In search of the ultimate bug tracking tool

As many of you know, I’ve been on the hunt for a bug tracking tool for a while now and I’m glad to say the hunt is over.

I needed this bug tracking tool to meet some key criteria.

1) It had to be easy to install. Startups don’t always have a reputation of up front planning and I wanted a tool I could recomend that was quick and easy to install.

2) It had to be open source. I didn’t want to pay for a bug tracking tool unless I had too. My clients feel the same way.

3) I wanted to embed the bug tracking tool into my website Testing Times and then provide it as a service for my clients who don’t have or want a bug tracking tool.

4) It had to be easy to use and secure. I wanted each client to have access to only their project.

TRAC got the heads up for being open source, but was too hard to install in comparison to YouTrack, which beat it hands down. YouTrack only provided a temporary license though and I had trouble getting my hosting company to support Apache Tomcat. The effort to install something I may have to pay for later, made me feel it was pointless to pursue.

Tails was interesting and looked great, and if I had to pay for a tool, their pricing structure suited my needs. There is no messy install as it’s a hosted service but that meant that I wouldn’t be able to embed it onto my site.

Practitest had similar issues for me, and also the pay per month/user pricing structure didn’t suit my needs.

I was at a bit of a loss until BHARATH suggested Redmine.

Redmine is an open source tracking tool that’s easy to install, easy to configure and secure.  It ticked all the boxes and it’s now sitting on my website. You can take a look at it at  http://bugs.testingtimes.ie if you like.

I have created a public project called Testing Times for those who want to investigate a bit further.

The real test of course will be my clients, their reaction and how much they use it.

So a hearty thanks to Bharath and a sigh of contentment from me.