Feedback is a reaction given to the person who did the work, meant to help them do it better. A review is a judgment given about the finished work, meant to help somebody else decide whether to use it. The two can come from the same event, a meal, a draft, a quarter at a job, but they are addressed to different people and asked to do different jobs.
| Feedback | Review | |
|---|---|---|
| Timing | Any time, often while the work is still underway | After the fact, once a verdict is formed |
| Who it is for | The person or team who did the work | Someone else deciding whether to use it |
| Who writes it | A manager, a peer, a user, anyone close to the work | Someone who experienced the finished result |
| Public or private | Usually private, between the people involved | Usually public, for an audience of strangers |
| What it is for | A change to the work | A decision by the next person |
Feedback vs review at work
A performance review is scheduled, formal, and looks back over a period, usually a quarter or a year, to produce a rating. Feedback at work can happen the same afternoon, is informal, and points at one specific thing.
Feedback sounds like "Your standup update ran long today, try cutting it to three lines." A review sounds like "This quarter's performance review rated communication as meeting expectations and named time management as the one area to work on next quarter."
Feedback vs review in writing, code and school
A peer review, a code review and a graded essay are all a formal pass over finished work before it goes out, done by somebody qualified to judge it. Feedback is the informal comment along the way, from anyone reading a draft or a pull request.
Feedback sounds like "This paragraph repeats what the introduction already said, cut it." A review sounds like "The reviewer recommended the paper for acceptance with minor revisions, citing the sample size as the weak point."
The same split holds in code. Feedback sounds like "This function does not handle an empty list." A review sounds like "The pull request was approved after one requested change."
Feedback vs review from a customer
A customer giving feedback is talking to the company, usually about one thing, usually asking for a change. A customer writing a review is talking to other buyers, after the fact, and is not asking for anything.
Feedback sounds like "The export button is confusing, could not find it for a week." A review sounds like "Five stars. Support answered within the hour, and the export button took a while to find." The review helps the next buyer decide. The feedback is the one a team can act on, which is what a board customers post to collects, VoteFirst among them.
What does "please review and provide feedback" mean?
Here "review" is the verb. The sender asks you to read the work carefully, then send back what you would change. Said across a table, it is "Could you read this and tell me what you would change?"
The request works better with a part and a date: "Please review sections 2 and 3 and send your feedback by Thursday." The reply works better when it says what to keep as well as what to change, so the writer knows which parts are finished.
What is review feedback?
Review feedback is the feedback that comes out of a review: the comments left on a pull request during a code review, or the notes a manager gives in a performance review. The review is the event, and the feedback is what it says.
Feedback vs comments
A comment is one remark, usually pinned to one spot: a note in a document margin, a reply under a post. Feedback is the whole response to the work, and in a document it often arrives as a set of comments. "Typo in the second line" is a comment that is also feedback. "Lovely photo" is a comment that asks for no change, so it is not much use as feedback.
Is it feedback or a feedback
"Feedback" is uncountable, the same class as "advice." It does not take "a" in front of it and it has no plural, so "a feedback" and "three feedbacks" are both wrong. "Review" works the other way. It is countable, "a review," "three reviews," and it also works as a verb, "review the draft."
A request on a board carries a count because other people can add themselves to it. A review carries no such count, the next person with the same opinion writes a second review rather than adding to the first. That is the mechanical reason feedback sorts into a queue of work and a review does not, and it carries into what a rating on top of feedback can and cannot measure, covered on the next page.
What this costs
Lite
$9 /mo
Pro
$39 /mo
Lifetime
$999 once
Fourteen day trial of Pro, card asked for at signup. Nothing here counts the people who vote, so the bill does not move when the board starts working. The long version, with what happens if you stop paying.