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Ask HN: Best light-weight bug tracking tool, more robust than TRAC?

30 points by betashop 16y ago

Looking for the best light-weight bug tracking tool, more robust than TRAC?

st3fan 16y ago
I am going to suggest JIRA. I think it is pretty lightweight. You can either run it with the built-in database or let it talk to MySQL or PostgreSQL. It runs without the use of an app server. Just unzip and run. http://atlassian.com/starter/ http://atlassian.com/starter/
- jlintz 16y ago
  no offense, but JIRA is not in the slightest lightweight. JIRA is extremely abstracted out to be whatever you want it to be. It's good for project management and for different projects that require different work flows, but you definitely need to spend time in setting it up to fit your needs.
betashop 16y ago
Anyone have experience with fogbugz?
- olsonjeffery 16y ago
  This SO question does a pretty good job of running down my opinions on Fogbugz (used it once at a former client, wasn't really overwhelmed). http://stackoverflow.com/questions/14293/are-there-any-unhappy-users-of-fogbugz http://stackoverflow.com/questions/14293/are-there-any-unhap...
thirsteh 16y ago
Redmine is awesome: http://www.redmine.org/ http://www.redmine.org/
- kennu 16y ago
  I agree, Redmine is nice and simple yet handles a lot of project management stuff if needed.
- olsonjeffery 16y ago
  +1 for Redmine. The windows story is a lot better, too (Apache on windows = suck). Multi-project/repo out of the box with no kludgey plugins. Custom workflow is configurable through the web interface vs. text config.. in fact, MUCH more of Redmine's config is exposed via the web interface vs text files (pretty much source control binaries, email and database provider/location is the only stuff you need to configure via config file ootb). Really, Redmine is very similar, in my opinion to Trac. But I think it benefits from hindsight and doesn't carry any of the historical implementation limitations/baggage of Trac.
- damien7579 16y ago
  +1 for redmine. Had it installed on Windows 2003 server and used its superb built in migration tools to go from mantisbt. Used it for about 18months and its actively maintained. Great for multiple projects and provides a simple UI. Its integration scripts with Subversion, GIT etc are also excellent.
- dangrover 16y ago
  I switched from Trac to Redmine and I haven't looked back. There's also a pretty solid migration script.
- nickzoic 16y ago
  Very happy with Redmine too, on a couple of client projects. The Ubuntu package seems to work pretty well to automate the setup too.
JunkDNA 16y ago
I absolutely love Fogbugz. I find Jira to be a bloated, complex mess. I've also used Trac and Bugzilla, both were clunky and lacking in creature comforts.
- anateus 16y ago
  Very much agreed. Fogbugz also has one of the simplest "surface" interfaces. It manages to hide all the complexity, without sacrificing feature, leading to very smooth workflows. Trac, Bugzilla, and JIRA (I haven't used Redmine) all seem to lead a sort of "fragmented" style of use, where you transition between thought modalities, while Fogbugz keeps it very streamlined.
nuriaion 16y ago
We use Lighthouse http://lighthouseapp.com/ http://lighthouseapp.com/ We needed a simple tool which can also be used by people who have minimal computer knowledge...
- mjwalto2 16y ago
  Another vote for Lighthouse - we use it and love it at Off & Away. Powerful w/out the bloat.
thijsc 16y ago
We use Pivotal Tracker to manage all our development projects. It's not only a bugtracker, but extremely usefull if you have any kind of agile process.
- acgourley 16y ago
  For low volume projects it could be a good bug tracker, too. And for those that don't know, its web based and they will host it for you for free.
- aeontech 16y ago
  It also has an API to integrate with standalone bugtrackers like Trac/Jira as well as Github.
- vanelsas 16y ago
  I second that. I love Pivotal.
siddhant 16y ago
I'd also recommend Pivotal Tracker. Its simple, neat, and gets the work done.
- benmccann 16y ago
  I hate Pivotal Tracker. I've been forced to use it on a few projects and found it way too hard to use. E.g. it never shows what you're working on by default and you have to open up a special window for it. And you can't just mark something as done - you have to move it through a whole set of crazy states like accepted and delivered. I'd much rather use any other bug tracker or something simple like a spreadsheet.
  - aeontech 16y ago
    I'm not sure how you were using it, but Pivotal was one of the easiest task trackers I've used (used it for all planning and dev work for six months at a previous job). The tasks you're working on just show up in a separate column, and as for moving through states, I don't see how clicking a button to deliver/accept is crazy - you don't even have to reload the page like you do in Trac when you mark a bug as complete.
- aeontech 16y ago
  I think generally if you want to second someone's recommendation, it's best to upvote their recommendation and add your comment as a reply - otherwise, the votes get fragmented between the two recommendations and if a person comes to the post and just scans the top comments, might not even see either of them.
  - siddhant 16y ago
    Sure. But the other comment was posted during the time when I was composing mine. So I didn't get to see it until I submitted my post.
