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Saturday, 20 December 2014 12:02

Which Bug Tracker should i use?

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This is quite a popular question to which i needed an answer, so i have listed the relevant pros and cons for the most popular Bug Trackers below.

  RedmineBugzillaMantis
Comparison of Bug Trackers
Pros
  • free
  • SVN integration
  • open source
  • has roadmap feature
  • can monitor code (needs checking)
  • Bitnami Redmine Stack available for free which install all required assets pre configured
  • the inbuilt difference view will allow you to select between which revisions to compare
  • you can compare side by side or in a column
  • can be tricky to setup
  • has svn and git + more SCM already inbuilt
  • tight subversion integration
  • lots of videos out there to show you how to use it
  • the GUI and UI is excellent
  • redmine is geared towards software development
  • redmine can be configured to automatically create subversion repositories
  • free
  • SVN integration
  • open source
  • will work on shared hosting because it only needs php and MySQL
  • easy to setup
  • can track code
  • plugins can be made easily because it is written in php
  • free
  • SVN integration
  • open source
  • will work on shared hosting because it only needs php and MySQL
  • easy to setup
  • can track code
  • has roadmap feature
  • easy to use
  • can be installed via softaculous which also comes with 1 touch updating
  • plugins can be made easily because it is written in php
Cons
  • probably wont work on cheap shared hosts because it need Ruby On Rails and shell access to get to work
  • difficult to set up
  • harder to write plugins because using RoR
  • no roadmap feature
  • high learning curve
  • mantis is buggy
  • integration with subversion is tricky and basic

Research Links

Conclusion

Redmine is a more indepth Bug Tracker, it takes more to setup but seems to have more features, including the roadmap. The downside to Redmine is that you most likely need a VPS or dedicated server to run it and in which cas you probaly already have SVN setup so i would use this. I now use Redmine on my windows PC using Xampp and other free software packages. Search my website for Redmine installation Instructions.

If you want some thing easy to setup and use i would choose Mantis. It will work on most hosting packages and is easily setup. The roadmap feature for me is a must, which this has so i can concentrate on programming rather than setting a Bug Tracker up. The softaculous install feature will also allow easy 1 touch upgrading.

Bugzilla sits in between the other two Bug Trackers because it has a lot of features making it more complicated to use but for some reason it does not have a roadmap feature. Bugzilla is definately aimed at collaborative works rather than just one person.The other Bug Trackers will handle multiple users bug Bugzilla seems to have a lot of Project Management aspects built in to it.

Read 1107 times Last modified on Monday, 16 February 2015 19:14
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