Top 10 Free Open Source Bug Tracking Systems

In the SDLC (software development life cycle) tracking bugs are one of the most important steps & without this step, the software cannot be complete. It is a big time-saver to add & manage bugs is in the Bug Tracking system. Few of the bug tracker is not only tracking the bug but also the managing full software based project & can be used for many other tasks.

But choosing a correct Bug Tracking System which suits your needs is not a simple deal. But here I am trying to make it easy for you, in this article, I am presenting a 10 free and open source Bug Tracking Tools with full list features & where to get this bug tracker tool for a better development process.

Bugzilla:

Bugzilla is a web-based project management software that is being published as Open source software. Bugzilla is used to manage software development and help you get a handle on the software development process. Bugzilla is a powerful & commanding tool that will allow your team to get organized and communicate effectively. It is allow tracking the bugs & code changes efficiently. This is developed by the Mozilla foundation. This Bug Tracking Tool is used many of top rated organizations like Mozilla, Facebook, NASA, Open Office, RedHat etc.

Bugzilla can Successful projects often are the result of a successful organization and communication.

Benefits of Bugzilla: Help to increase product quality, get better communication with team members, Using Bugzilla helps to improve customer satisfaction, Bugzilla can increase the productivity of the software development process.

Features:

1. Bugzilla is got popular in a short period of time because of its features.
2. Increased scalability and performance because of the optimized structure of the database.
3. High security
4. Support advanced query tool & save the queries
5. Bugzilla incorporated with an email notification facility
6. Bugzilla allows to setup email preferences based on user profiles and also user can add other email ids.
7. Excellent Permissions system

Download Bugzilla Bug Tracker Here: http://www.bugzilla.org/download/

Redmine:

Redmine is a web-based most commonly used project management tool. The Redmine is written in Ruby on Rails. It supports multiple platforms with multiple databases. The feature of Gantt charts and calendar helps to supports the illustration of projects and their deadlines. In this issue tracking system, you can create Task & subtask which helps to categorize the issues in the project management.

Features:

1. It supports multiple projects at the same time
2. Strong role-based access control
3. The issue tracking system is more flexible
4. Gantt chart and calendar give support to the illustration of projects and their deadlines
5. Superior files and documents management
6. Email notifications based on projects
7. Efficient Time tracking
8. It supports self-registration for users
9. Support Multiple languages
10. Support multiple platforms with multiple databases

Online demo: You can take a look of the online demo of Redmine on http://demo.redmine.org/. On this site, you can get the latest demo of Redmine on which you can see evaluate the newly added features. All these features can access by the only registered user so you have to take up with registration & then you can create a new project and test out the project administration features.

Download Redmine Bug Tracker Here: http://www.redmine.org/projects/redmine/wiki/Download

Trac:

The Trac is web-based, open source software. Trac is the superior version of wiki & use as the issue tracking system for software development projects. Trac system is developed by Edgewall Software. It supports multiple platforms like Linux, Unix, Mac OS X, Windows. Trac allows wiki markup in issue descriptions and commits messages, creating links and seamless references between bugs, tasks, changesets, files and wiki pages. A timeline shows all current and past project events in order, making the acquisition of an overview of the project and defect tracking software progress very easy. The roadmap shows the road ahead, listing the upcoming milestones.

Download Trac Bug Tracker Here: http://trac.edgewall.org/wiki/TracInstall

Mantis:

Mantis Bug Tracker is an open source web-based Bug Tracking System. It is written in PHP and works with multiple databases like MS SQL, MySQL, and PostgreSQL.
Mantis has multiple items & dived into a multi-level hierarchy as follows:

Projects -> Sub Projects -> Categories -> Bugs

Based on user access & permission rights a user can contribute to each item.
A Mantis is a powerful tool integrated with few applications like time tracking, chat, wiki, RSS feeds & many more.

Features:

1. Open source tool (GPL License)
2. Supports any platform that runs PHP (Windows, Linux, Mac, Solaris, AS400/i5, etc)
3. Customizable Issue Pages
4. Users can have a different access level per project
5. Support for Projects, Sub-Projects, and Categories.
6. Supports comprehensive Email notifications
7. Search and Filter – Simple/Advanced Filters, Full-Text Search, Shared Filters (across users/projects)
8. Supported Reporting with reports and graphs
9. Multiple Projects per instance
10. Supports Custom Fields
11. Allow to Customize issue workflow
12. Allow watching the Issue Change History
13. My View Page
14. Source Control Integration
15. An unlimited number of users, issues, or projects.
16. Setup the Anonymous Access
17. Supports Time Tracking management
18. Available in 68 localizations.
19. Changelog Support
20. Simple User Experience
21. Easy to evaluate
22. Allow seeing Roadmaps
23. Easy to install (both internally and in hosted environments).

