Graphite Review: Stacked PRs and AI Code Review — Now Part of Cursor (Australia 2026)

Pricing figures updated 6 September 2026: USD prices are converted at the current rate (1 USD ≈ 1.40 AUD, verified 5 September 2026) and shown ex-GST, replacing the retired 1.55 + GST basis. A GST-registered Australian business that supplies its ABN is not charged GST on an imported digital service; other buyers should allow ~10% on top (Methodology).

Verdict (TL;DR): Graphite is the most complete developer workflow platform in this category — stacked pull requests, AI code review, a merge queue, and team insights in one product. The AI reviewer (now called Graphite Agent, formerly Diamond) is solid. What you need to know going in: Cursor acquired Graphite in December 2025, so you are buying into a product with an uncertain long-term roadmap. It is GitHub-only. There is no self-hosted option. For Australian teams already deep in GitHub who want to ship faster through stacking and AI review simultaneously, it earns its price. For teams on Azure DevOps or anyone who needs data residency, look elsewhere.

Score: 15/25 — ⭐⭐⭐ Good

Last reviewed: 26 June 2026 by Adam.

What Graphite is

Graphite is a developer productivity platform built around stacked pull requests — a workflow where developers create a chain of dependent PRs rather than one large change. PR #1 gets reviewed while the developer continues building PR #2 on top of it, and PR #3 on top of that. When an earlier PR merges, Graphite automatically rebases the subsequent ones. This keeps development velocity high even when code review is slow.

On top of that workflow layer sits Graphite Agent — the AI reviewer formerly known as Diamond. It reviews every pull request, providing instant feedback and line-level suggestions, and supports a conversational follow-up interface (Chat) for discussing changes and getting revisions applied.

The company was founded in 2020 by Tomas Reimers, Greg Foster, and Merrill Lutsky, and built its reputation at companies including Shopify, Snowflake, Figma, and Perplexity. It raised US$52 million in a Series B led by Accel in 2025 — with participation from Anthropic's Menlo Ventures fund, Shopify Ventures, Figma Ventures, and Andreessen Horowitz.

Important 2026 context: Cursor (the AI-powered code editor) acquired Graphite in December 2025 for a reported valuation well above Graphite's US$290 million Series B mark. Graphite continues to operate as a standalone product under its own brand, with the same team and pricing. Cursor and Graphite have announced plans to integrate their products more deeply throughout 2026, including combining Graphite's AI Reviewer with Cursor's Bugbot. For now, Graphite functions as described here. The longer-term product direction will depend on how that integration evolves.

What it costs in Australia

Graphite uses per-seat pricing billed through GitHub organisation membership.

The Hobby plan includes the CLI for stacked PRs, the VS Code extension, and limited Graphite Agent access (capped at 100 AI-reviewed PRs per month). This is enough to test stacking workflows and basic AI review for small teams or personal use.

The Starter plan (US$20 annual) adds all GitHub organisation repositories, team insights, and basic Slack integration. AI review remains limited.

The Team plan (US$40 annual, the most popular) unlocks unlimited Graphite Agent access, unlimited AI reviews, review customisations, automations, and the merge queue. This is the plan needed to actually replace a traditional code review workflow with AI assistance.

The 20% annual discount applies to Starter and Team. Monthly billing is only available on the Starter plan at US$25.

GST note: Graphite is a US company with no Australian GST registration. AUD estimates use approximately AU$1 = US$0.71 (1.40 exchange rate) ex-GST (verify at publication). Australian businesses should confirm their own GST treatment.

How it works in practice

Graphite's workflow is meaningfully different from other tools in this category, so it is worth understanding before evaluating cost.

Stacked PRs: Developers install the Graphite CLI (gt commands), create branches that sit on top of each other, and submit them as a stack. The Graphite web dashboard shows the full stack, each PR's review status, and handles automatic rebasing when earlier PRs merge. For teams that write large features broken into logical atomic commits, this is transformative — you are never blocked waiting for one large PR to clear before continuing.

AI review (Graphite Agent): When a PR is opened, Graphite Agent reviews it automatically and posts inline comments. It uses Anthropic's Claude as the underlying model (per Graphite's published privacy and security documentation), which means review quality benefits from Claude's strong code understanding. The Chat interface lets you reply to Agent comments conversationally and request code changes.

Merge queue: On the Team plan, Graphite manages a merge queue so that multiple approved PRs are merged without conflicts, in order, without manual coordination.