    - aeontech 16y ago
      Cool, never mind then :)
agranig 16y ago
Mantis http://www.mantisbt.org/ http://www.mantisbt.org/ works very well for us. Easy to use and to customize.
meeech 16y ago
Not sure what you mean by more 'robust' than trac. that said, we use redmine at work. saw this the other day http://16bugs.com/ http://16bugs.com/ which looked like it might be interesting.
jokull 16y ago
GitHub has just enough issue tracking tools for my needs.
- xal 16y ago
  Totally agreed, don't underestimate the issue tracker build into github, it's superb.
- aeontech 16y ago
  280North built a pretty amazing front-end to the GH Issues using Github API and Cappucino - check out http://githubissues.heroku.com/ http://githubissues.heroku.com/
- iamclovin 16y ago
  +1 for github issues. We use it for all our projects and it's great
nishith 16y ago
On demand (in the cloud) option is IMO nicer for startup teams.
cantastoria 16y ago
We love Sifter... www.sifterapp.com It's beautifully done, the only drawback is that you can't send it e-mail.
bkrausz 16y ago
Anything that ties into GitHub well? We just switched from SVN+Trac to GitHub. Considering still using Trac but wondering if any good alternatives exist.
- tommorris 16y ago
  If you want something more lightweight than Trac, why not just use the Issues feature in GitHub. It seems to me the choices are: 1. ditz (command-line based version tracker that keeps data in your version control repo - plays well with DVCSes like Git/Mercurial) 2. whatever comes by default with your repo hosting (Github or BitBucket or Google Code for open source SVN) 3. hosted Trac, Redmine or Bugzilla For client work, I'm using Redmine, although I'm thinking of switching to ditz (or something similar) to make my life simpler. For personal projects, I either use TODO.txt or the repo-provided bug tracker.
vidushi 16y ago
I would like to suggest www.groupsense.com it is a bug tracking tool with social features. So you can follow bugs / people / projects. So for e.g. You can follow a particular bug that you are interested in. Or you may follow a particular user who might have filled interesting bugs in the past. You get an activity stream from the bugs/people/projects that you are following. I am one of the co-founders so take it with a grain of salt. I would be happy to hand hold you to implement this and add features if you need them. Send me an email at vidushi@groupsense.com I promise you it is a new software but we have been using it internally for over a year it is stable and you will love it when in 15 seconds everyday you will be able to look at your activity stream and exactly know what is happening.
grandalf 16y ago
I like retrospectiva: http://retrospectiva.org/overview http://retrospectiva.org/overview
- dabeeeenster 16y ago
  Looks nice. Can you create tickets by email?
wnoise 16y ago
Other than text files, I've only used bugzilla, which is decidedly not "light-weight". How does trac fail to be "robust"? I've not seen any complaints about it scribbling all over its database.
FraaJad 16y ago
Fossil SCM: http://fossil-scm.org/ http://fossil-scm.org/ Fossil is a DVCS + Wiki + Bug tracking, though you can choose not to use the DVCS part.. * Light-weight? yes. it's just a single executable <1MB * Robust? maybe. Projects using Fossil: SQLite, Mongrel2 etc.
jashmenn 16y ago
ditz: http://www.ruby-forum.com/topic/148367 http://www.ruby-forum.com/topic/148367
nl 16y ago
JIRA. It's the best bug tracker around. The only downside is that it is so configurable people will start using it or non-bug tracking things, which doesn't work well
abalashov 16y ago
We are huge fans of Mantis (www.mantisbt.org). It strikes me as lightweight compared to many solutions advertised here, and has the virtue of being agnostic between PostgreSQL and MySQL. It's also completely free. We integrated it extensively with Subversion a few years ago, and there already exist pre-built Git integration modules for it. The plugin ecosystem has come a long way. One important criteria to me personally was the suitability of it for use as a project management and/or feature roadmapping system, not just an actual _bug_ tracker per se, explicitly for bugs in the sense of defects. Mantis performs extremely well on this count as well. Probably the biggest high-profile use of Mantis I know is Digium's issue tracker for Asterisk: http://issues.asterisk.org/ http://issues.asterisk.org/ -- you can see it in action there. Their particular use of it relies on Mantis's extensive ACL features (optional--you don't have to get that complicated if you don't want to!) to open the process of enrollment and bug submission to the public at large, to allow certain people intermediate levels of access (e.g. QA testers), and to impose an actual hierarchy of developers, managers and bug marshals inside the company.
damoncali 16y ago
Shameless plug- my own app, http://trackjumper.com http://trackjumper.com is aimed at small teams with simple needs. No extra features and everything is unlimited.
kdeldycke 16y ago
Slightly off-topic, but if what annoy you in Trac is its setup or management, let me introduce pbp.recipe.trac ( http://pypi.python.org/pypi/pbp.recipe.trac http://pypi.python.org/pypi/pbp.recipe.trac ), a buildout recipe which can help you automate deployment and administration of several Trac instances. And sorry to Hacker News community for this shameless self-promotion.

