CRM software for freelancer programmer

Question

Do you know of a CRM software suitable for freelancer programmer?

I have a number of customers, every once and then they send me a bug report or feature request. The status of the issues is kept in email conversations.

I would like a CRM that could help me manage all this. Preferably web based (and friendly) so I can tell them to open issues there.

Different customer's issues must be kept isolated - a customer should not see my communications with another one. For that matter, he should not even know there are other customers.

As I have my own server and am not afraid of installation and configuration it can be an open source software. I am also ready to pay a small sum (let's say $20/month) for a headache-less, hosted, ready-to-use solution.

Answer 1

everything from 37signals is good, keeps it simple but works well. We have used for a while and has never failed.

Try highrise for contact management and basecamp for project management

http://37signals.com/

Answer 2

FogBUGZ is great, but price is 25USD/user/month or you can install to your own server

http://www.fogcreek.com/FogBUGZ/

Answer 3

I do all of this and more with unfuddle. I love it and customers love it too because the UI is very intuitive!

Before I used email to communicate with my customers, since I use the unfuddle messages, discussions are clearly threaded and more to the point (without hi and cheers all the time).

The ticketing system (including milestones) can handle bug reports, wishlist, feature request, you name it!

Furthermore you have SVN/git integration!

And it is really affordable!