Download Mantis Bug Tracker Here: http://www.mantisbt.org/download.php

Bug Tracking Tool: WebIssues

WebIssues is an open source web-based issue tracker. This defect management works on multiple platforms also supports team collaboration.

WebIssues is a comprehensive tool with good features like tracking issue, storing issue, sharing issue and file attachments.

Installation and use of WebIssues are very easy & allow to customize many features.

Features:

1. Open source web-based system
2. Support multi-platform like Windows, Linux and OS X
3. Support multi-database like SQL Server, MySQL & PostgreSQL
4. Supports nice search feature
5. Comprehensive Email notifications
6. Reports export in HTML and PDF documents

Download WebIssues Bug Tracker Here: http://webissues.mimec.org/downloads

eTraxis:

eTraxis is open source bug tracking software developing simple, powerful and intuitive software for web-based project management. This system is developed in a PHP language. It supports multi-database like MySQL, PostgreSQL, MS Server, and Oracle. This software is supporting multiple languages. eTraxis gives you a flexible system for managing projects involving multiple organizations by providing a central place for all project activity and information while integrating with users’ existing tools and workflow – all completely FREE.

This defect tracking system allows you to create unlimited projects with an unlimited number of users. The user can add issues in this system & easily see the bugs assigned to them. The user can create n-number of workflows & able to customize as per there need.

eTraxis is more powerful tool & can use the multipurpose system as a bug tracker, a helpdesk, and even a CRM system.

Features:

1. Flexible permissions
2. Customizable workflows
3. Complete history
4. Powerful Filtering on issues
5. Commenting on issues
6. Supports attachments in reported issue
7. Comprehensive Email notifications

Download eTraxis Bug Tracker Here: https://www.etraxis.com/

BugNet:

BugNet is open source Bug Tracking Tool. BugNet is a cross-platform application that is written using ASP.NET platform and requires a MySQL database backend. The main goals are to keep the codebase simple, well documented, easy to deploy and scalable. Email notifications, reporting and per project configuration of fields and values allows efficient management of bugs, feature requests, and other issues for projects of any scale.

Features:

1. Open source web-based application (GPL license)
2. Support for multiple databases
3. Support multiple projects.
4. Project and Milestone Management
5. Excellent Security
6. Online support community
7. Email Notifications
8. Issue Capture
9. Good Issue Management
10. Easy navigation and Easy to administration

Download “BugNet” Bug Tracking Software Here: http://www.bugnetproject.com/Download.aspx

The Bug Genie:

The Bug Genie is beautiful Issue tracking and project management system.
This system is designed to be beautiful, powerful and friendly. This system is developed in PHP. It supports multi-platform, multi-databases, multi-languages.
The Bug Genie is helped to improve the software development process by managing bug reports, feature requests, and user feedback. Also provides an easy to use interface.

Features: http://www.thebuggenie.com/features
Download The Bug Genie Bug Tracker Here: http://www.thebuggenie.com/download

Issue tracker by ASP.NET:

Issue tracker by ASP.NET. defect tracking tools allow you to create multiple projects, multiple users, permissions to users. The user can see all issues to be assigned to them is totally based on user permission. The tool is easy to use & add related issues in it.
It supports multiple storing databases like MSSQL and MS Access.

Features:

1. Create Projects
2. Add project members and permissions
3. Create and Track Issues
4. Technologies and Design Approaches Demonstrated:

Issue tracker Download Here: http://www.asp.net/downloads/archived/starter-kits/issue-tracker/

Collabtive:

Collabtive is an Open Source web-based project management software. Collabtive is cloud based groupware, easy and efficient for your projects. This software is available in more than 30 languages.

Features:

1. Unlimited projects, milestones, task lists, and tasks
2. An unlimited user with user profiles
3. Role-based permission management
4. Time tracking
5. Reporting and notifications

Download Collabtive Bug Tracker Here: http://collabtive.o-dyn.de/downloadref.php

In this article, we have seen the most powerful defect tracking tools list. In my next Software Testing  Classes article, I will be talking about the full list of commercial and freeware bug tracking system.

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