IDE integration: A VS Code extension brings the Graphite dashboard and stack management into the editor. The Cursor integration (now natural given the acquisition) will deepen over 2026.

What it does well

Stacked PRs done properly. No other tool in this category offers production-grade stacked pull request management. If your team is shipping medium-to-large features broken into logical steps, stacking eliminates the "blocked waiting for review" bottleneck. Teams at Shopify and Figma — companies known for engineering rigour — chose Graphite specifically for this.

Graphite Agent quality. The AI reviewer is built on Claude, and it shows. Comments are more coherent and contextually aware than many lower-quality LLM reviewers. The Chat follow-up for revisions is a well-executed feature — you can say "make this function handle null input" and Agent will generate the change.

All-in-one workflow platform. Stacking + AI review + merge queue + team insights in one product. For teams that want a single tool managing the full PR lifecycle, Graphite is unique.

Cursor integration trajectory. The acquisition creates a reasonable expectation that Graphite's AI review will improve significantly throughout 2026, as Cursor brings its coding model expertise to the reviewer. For teams already using Cursor as their editor, this convergence could be very valuable.

Free CLI. The Graphite CLI is open source and the stacking workflow works without a paid subscription. Teams can adopt stacking for free before committing to the platform.

What it doesn't do well

GitHub only. Graphite supports GitHub and nothing else. No GitLab, no Bitbucket, no Azure DevOps. In Australia, where many enterprises and government agencies have standardised on Azure DevOps, this is an immediate disqualifier. There is no announced plan to add other platforms.

No self-hosted option. Graphite is a cloud-only SaaS product. Your code is processed on AWS infrastructure in the US. There is no VPC deployment, no on-premises option, and no self-hosted path. For Australian regulated industries with strict data residency requirements, Graphite cannot be deployed in a compliant configuration.

Acquisition uncertainty. Cursor acquired Graphite in December 2025. The product is continuing independently for now, but the long-term roadmap — pricing, feature development, platform independence — is uncertain. Buying a Graphite Team subscription today means you are betting on the Cursor-Graphite integration going in a direction that suits your team. That is a reasonable bet, but it is a bet.

Team plan is the real price. Unlimited AI reviews only arrive on the Team plan at US$40/user/month annual. The Starter plan at US$20 has limited AI review access. For a five-person team, the real cost of Graphite with AI review is US$200/month — higher than CodeRabbit Pro at US$120/month for the same team.

US infrastructure, no residency commitments. Graphite stores only metadata (GitHub IDs, auth tokens) on its servers in the normal course — PR content is fetched from GitHub directly. However, Graphite Agent processes PR diffs via Anthropic's Claude API, which routes through Anthropic's US infrastructure. There are no specific data residency commitments for Australian customers.

Australian fit — code and IP data residency

What happens to your code: Graphite's architecture means your PR content is fetched from GitHub when Agent reviews it, processed via Anthropic's Claude API (US infrastructure), and then discarded. The review comment is posted back to GitHub. Graphite states that AI features are opt-in and do not store or train on your data. Graphite Agent "takes a privacy-first approach by leveraging Anthropic's Claude, which explicitly doesn't use customer data for model training."

No self-hosted option: This is unambiguous — Graphite's own documentation confirms there is no self-hosted version of the Graphite service. For Australian businesses with data residency requirements, this is a hard stop.

SOC 2 Type II certified: Graphite holds SOC 2 Type II certification and AES-256 encryption for data at rest and in transit. This supports compliance documentation but does not change the data flow.

GitHub dependency: Because Graphite is GitHub-only and processes data via GitHub + Anthropic APIs, Australian businesses need to be comfortable with both Microsoft (GitHub) and Anthropic's data handling for any AI-reviewed code. Both are acceptable for most commercial teams; neither is sufficient for government or defence without further controls.

Practical position for Australian teams: Graphite is appropriate for commercial Australian software teams on GitHub who are comfortable with US cloud infrastructure. It is not appropriate for regulated industries or any team with code that must remain on Australian soil.

Australian Fit score: 2/5. GitHub-only excludes Azure DevOps-dependent Australian enterprises. No self-hosted option means code transits through US infrastructure with no residency alternative. The Cursor acquisition adds uncertainty. SOC 2 Type II and Claude's no-training policy prevent a lower score.

