Over the last few years, developers got some superpowers. Or at least, technologies such as open source bug tracking enabled developers to do amazing things. And thatโs incredible. That, combined with understanding user and customer feedback, has made devs more important than ever within a business.
However, there is one big challenge that comes with every new website or app. Something we โ the tech-savvy people โ call โa bugโ. And those bugs are giving us, the developers, a hard time. And those bugs are the reason, why we need to use bug tracking systems in order to find, document, and solve these bugs.
Today Iโm going to present you with 7 excellent open-source bug tracking tools that help you to get started with the bug tracking game.
Why open source bug trackers?
Open source solutions are a great and easy way to make yourself familiar with a new topic. Most open source tools are the easiest way to learn something new or to set up a new workflow within your team. And most importantly: They are free to use.
Why need an open source bug tracking tool?
A bug tracker is an essential tool for any web- and software project. In order to make progress with our software projects, we need a simple, yet effective, workflow which allows us to report, document and track errors and failures which our software or website is causing.
All in all, we took a closer look at the following open source bug tracking tools:
- Trac
- Redmine
- OTRS
- Mantis BT
- BugZilla
- WebIssues
- Fossil
1. trac
Trac is more than just a bug tracking tool. Itโs an open source project management tool, wiki, and issue tracking system. Specifically designed for software development projects.
Trac describes itself as a minimalistic approach for web-based project management systems. It is minimalistic from a design perspective. Yes. But it definitely doesnโt lack any key features.
With Trac you can enable to create project roadmaps, milestones and you can even fully modify the issue reporting area to your needs. Since weโve used trac over the last few years, we have an extensive experience with trac and itโs deep integration possibilities enable you to do a lot of great things.
However, I have to say that it probably takes quite some time to get a deep understanding ofย tracโs feature-rich interface.
Summary:
Trac is:
- written in Python and was initially released 9 years ago (Oct. 2006)
- great for tech-savvy software teams looking not only for a bug tracking solutionย but for an overall solution for project tracking.^
- available under a modified BSD license
Further links:
2. Redmine
Similar to trac, Redmine is a web-based, open source bug tracking & project management tool. It also offers other project management related tools, such as time-tracking, wikis, calendars, and other reporting tools.
Therefore, Redmine is definitely more than just a bug tracking tool. Redmine is used by many web development teams around the world for managing their projects. With its features, it can easily be used for agile or scrum workflows.
From my perspective, it can also be an alternative to JIRA or to Microsoft Project, because it offers similar benefits.
If you want to take an in-depth look at Redmine, Iโd recommend this article on how to get more out of your Redmine projects.
Summary:
Redmine is:
- written in Ruby on Rails
- a cross-platform application offering a wide range of project management & -tracking tools
- released under the GNU General Public Licence, which happened 9 years ago.
Further links:
3. OTRS
An alternative to Redmine is OTRS. OTRS stands for Open-source Ticket Request System and is a free and open-source ticketing system. Being a ticketing system it can not only be used for your bug tracking efforts. With its help desk features, OTRS is a great, free customer service solution too.
Summary:
- OTRS is mainly used for customer support, ticketing, and issue tracking.
- Written in PERL it was initially released in 2001.
Further links:
4. Mantis BT
Initially released in 2000, Mantis BT is one of the old kids in town. Written in PHP and available in 49 different languages, Mantis BT is a widely used bug tracking tool.
Mantis got its name from the Mantidae family of insects, colloquially referred to as bugs. Thatโs also the reason why Mantis BT uses a bug as their logo.
With the release of Mantis BT version 1.2.0, an event-driven plugin system was introduced. As being one of the elder kids in town, I personally found Mantis BT quite old school. Also if you compare it to other issue tracking tools.
Summary:
- Compared to other open source tools, Mantis BT primarily focuses on the topic of bug tracking.
- Initially released in 2000, Mantis BT was written in PHP and is still used by a lot of development teams.
Further links:
5. Bugzilla
Bugzilla was one of the first web-based bug tracking tools. It was originally used by the Mozilla project. Bugzilla was (and probably still is) one of the best-known bug tracking tools. And I guess there was a time when there was no way around Bugzilla if you were looking for a bug tracking system.
Today, Bugzilla is still used by big enterprises as well as some pretty huge open source projects.
Summary:
- Bugzillaโs main focus always was (and still is) the topic of bug tracking.
- Initially released in 1998, written in Perl, itโs definitely an old dinosaur which is still around.
Further links:
6. WebIssues
WebIssues is an open source, multi-platform issue tracking system. As it says on its website, it can be used to โstore, share and track issues with various attributes, description, comments and file attachmentsโ.
The latest version of 1.1.4 was released in August 2015 providing a simplified mobile version of the web client.
Summary:
- Compared to the other, covered open source bug tracking tools, WebIssues is one of the less popular ones.
- Its clear focus is on issue and defect management
Further links:
7. Fossil
Fossil is another, simple-to-use issue tracking system. However, Fossil not only supports bug trackingย but also offers a wiki and other project management related features.
The key component of Fossil is its distributed version control system. Though Fossil seems to be a pretty stable bug tracking tool, its clear focus is on version control. This leads to the problem that it might not be the easiest tool for not so tech-savvy people.
Summary:
- Fossil is written in C and provides issue tracking features as well as project management tools.
- Its clear focus is on version control
Further links:
Wrapping up on bug tracking tools
We at Usersnap are fans of bugs. Yep. Because we accepted the fact, that life is full of bugs. And we love them. Therefore, we decided to build our super-cool bug tracking tool more than three years ago. If you look for an alternative to open source bug tracking, Iโd highly recommend to check out our very own visual bug tracking tool Usersnap. Itโs free for 15 days and allows you to easily set up a bug tracking tool. Also loved by non-developers.
Anyway: I hope you enjoyed our article on the best open source bug tracking tools. Feel free to check out Usersnap and it a try. Itโs free for 15 days.ย Otherwise, I hope to see you on this blog again in the future ๐
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