What is your favorite bug/issue tracking system? And why?

Question

Please answer this queston only if you have used at least three different bugtracking systems for quite a long time. And please mention these systems as well. Thank you.

Answer 1

Bugzilla is not too bad

Bugzilla is very adaptable to various situations. Known uses currently include IT support queues, Systems Administration deployment management, chip design and development problem tracking (both pre-and-post fabrication), and software and hardware bug tracking for luminaries such as Redhat, NASA, Linux-Mandrake, and VA Systems. Combined with systems such as CVS, Bonsai, or Perforce SCM, Bugzilla provides a powerful, easy-to-use solution to configuration management and replication problems.

Bugzilla can dramatically increase the productivity and accountability of individual employees by providing a documented workflow and positive feedback for good performance. How many times do you wake up in the morning, remembering that you were supposed to do something today, but you just can't quite remember? Put it in Bugzilla, and you have a record of it from which you can extrapolate milestones, predict product versions for integration, and follow the discussion trail that led to critical decisions.

Ultimately, Bugzilla puts the power in your hands to improve your value to your employer or business while providing a usable framework for your natural attention to detail and knowledge store to flourish.

Answer 2

FogBugz is actually great as it's

• simple to use
• intuitive
• integrates well
• featureful

Answer 3

Team Foundation Server, though it's a little larger than just a bug tracker.

Answer 4

Trac! It's so nicely integrated with svn. We just love it.

Answer 5

This is similar to my question (which was similar to another).

Trac or FogBugz is looking pretty good.

Answer 6

I like VersionOne (www.versionone.com). It is good if you are using one of the Agile processes (e.g. Scrum). You can manage all your features and tasks in addition to managing all the defects. There is a decent defect lifecycle defined, it has an available API, can be integrated with CVS and there exists an Outlook Add-in. There are many things in it that can still improve, but overall it is a good system for defect management if you are using agile methods.

Answer 7

Jira http://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/

Gets my vote, flexible quick, good integration with source control. Sub tasks, good catagrisation. Configurable work flows.

Answer 8

We adopted trac because:

1. It's rather easy to install: if you follow exactly setup instructions it works, and this isn't a common situation!
2. It's extremely simple to use
3. It's per-project customizable (components, ticket types, severity, versions,...)
4. Has a flexible/customizable report section
5. Has an integrated wiki

But for us has a big lack: CVS support. But we adopted it because this isn't mandatory.

Answer 9

We just went through the rather time consuming process of reviewing many (perhaps ten?) issue tracking systems to replace GForge which was getting in our way more than assisting. We considered free and commercial systems.

To be frank I was disappointed with all of the systems we reviewed. There's plenty of room for improvement in this domain.

Many of them had poor interfaces (OnTime, Jira, Bugzilla). Generally our engineers were OK with this but it's important for our project managers, system integrators and customers to be presented with an interface that is clear and aesthetically pleasing.

I was surprised to find that very few supported nested sub-issues. In the software world it is, of course, very common to break down a task (an issue or a new feature) into smaller components and assign them to different people. However most systems couldn't do that - or couldn't do it well.

Some systems were very powerful and configurable but practically required third party extensions or plugins to make them useful. I really liked the flexibility of Jira and Trac for example but we would have had to invest considerable time to configure the systems to make them pretty or more functional.

Naturally they're not the only features we were concerned with but this post is already getting too long!

Of course, your requirements are going to be different to ours - I encourage you to figure out what you require and investigate thoroughly.

FogBugz, Jira and Trac were on our short list and they all had some great features. But in the end they were beaten by a product that - to me - was previously unknown: Vision Project

Vision Project is attractive and strikes a good balance between powerful and easy to use. The only downside we're seeing at the moment is that their new (since v4.0) Ajax-y interface has been a little buggy. However we've had multiple bugfixes overnight and sometimes within a couple of hours - kudos to their über-responsive dev team.

We're still putting the system under trial and, although not perfect, it's comparing extremely favourably against all the other contenders.

Answer 10

We've been using Bugtracker.net for awhile now.

It's good and the price (free) is right.

Some of my favorite features (From the site):

• Sending and receiving emails is integrated with the tracker, so that the email thread about a bug is tracked WITH the bug.

• Allows incoming emails to be recorded as bugs. So, for example, an email from your customer could automatically be turned into a bug/ticket in the tracker.

• Allows you to attach files and screenshots to bugs. There is even a custom screen capture utility [screenshot] that lets you take a screenshot, annotate it, and post it as a bug with just a few clicks. (inspired by Fogbugz)

• Add your own custom fields.

• Subscribe to email notifications that tell you whenever any bug has been added or changed. Or change your settings so you only get notified about the bugs you care about.

Answer 11

Redmine

1. Open Source

2. AJAX enabled

3. Email interface

4. SCM Integration

5. Integrated Wiki

6. Configurable trackers, workflow, roles

7. RSS and EMail notifications

I have used Jira (too hard), Bugzilla (too rubbish) and FogBugz (too expensive) and I think Redmine is fantastic.

Answer 12

I have a page of links to discussions just like this, where people have compared bug/issue trackers side by side and then have made a choice of the one they like best. There's no single tracker that consistently wins these competitions. Of the open source ones, Trac (Python), Redmine (Ruby) , Mantis (Php), and my own BugTracker.NET (C#) all have their fans, but I think with the open source ones, there is a tendency to pick the technology as well as the application. FogBugz and Jira seem to be the most popular commercial ones.

http://ifdefined.com/blog/post/2007/10/Links-to-other-comparisons-of-issue-trackers.aspx

Answer 13

My favorite is Bontq, the reason is the user-friendly interface and the integrated app for screenshot and video capturing.

Answer 14

Pivotal Tracker

It's free to use, incredibly simple and usable. Enforces Agile development cycle instead of being bloated by "configure everything to conform your development process".

Answer 15

I would recommend YouTrack:

• Ajax-based not bloated UI
• Complete keyboard support
• Easy navigation
• Query-based issue search with suggestions
• Batch modification commands
• Integration with TeamCity, SVN, LDAP, OpenID
• Instant installation