Bugzilla: Open Source Bug-Tracking System - Final Thoughts

At the beginning of this article we mentioned that we would name a few alternatives to Bugzilla in the fields of issue management and bug-tracking systems. Let’s begin with the Trac Project. This is also free; it is a totally web-based issue tracking and project management system. Its core methodology follows the wiki style. It seamlessly integrates with Subversion (version control utility), and works quite well.

One of the key benefits of Trac comes from its straightforward and neat user interface. In this day and age, everybody is familiar with wiki-style web pages. The entire system behaves like an enhanced wiki. And the administration is also quite easy as well. Adopting Trac as the main issue tracking system in your organization takes little to no effort and could be done in a few minutes. In short, it’s lightweight.

Additionally, if your software development processes are based on Subversion, then you have an extra reason to check out how Trac would behave and work for you.

Finally, we come to a commercial alternative that undoubtedly is a work of art in terms of utility and user interface. It’s called JIRA and it’s developed by Atlassian. Other than issue tracking, JIRA also offers workflow modeling, statistics, and report generation as well.

Nevertheless, it's very expensive. There are three kinds of licenses: standard commercial for $1,200 (suitable for project teams); professional commercial for $2,400 (suitable for departments); and enterprise commercial for $4,800 (suitable for organizations). Is it worth your while? Check out its features.

In closing, I’d like to invite you to join our experienced community of technology professionals on all areas of IT&C starting from software and hardware up to consumer electronics at Dev Hardware Forums. As well, be sure to check out the community of our sister site at Dev Shed Forums. We are friendly and we’ll do our best to help you.