Alternatives

• CodeRabbit (review) — works with GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, and Azure DevOps; better platform coverage; no stacking workflow; similar cloud-only data posture; lower cost per seat.
• Cursor (review) — the acquirer. If deeper Cursor-Graphite integration is the end state, evaluating Cursor directly alongside Graphite today makes sense. Cursor's Bugbot will likely merge with Graphite's Agent over time.
• GitHub Copilot (review) — already integrated into GitHub for teams that prefer to stay within Microsoft's ecosystem. Code review is lighter-weight but the platform is native.

Bottom line

Graphite is the best tool in this category for teams that practise stacked pull requests. The workflow is mature, the AI reviewer is solid, and the merge queue on the Team plan is a genuine time-saver. For GitHub-native teams willing to pay US$40/user/month, the productivity gains are real.

The concerns are real too. GitHub-only is a hard constraint that disqualifies Graphite for a significant portion of Australian enterprises. The Cursor acquisition introduces roadmap uncertainty. There is no self-hosted option. And the meaningful price — the Team plan — costs more per seat than the leading alternatives for equivalent AI review capability.

The right team for Graphite is one that: (a) is all-in on GitHub; (b) can get legal and security sign-off on US cloud processing; (c) ships enough parallel feature work that stacking genuinely unblocks developers; and (d) is comfortable with Cursor's ownership of the product roadmap.

If all four are true, Graphite is worth it. If any are not, pick CodeRabbit for breadth or Greptile for accuracy.

Score

Australian Fit gate: Five stars require AU Fit ≥ 4/5. Graphite scores 2/5 on AU Fit — GitHub-only platform, no self-hosted option, US infrastructure only, and acquisition uncertainty. Rating capped at four stars by the gate, and raw score of 15/25 falls in the Good (⭐⭐⭐) band. See our Methodology.

Frequently asked questions

Cursor acquired Graphite — should I still subscribe?

Graphite is continuing to operate as an independent product with the same team and pricing following its acquisition by Cursor in December 2025. The product works as described. The uncertainty is in the long-term roadmap — Cursor has announced plans to integrate the two products throughout 2026, which may change how Graphite evolves. For teams already using Cursor as their editor, this integration trajectory is likely a positive. For teams not on Cursor, the acquisition adds some uncertainty. On balance, if Graphite's workflow fits your team today, it is still worth subscribing — just factor in that the product direction is tied to Cursor's priorities.

Does Graphite work with GitLab or Azure DevOps?

No. Graphite is GitHub-only. It does not support GitLab, Bitbucket, or Azure DevOps. If your team is on any of those platforms, Graphite is not compatible. For Australian enterprises on Azure DevOps — common in government and corporate environments — CodeRabbit (which supports all four platforms) or Amazon Q Developer are the practical alternatives.

What are stacked pull requests and why do they matter?

Stacked pull requests are a development workflow where you break a feature into a series of smaller, dependent PRs — each building on the last. While PR #1 is under review, you continue building PR #2 on top of it. When PR #1 merges, Graphite automatically rebases PR #2. This eliminates the common bottleneck where developers are blocked waiting for one large PR to clear before continuing work. Graphite is the most mature tool for managing this workflow on GitHub, and it's why companies like Shopify and Figma adopted it.

Sources

• Graphite Pricing: https://graphite.com/pricing [PRIMARY] — Wayback 25 July 2026
• Graphite Agent announcement: https://graphite.com/blog/introducing-graphite-agent-and-pricing [PRIMARY] — Wayback 25 August 2026
• Graphite Series B and Diamond launch: https://graphite.com/blog/series-b-diamond-launch [PRIMARY] — Wayback 6 September 2026
• Graphite Privacy and Security docs: https://graphite.com/docs/privacy-and-security [PRIMARY] — Wayback 25 July 2026
• Cursor acquisition announcement (Graphite): https://graphite.com/blog/graphite-joins-cursor [PRIMARY] — Wayback 25 July 2026
• Cursor acquisition announcement (Cursor): https://cursor.com/blog/graphite [PRIMARY] — Wayback 30 July 2026
• TechCrunch acquisition report: https://techcrunch.com/2025/12/19/cursor-continues-acquisition-spree-with-graphite-deal/ (unconfirmed) — Wayback 6 July 2026
• Fortune acquisition report: https://fortune.com/2025/12/19/cursor-ai-coding-startup-graphite-competition-heats-up/ (unconfirmed) — Wayback 2 July 2026
• AUD/USD exchange rate: approximately 1.40 as of September 2026 (verify at publication)

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