30 points by betashop 16y ago

Looking for the best light-weight bug tracking tool, more robust than TRAC?

I am going to suggest JIRA. I think it is pretty lightweight. You can either run it with the built-in database or let it talk to MySQL or PostgreSQL. It runs without the use of an app server. Just unzip and run. http://atlassian.com/starter/ http://atlassian.com/starter/

jlintz 16y ago
no offense, but JIRA is not in the slightest lightweight. JIRA is extremely abstracted out to be whatever you want it to be. It's good for project management and for different projects that require different work flows, but you definitely need to spend time in setting it up to fit your needs.

betashop 16y ago

Anyone have experience with fogbugz?

olsonjeffery 16y ago
This SO question does a pretty good job of running down my opinions on Fogbugz (used it once at a former client, wasn't really overwhelmed). http://stackoverflow.com/questions/14293/are-there-any-unhappy-users-of-fogbugz http://stackoverflow.com/questions/14293/are-there-any-unhap...

thirsteh 16y ago

Redmine is awesome: http://www.redmine.org/ http://www.redmine.org/

kennu 16y ago
I agree, Redmine is nice and simple yet handles a lot of project management stuff if needed.
olsonjeffery 16y ago
+1 for Redmine. The windows story is a lot better, too (Apache on windows = suck). Multi-project/repo out of the box with no kludgey plugins. Custom workflow is configurable through the web interface vs. text config.. in fact, MUCH more of Redmine's config is exposed via the web interface vs text files (pretty much source control binaries, email and database provider/location is the only stuff you need to configure via config file ootb). Really, Redmine is very similar, in my opinion to Trac. But I think it benefits from hindsight and doesn't carry any of the historical implementation limitations/baggage of Trac.
damien7579 16y ago
+1 for redmine. Had it installed on Windows 2003 server and used its superb built in migration tools to go from mantisbt. Used it for about 18months and its actively maintained. Great for multiple projects and provides a simple UI. Its integration scripts with Subversion, GIT etc are also excellent.
dangrover 16y ago
I switched from Trac to Redmine and I haven't looked back. There's also a pretty solid migration script.
nickzoic 16y ago
Very happy with Redmine too, on a couple of client projects. The Ubuntu package seems to work pretty well to automate the setup too.

