some setups may produce unexpected type-checking behavior
Supports one language: Go

Verdict

revive provides broad, configurable Go linting with suppression comments, extensibility, and many output formats. Its documented speed claims and CI integrations are useful, but type-checking rules have environment dependencies.

Facts from revive's own pages

CI integrations: The documentation describes a GitHub Action with annotation support and use through golangci-lint and MegaLinter. · revive.run, 9 Oct 2026
Configuration: Rules can be enabled, disabled, and configured in a TOML file, including per-rule severity and exit codes. · revive.run, 9 Oct 2026
Custom extensions: Users can extend Revive with custom rules or formatters, or use it as a linting library. · revive.run, 9 Oct 2026
Editor and CI integrations: The documentation describes use with VSCode, GoLand, vim, GitHub Actions, golangci-lint, and MegaLinter. · revive.run, 9 Oct 2026
Editor support: The documentation describes editor support for VS Code, GoLand, and Vim. · revive.run, 9 Oct 2026
Formatters: Built-in output formatters include friendly, stylish, plain, unix, JSON, NDJSON, checkstyle, and SARIF. · revive.run, 9 Oct 2026
Inline control: Comments can disable a rule or the whole linter for a file or range of lines. · revive.run, 9 Oct 2026
Inline controls: Comments can disable a rule or the whole linter for a file or a range of lines. · revive.run, 9 Oct 2026
Installation: The documentation describes installation with Homebrew, from Go source, with Docker, or as a precompiled binary. · revive.run, 9 Oct 2026
Library use: Revive can be used as a library in another library or command-line application. · revive.run, 9 Oct 2026
License: The repository lists the project license as MIT. · github.com, 9 Oct 2026
Output formats: Built-in formatters include friendly, stylish, plain, unix, JSON, NDJSON, checkstyle, and SARIF. · revive.run, 9 Oct 2026
Purpose: Revive is a fast, configurable, extensible linter for Go and a drop-in replacement for golint. · revive.run, 9 Oct 2026
Rule coverage: Its 100+ rules cover style and naming, complexity, errors, and Go idioms. · revive.run, 9 Oct 2026
Rules: It offers more than 100 rules covering style and naming, complexity, errors, and Go idioms. · revive.run, 9 Oct 2026
Security and compliance: The opened official pages do not state security certifications or compliance claims. · revive.run, 9 Oct 2026
Speed: The documentation says Revive is 2× faster than golint when running the same rules, and over 6× faster when type checking is disabled where rules allow it. · revive.run, 9 Oct 2026
Type checking limitation: Rules that use type checking depend on GOROOT and GOPATH, and the documentation warns they may not work as expected in some build or GitHub Actions setups. · revive.run, 9 Oct 2026
What it does: Revive is a fast, configurable, extensible linter for Go. · revive.run, 9 Oct 2026
Who it is for: The project is intended for Go codebases and documents use in projects including TiDB, Grafana, etcd, and Gitea. · revive.run, 9 Oct 2026

Where revive stands on Freedom251

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