What is Revive used for?

Revive is a fast, configurable and extensible linter for Go, designed as a drop-in replacement for golint with custom rules and TOML configuration. It is a good fit for enforcing Go style in CI and custom lint rules for team conventions.

Is Revive open source?

Yes. Revive is open source under the MIT licence. Its source code is on GitHub at revive-lint/revive and is written mainly in Go.

Yes. Revive is open source, so the software itself is free to use.

What are some alternatives to Revive?

Similar open-source tools in the Developer Tools category include golangci-lint, PhpMetrics and Woke. SaaS products in the same category include Qodana, act101 and Codacy.

Is Revive actively maintained?

Yes. The most recent commit to Revive was on 24 September 2026, and the latest release is v1.17.0, published on 23 September 2026. The project has 5.6k stars on GitHub.

Revive: open-source developer tools

About Revive

Revive is a linter for Go that serves as a drop-in replacement for golint. It provides a framework for writing custom rules, and it lets teams define a strict preset to strengthen development and code review processes. Output is designed to be readable and the tool is intended to run in CI.

Compared with golint, the README notes that rules can be enabled or disabled through a configuration file, and that rules can be configured with a TOML file. A specific rule or the entire linter can be disabled for a file or a range of lines, whereas golint only allowed this for generated files. Type checking is optional because most golint rules do not need it, and the project reports faster runs on the same rules.

Revive is written in Go and licensed under MIT. It runs on developer machines or in pipelines and has no hosted version. It suits Go teams that want an opinionated but configurable style and static analysis tool.

Key features

Drop-in replacement for golint
TOML-based rule configuration
Framework for custom lint rules
Per-file and per-line rule disabling
Optional type checking
Strict presets for code review

Good fit for

→Enforcing Go style in CI
→Custom lint rules for team conventions

Built with: Go
Tags: golang; linter; static-analysis; code-quality; ci; golint; developer-tools

Revive: questions and answers

What is Revive used for?: Revive is a fast, configurable and extensible linter for Go, designed as a drop-in replacement for golint with custom rules and TOML configuration. It is a good fit for enforcing Go style in CI and custom lint rules for team conventions.
Is Revive open source?: Yes. Revive is open source under the MIT licence. Its source code is on GitHub at revive-lint/revive and is written mainly in Go.
Is Revive free?: Yes. Revive is open source, so the software itself is free to use.
What are some alternatives to Revive?: Similar open-source tools in the Developer Tools category include golangci-lint, PhpMetrics and Woke. SaaS products in the same category include Qodana, act101 and Codacy.
Is Revive actively maintained?: Yes. The most recent commit to Revive was on 24 September 2026, and the latest release is v1.17.0, published on 23 September 2026. The project has 5.6k stars on GitHub.