JunkDNA 16y ago

I absolutely love Fogbugz. I find Jira to be a bloated, complex mess. I've also used Trac and Bugzilla, both were clunky and lacking in creature comforts.

anateus 16y ago
Very much agreed. Fogbugz also has one of the simplest "surface" interfaces. It manages to hide all the complexity, without sacrificing feature, leading to very smooth workflows. Trac, Bugzilla, and JIRA (I haven't used Redmine) all seem to lead a sort of "fragmented" style of use, where you transition between thought modalities, while Fogbugz keeps it very streamlined.

nuriaion 16y ago

We use Lighthouse http://lighthouseapp.com/ http://lighthouseapp.com/ We needed a simple tool which can also be used by people who have minimal computer knowledge...

mjwalto2 16y ago
Another vote for Lighthouse - we use it and love it at Off & Away. Powerful w/out the bloat.

thijsc 16y ago

We use Pivotal Tracker to manage all our development projects. It's not only a bugtracker, but extremely usefull if you have any kind of agile process.

acgourley 16y ago
For low volume projects it could be a good bug tracker, too. And for those that don't know, its web based and they will host it for you for free.
aeontech 16y ago
It also has an API to integrate with standalone bugtrackers like Trac/Jira as well as Github.
vanelsas 16y ago
I second that. I love Pivotal.

siddhant 16y ago

I'd also recommend Pivotal Tracker. Its simple, neat, and gets the work done.

benmccann 16y ago
I hate Pivotal Tracker. I've been forced to use it on a few projects and found it way too hard to use. E.g. it never shows what you're working on by default and you have to open up a special window for it. And you can't just mark something as done - you have to move it through a whole set of crazy states like accepted and delivered. I'd much rather use any other bug tracker or something simple like a spreadsheet.
- aeontech 16y ago
  I'm not sure how you were using it, but Pivotal was one of the easiest task trackers I've used (used it for all planning and dev work for six months at a previous job). The tasks you're working on just show up in a separate column, and as for moving through states, I don't see how clicking a button to deliver/accept is crazy - you don't even have to reload the page like you do in Trac when you mark a bug as complete.
aeontech 16y ago
I think generally if you want to second someone's recommendation, it's best to upvote their recommendation and add your comment as a reply - otherwise, the votes get fragmented between the two recommendations and if a person comes to the post and just scans the top comments, might not even see either of them.
- siddhant 16y ago
  Sure. But the other comment was posted during the time when I was composing mine. So I didn't get to see it until I submitted my post.
  - aeontech 16y ago
    Cool, never mind then :)

agranig 16y ago

Mantis http://www.mantisbt.org/ http://www.mantisbt.org/ works very well for us. Easy to use and to customize.

meeech 16y ago

Not sure what you mean by more 'robust' than trac. that said, we use redmine at work. saw this the other day http://16bugs.com/ http://16bugs.com/ which looked like it might be interesting.

jokull 16y ago

GitHub has just enough issue tracking tools for my needs.

xal 16y ago
Totally agreed, don't underestimate the issue tracker build into github, it's superb.
aeontech 16y ago
280North built a pretty amazing front-end to the GH Issues using Github API and Cappucino - check out http://githubissues.heroku.com/ http://githubissues.heroku.com/
iamclovin 16y ago
+1 for github issues. We use it for all our projects and it's great

nishith 16y ago

On demand (in the cloud) option is IMO nicer for startup teams.

cantastoria 16y ago

We love Sifter... www.sifterapp.com It's beautifully done, the only drawback is that you can't send it e-mail.

