Free Bug Trackers
No matter what bug tracker a project uses, some developers
always like to complain about it. This seems to be more true of bug
trackers than of any other standard development tool. I think it's
because bug trackers are so visual and so interactive that it's easy
to imagine the improvements one would make (if one only had the time),
and to describe those improvements out loud. Take the inevitable
complaints with a grain of salt—many of the trackers below are
pretty good.
Note: This survey was first done in 2005, and some new
open source bug trackers have been written since then. As of late
2011, I've made a few updates to the material below, but I haven't
done a broad update of the entire survey. You might also want to look
at the Wikipedia
Comparison of Issue Tracking Systems, the DMOZ Bug Tracker survey, the article (and attached comments)
Ask Slashdot: How do you track bugs for personal software projects?, or this list at WebResourcesDepot.
Redmine —
Redmine is a relatively recent (as of 2011) and pretty polished
project tracking system. It's somewhat more than a bug tracker, since
it also offers wikis, message forums, and other features, but
bug-tracking seems to be the core of what it does. It has a fairly
intuitive Web-based user interface, flexible configuration (multiple
projects, role-based access control, custom fields, etc), Gantt
charting, calendaring, bidirectional email interaction, and more. If
you're setting up a new project and you can choose any bug tracker you
want, Redmine is a good choice.
Bugzilla —
Bugzilla is very popular, actively maintained, and seems to make
its users pretty happy. I've been using a modified variant of it in
my work for four years now, and like it. It's not highly
customizable, but in a odd way, that may be one of its features:
Bugzilla installations tend to look pretty much the same wherever they
are found, which means many developers are already accustomed to its
interface and will feel they are in familiar territory.
GNATS —
GNU GNATS is one of the oldest open source bug trackers, and is
widely used. Its biggest strengths are interface diversity (it can
be used not just through a web browser, but also through email or
command-line tools), and plaintext ticket storage. The fact that all
ticket data is stored in text files on disk makes it easier to write
custom tools to trawl and parse the data (for example, to generate
statistical reports). GNATS can also absorb emails automatically by
various means, and add them to the appropriate tickets based on
patterns in the email headers, which makes logging user/developer
conversations very easy.
RequestTracker (RT) —
RT's web site says "RT is an enterprise-grade ticketing system
which enables a group of people to intelligently and efficiently
manage tasks, issues, and requests submitted by a community of users,"
and that about sums it up. RT has a fairly polished web interface,
and seems to have a pretty wide installed base. The interface is a
bit visually complex, but that becomes less distracting as you get
used to it. RT is licenced under the GNU GPL (for some reason, their
web site doesn't make this clear).
Trac —
Trac is a bit more than a bug tracker: it's really an integrated
wiki and bug tracking system. It uses wiki linking to connect
tickets, files, version control changesets, and plain wiki pages. It's
fairly simple to set up, and integrates with Subversion (see ).
Roundup —
Roundup is pretty easy to install (only Python 2.1 or higher
is required), and simple to use. It has web, email, and
command-line interfaces. The ticket data templates and web interface
are customizable, as is some of its state-transition logic.
Mantis —
Mantis is a web-based bug tracking system, written in PHP, and
using MySQL database for storage. It has the features you'd expect.
Personally, I find the web interface clean, intuitive, and easy on the
eyes.
Flyspray —
Flyspray is a web-based bug tracking system written in PHP. Its
web pages describe it as "uncomplicated", and the list of features
includes: multiple database support (currently MySQL and PGSQL);
multiple projects; 'watching' tasks, with notification of changes (via
email or Jabber); comprehensive task history; CSS theming; file
attachments; advanced search features (though easy to use); RSS/Atom
feeds; wiki and plaintext input; voting; dependency graphs.
Scarab —
Scarab is meant to be a highly customizable, full-featured bug
tracker, offering more or less the union of the features offered by
other bug trackers: data entry, queries, reports, notifications to
interested parties, collaborative accumulation of comments, and
dependency tracking.
It is customizable through administrative web pages. You can
have multiple "modules" (projects) active in a single Scarab
installation. Within a given module, you can create new ticket types
(defects, enhancements, tasks, support requests, etc.), and add
arbitrary attributes, to tune the tracker to your project's specific
requirements.
As of late 2004, Scarab was getting close to its 1.0
release.
Debian Bug Tracking System (DBTS) —
The Debian Bug Tracking System is unusual in that all input and
manipulation of tickets is done via email: each ticket gets its own
dedicated email address. The DBTS scales pretty well: has almost a quarter of a million
tickets as early 2014, for example.
Since interaction is done via regular mail clients, an
environment which is familiar and easily accessible to most people,
the DBTS is good for handling high volumes of incoming reports that
need quick classification and response. There are disadvantages too,
of course. Developers must invest the time needed to learn the email
command system, and users must write their bug reports without a
web form to guide them in choosing what information to write. There
are tools available to help users send better bug reports, such as the
command-line reportbug program or the
debbugs-el package for Emacs. But most
people won't use these tools; they'll just write email manually, and
they may or may not follow the bug reporting guidelines posted by your
project.
The DBTS has a read-only web interface, for viewing and
querying tickets.
Trouble-Ticket Trackers
These are more oriented toward help desk ticket tracking than
software bug tracking. You'll probably do better with a regular bug
tracker, but these are listed for the sake of completeness, and
because there could conceivably be unusual projects for which a
trouble-ticket system might be more appropriate than a traditional bug
tracker.
WebCall —
Bluetail Ticket Tracker (BTT) —
BTT is somewhere between a standard trouble-ticket tracker and a
bug tracker. It offers privacy features that are somewhat unusual
among open source bug trackers: users of the system are categorized as
Staff, Friend, Customer, or Anonymous, and more or less data is
available depending on one's category. It offers some email
integration, a command-line interface, and mechanisms for converting
emails into tickets. It also has features for maintaining information
not associated with any specific ticket, such as internal
documentation or FAQs.