views:

703

answers:

10

I'm going to be starting a .com. I'm in the pre-stages right now of creating a business plan. Once I start to code I want a free Agile based Project software to track my code and bugs. I'm using MS Project for just the Work Breakdown Structure which is good enough for just a nice list but I want some good Agile software that won't cost me a thing.

Sure I want bug and task tracking but more importantly be able to see the "big picture" just like you can in MS project. I know MS project is not agile based but something like that where I can see an overview of resources, tasks list, etc. in a graph and list based way. Something like VersionOne but free.

This needs to be able to run in Windows.

A: 

We use Trac and it works for us pretty well. It has lots of plugins which helps you better customize it to your needs. Overall, a nice minimalistic, light-weight tool.

jamesaharvey
Trac looks more like a Wiki than an Agile Project Management tool
CoffeeAddict
It's definitely more than just Wiki. Where we get the most value out of it is with the Issue Tracking/Ticketing and Workflow.
jamesaharvey
Trac has absolutely no Project Management out of the box.
CoffeeAddict
Neither does Redmine. The trick with all the bug management systems is that you use bugs/issues/enhancements and milestones/releases/whatever to manage your project. Most of them do not have resource management. Trac has what you said you wanted: "will handle bugs, tasks, etc. plus management in viewing iterations, timeline, etc..."
Adam Gent
A: 

Pivotal Tracker is great and uses User Stories and Iterative Development.

spilth
It doesn't track bugs along with everything else.
CoffeeAddict
Yes, it can.http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3555/4004445468_e68557f270_o.png
spilth
+1  A: 

Rally fits the bill, is quite good, and the community edition (1 project for up to 10 users) is free.

Jeff Sternal
Hmm, I know my answer was a bit terse, but it wasn't clear that the question required much more since Rally fits the bill. Why the downvote?
Jeff Sternal
+3  A: 

Use redmine. It's written on Ruby on Rails and is amazing!

Alex. S.
Another vote for redmine. It can handle subprojects out of the box so you can track and link issues across projects. Something which TRACs can't do really, it is possible but needs a bit of hacking. It links in well to version control systems, we use it linked to mercurial.
Adrian
I second redmine, we use it here in the office (Were a MS.net shop!), its really fast, integrates well, and actually looks very professional as opposed to many bug trackers which look rather poor...
pzycoman
+5  A: 

Pivotal Tracker is a pretty good free tool, but it tracks your project backlog in typical Agile terms (not code and bugs per se), and it runs online (as a hosted service, not as an installable product). For code and issues, and running on a specific server of yours rather than online, consider e.g. Mercurial, Trac, and TracMercurial (you could also use Trac directly with Subversion, but distributed systems such as Mercurial are the emerging thing -- check them out;-).

There are no doubt other combinations based on other distributed versioning systems such as git and Bazaar, but I'm less familiar with them.

BTW, if you do see the advantages of using "software as a service" rather than doing your own system administration, backups, &c, Bitbucket does free online Mercurial hosting with a homebrew issue tracker (and also integrates with Lighthouse, Twitter, FogBugz, Basecamp, CIA.vc, and other software yet), and similar arrangements exist for other version control systems.

Free hosting plans do of course have limits (e.g., Bitbucket's free plan is limited to 150MB), but upgrading to large teams, multiple repositories, large codebases, &c, is all pretty painless in terms of pricing plans -- if you consider the "costs of ownership" of running your own servers (especially in terms of system administrators), you can see why "software as a service" (aka software "in the cloud") is gradually taking over -- being able to start for free and only pay if and when you need to consume more hosting resources is attractive, and of course, since we're talking about open-source software, you can always decide to switch to "your own servers" approaches any time if there's a business case for it.

Alex Martelli
I'm looking for Agile Project Management which the tool will handle bugs, tasks, etc. plus management in viewing iterations, timeline, etc. for Agile specifically.
CoffeeAddict
It must track bugs so thanks for that heads up that Pivotal doesn't.
CoffeeAddict
You can track bugs with Pivotal Tracker. When you click Add Story, change the "Feature" dropdown to "Bug".
spilth
A: 

Microsoft Team System. I saw a demo of it recently at a conference and was blown away by how awesome it is. Believe it does just about everything under the sun (version control, bug tracking, task allocation, time logging, etc.)

mrnye
It's not *exactly* free.
Robert Rossney
It's not free...and it's based on MS Project which is not Agile Based.
CoffeeAddict
MS Team System is too much bloat for both Project Management and Source Control – I'm using Subversion so I'd need something that would work with that.
CoffeeAddict
A: 

You should check out Agilebuddy They have built in Bug Tracking and product, release, and sprint backlogs to track all your user stories and tasks. Their collaboration features brings transparency into the entire development process. Hope this helps.

Jonathan
Link is broken: http://www.agilebuddy.com/ and not free
Phill Pafford
A: 

For software project management please consider:

Endeavour Software Project Management is an Open Source solution to manage the creation of large-scale enterprise systems in an iterative and incremental development process. It features support for Use Case management, Iterations, Project Plan, Change Requests, Defect Tracking, Test Cases, Tasks, Document management and many other process artifacts.

http://endeavour-mgmt.sourceforge.net

Ezequiel Cuellar
A: 

How about iMeta Agility a Scrum Management Tool. It is a rich internet tool written in Silverlight. It is free! iMeta Agility is focused around simplicity and usability. The hosted version is designed to allow collaboration on distributed teams.

Importantly the team that are developing the product are delivering functionality based on community feedback. So you can influence the future development direction.

Clive Skipper
A: 

[Urban Turtle][1] with Visual Studio Team System 2010 You will have all the great functionnality of TFS for Agile development + a Real Scrum planning board and task board with the Turtle

  [1]: http://urbanturtle.com