bkrausz 16y ago

Anything that ties into GitHub well? We just switched from SVN+Trac to GitHub. Considering still using Trac but wondering if any good alternatives exist.

tommorris 16y ago
If you want something more lightweight than Trac, why not just use the Issues feature in GitHub. It seems to me the choices are: 1. ditz (command-line based version tracker that keeps data in your version control repo - plays well with DVCSes like Git/Mercurial) 2. whatever comes by default with your repo hosting (Github or BitBucket or Google Code for open source SVN) 3. hosted Trac, Redmine or Bugzilla For client work, I'm using Redmine, although I'm thinking of switching to ditz (or something similar) to make my life simpler. For personal projects, I either use TODO.txt or the repo-provided bug tracker.

vidushi 16y ago

I would like to suggest www.groupsense.com it is a bug tracking tool with social features. So you can follow bugs / people / projects. So for e.g. You can follow a particular bug that you are interested in. Or you may follow a particular user who might have filled interesting bugs in the past. You get an activity stream from the bugs/people/projects that you are following. I am one of the co-founders so take it with a grain of salt. I would be happy to hand hold you to implement this and add features if you need them. Send me an email at vidushi@groupsense.com I promise you it is a new software but we have been using it internally for over a year it is stable and you will love it when in 15 seconds everyday you will be able to look at your activity stream and exactly know what is happening.

grandalf 16y ago

I like retrospectiva: http://retrospectiva.org/overview http://retrospectiva.org/overview

dabeeeenster 16y ago
Looks nice. Can you create tickets by email?

wnoise 16y ago

Other than text files, I've only used bugzilla, which is decidedly not "light-weight". How does trac fail to be "robust"? I've not seen any complaints about it scribbling all over its database.

FraaJad 16y ago

Fossil SCM: http://fossil-scm.org/ http://fossil-scm.org/ Fossil is a DVCS + Wiki + Bug tracking, though you can choose not to use the DVCS part.. * Light-weight? yes. it's just a single executable <1MB * Robust? maybe. Projects using Fossil: SQLite, Mongrel2 etc.

jashmenn 16y ago

ditz: http://www.ruby-forum.com/topic/148367 http://www.ruby-forum.com/topic/148367

nl 16y ago

JIRA. It's the best bug tracker around. The only downside is that it is so configurable people will start using it or non-bug tracking things, which doesn't work well

abalashov 16y ago

We are huge fans of Mantis (www.mantisbt.org). It strikes me as lightweight compared to many solutions advertised here, and has the virtue of being agnostic between PostgreSQL and MySQL. It's also completely free. We integrated it extensively with Subversion a few years ago, and there already exist pre-built Git integration modules for it. The plugin ecosystem has come a long way. One important criteria to me personally was the suitability of it for use as a project management and/or feature roadmapping system, not just an actual _bug_ tracker per se, explicitly for bugs in the sense of defects. Mantis performs extremely well on this count as well. Probably the biggest high-profile use of Mantis I know is Digium's issue tracker for Asterisk: http://issues.asterisk.org/ http://issues.asterisk.org/ -- you can see it in action there. Their particular use of it relies on Mantis's extensive ACL features (optional--you don't have to get that complicated if you don't want to!) to open the process of enrollment and bug submission to the public at large, to allow certain people intermediate levels of access (e.g. QA testers), and to impose an actual hierarchy of developers, managers and bug marshals inside the company.

damoncali 16y ago

Shameless plug- my own app, http://trackjumper.com http://trackjumper.com is aimed at small teams with simple needs. No extra features and everything is unlimited.

kdeldycke 16y ago

Slightly off-topic, but if what annoy you in Trac is its setup or management, let me introduce pbp.recipe.trac ( http://pypi.python.org/pypi/pbp.recipe.trac http://pypi.python.org/pypi/pbp.recipe.trac ), a buildout recipe which can help you automate deployment and administration of several Trac instances. And sorry to Hacker News community for this shameless self-promotion.