Bug trackers are nothing but bug tracking software tools which are used for tracking bugs or issues found during the testing of any software application or product. These tools are basically used by the testers and to some extent by the developers as well. Bug tracker tools keep the records of all the bugs raised through their issue tracking system. It helps us in predicting the completion of milestone based on the bugs raised. This also helps us in deciding the regression testing to be performed around the features. The tools help us in monitoring the features which have the most bugs. They also helps us to find the bug fix rate per developer. Below are some of the best bug trackers available :

Bugzilla

Bugzilla is a very renowned testing tool for web based applications. It is an open source (free) defect tracking / bug tracking tool. This tool helps the testers in keeping the track of the defects or bugs. Bugzilla comes with vast features which are not present in the other defect tracking tools. This tool is helpful for the testers as well for the developers in tracking the bugs and code changes. It also helps in submitting and reviewing the patches. Most importantly it manages the quality assurance very effectively.

Jira

JIRA is the most renowned and widely used tool for various purposes like tracking issues and Project Management. It is a platform independent, paid tool. Using this tool you can create the stories and divide them into tasks and subtasks. These tasks and subtasks can be assigned to the respective team members. It is widely used by testers as well as by developers. It maintains all the past stories and helps to do the future planning of the projects. This tool supports charts and graphs using which you can actually show the progress of any project to your team members for the current release. It provides seamless maintenance of the issues. Issues can be created and linked with the respective stories. This helps in getting an idea that which feature has the maximum or minimum bugs. Hence, it’s one of the most useful tools for the big projects.

Pivotal Tracker

Pivotal tracker is a bug tracking tool for web based applications / projects. It is one of the most widely used bug tracking tool. The UI of Pivotal Tracker tool is very friendly. It tracks all the issues in sequential manner. After creating the bug it generates a unique issue number which is very helpful while searching for any bug. This tool is very useful for the teams who are following agile methodology.

Mantis Bug Tracker

Mantis Bug Tracker is also known as Mantis BT. It is an open source tool which is available for free. Commonly Mantis BT is used for tracking the bugs or defects in the software application. It is also used as a project management tool. This tool is very user friendly and easy to understand. First timers who are just introduced with this tool find it very easy to use and operate.

Trac

Trac is another bug / defect tracking tool. It is an open source tool used for web based projects. It also tracks the Help Desk and Service Desk issues. It comes with an additional feature of creating the links. It has a very good connectivity between the tasks, files and bugs. It has couple of major features like ‘Timeline’ and ‘Roadmap’. The Timeline displays all the project events sequentially and the Roadmap helps in keeping the track of all the future planning.

Redmine

Redmine is another bug tracking tool. It is a freely downloadable open source tool. This tool is also useful for the web based project management. By using Redmine tool the users can manage many projects in one time. Few of the important features of Redmine tool are – it supports Gantt chart, supports multiple projects at a time, its bug tracking system is very useful and helpful, and it also manages files and documents. It also supports multiple LDAP authentications.

Request Tracker

Request Tracker is also known as the RT. Most of the companies are using the Request Tracker tool for tracking the bugs or issues. It has built in feature for Help Desk Ticketing. It is also used for WorkFlow Processes and network operations. RT has the features like command line and email. Because of its numerous and great features it can be used by system administrator, supporting staffs, IT managers, developers and testers. RT is a platform independent system which actually connects the people from different departments within the organization.

Bugify

Bugify is a bug tracking tool. It can be installed on Mac OS and Linux server. This Bugify tool is very useful for the small sized team. This tool is very cost effective as only one time payment needs to be done rather than monthly subscription as its self-hosted software. It has many user friendly features like it provides desktop notifications. Its search engine is very strong. You can link issues. It saves the search filters / criteria. You can set the priority of the issues. It supports multiple languages and also has keyboard shortcuts. It also has graphs and charts. The screen shots of the issues can be attached by just drag and drop. In and all it’s a great bug tracker tool.

BugLogHQ

BugLogHQ is a bug / defect tracking tool. It is available for free and it is an open source testing tool. It is a very good defect tracking tool which helps the testers to track the bugs from multiple applications. It helps the developer to explore and search the bugs in a very effective way. It is very useful to the testers in order to report the bug and prepare the graph of the bugs reported and also to forward the bugs to the respective team members.

Exceptional

Exceptional tool is a bug tracking tool. This tool is used for tracking the issues or errors. This bug tracking tool is a very fine product of the company known as ‘Exceptional software’. It is used for the web based applications. It can be used by both the testers as well as by developers. This tool has the ability to support 30,000 reports per minute. It is widely used by the companies like AT&T, Square, Groupon and many more.

Airbrake

Airbrake is a defect / bug tracking tool for the web apps. It is also supports the mobile apps. This bug tracking tool is widely used for tracking the issues and handling the errors and exceptions. This is another product from the company – Exceptional software. It supports almost 18 programming languages like .net, Java, PHP, Python, Ruby and many more. It is one of the very efficient bugs tracking tool. Using this tool the detailed description of the issues can be provided which is helpful for the developers to understand the bugs and fix them at the earliest. It also provides detailed reports of all the bugs.

Sifter

Sifter is a bug tracking tool for web based applications. When any issue is reported in Sifter it helps in assigning it to the particular team member. You can set the priority and severity of the bugs which is helpful for the developers. This tool provides the feature to report the bugs and update them through the mails. Hence, the reporting bugs become very handy with this tool. You can actually raise the issues even when you are travelling. You can send the report of all the bugs daily via mail which keeps everyone updated about the progress of the feature.

FogBugz

FogBugz is a bug tracking tool for web based applications as well as for the smart phones like Android, Blackberry and iOS. This means that you can keep your customers updated about the issues via emails even when you are out from office. Apart from tracking bugs this tool can also be used for Customer Relationship Management, Discussions forum and also for Evidence Based scheduling (a software estimation approach, similar to velocity in agile software development). This tool makes the testers life easier by providing the facility of managing, filtering and sorting the issues and tasks. The comments can be posted for any issue, tasks and stories. It also provides the facility for attaching files and documents. Users email can be integrated with this tool in order to receive any updates made on the issues, tasks or stories. Users can manually enter the estimations to log their daily work. This helps the management team in making the decisions of the deliverables of the features and the story as a whole.

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