Used For

• +**You're debugging at 3am and can't find where this API endpoint is defined** → Search across every repo, branch, and commit instantly without downloading anything
• +**New hire asks "how does login work?" and you panic because you forgot too** → AI explains code flows using context from your entire codebase, not just one file
• +**Need to update a function that's used everywhere but don't know where** → Find every reference across all repos, then bulk-change them in one operation
• +**Your IDE chokes on massive codebases and takes 10 minutes to load** → Works in your browser with zero local setup or storage
• +Searches inside pull requests and commit messages - finds that bug fix from 6 months ago you vaguely remember

Best For

• >Your team wastes hours hunting bugs across dozens of repositories
• >New developers take weeks to understand your codebase instead of days
• >You're drowning in legacy code and nobody knows what calls what

Not For

• -Solo developers or teams under 10 people — you're paying $950/month to search code that fits in VS Code
• -Teams with simple codebases under 20 repos — GitHub's built-in search does the job for free
• -Companies wanting plug-and-play simplicity — you'll spend 2 hours learning regex patterns and search syntax

Pairs With

• *GitHub (where your code actually lives — Sourcegraph just makes it searchable)
• *VS Code (via browser extension so you can jump to definitions without leaving your editor)
• *Slack (where Cody AI can answer "what does this function do?" without context-switching)
• *Docker (if you self-host, which enterprise teams do to keep code on their servers)
• *Jira (to link bug tickets to the exact code locations Sourcegraph finds)
• *Chrome (browser extension turns every code review into a clickable IDE experience)

The Catch

• !The free tier only works on public repos — your private code needs the $19/user plan
• !Advanced search features are buried behind cryptic icons that tutorials skip over
• !Enterprise pricing starts around $50-100/user/month, so a 200-person team pays $10k+/month

Bottom Line

Turns "grep through 10,000 repos" from a 4-hour nightmare into a 30-second search.