Bug Database

Oct 12, 2018

Bug Database

I'm looking for a good bug database for games and it's been a struggle.

We used FogBugz on Thimbleweed Park, and it was OK, but a little clunky and not very "modern". Like a lot of commercial bug databases, they added lots of trendy project management features that distracted from it just being a good bug database. I'm sure some people like this stuff, but I just want a simple modern bug database.

My biggest issue with FogBugz was their pricing. They didn't do per user pricing, so once we needed 11 accounts, we went from $100/month to $200/month.

We looked at Jira, but it suffers from the same issues as FogBugz.

We also looked at Bugzilla, but it suffers from just being a big complicated mess (sorry if I've offended anyone).

I really like Trello as a task manager. I love that you can just drag and drop tasks, it's very slick. I'd love a bug database that worked like Trello. I'm currently using Trello as a bug database, but it's just too limiting to use much longer.

A few years ago, I wrote my own bug database, but I just don't have the time to roll my own again.

I don't mind self-hosted solutions or paying for a web based service, as long as it's nice and simple.

Has anyone used any good bug databases?

hdort

5d ago

Haven't used it in ages, but back in the day I liked Mantis very much: https://www.mantisbt.org/

Neil Martin

5d ago

I googled "bug tracking power up for trello" and found this...
https://blog.trello.com/how-to-transform-trello-into-a-powerful-bug-tracker-with-the-marker-power-up
I've not tried it so I can't vouch for it.
Please create a new post if/when you've discovered your new bug tracker as I'm in the same boat. I would also like an outward facing bug tracker for users to add issues.

Seg

5d ago

Have you looked into GitLab or GitHub for their issue tracking? I don't know what source control you use, but even if you don't, you can make a repo just as a issue tracker.

Ron Gilbert

5d ago

I don't use Github or Gitlab, so I'd have to create dummy accounts just to use the tracker. It's worth looking into, I'll do that.

Ronan

5d ago

Have you tried clickup ?
It feels really nice to use, and not overwhelmed with useless features.
https://clickup.com/

Todd Ogrin

5d ago

BitBucket's issue tracker has suited me just fine. It's very no-frills, and it helped that I already was using BitBucket as my git repo.

Manjit

5d ago

I recently have used Trello but it is quite limiting, Some other ones are Unfuddle & Asana that are better for bug tracking.

https://unfuddle.com - more developer centric

https://asana.com - it is a task manager but more powerful than Trello in experience

Aaron Giles

5d ago

We've used Mantis to pretty good success on MAME. Though to be fair, it's been customized like crazy for our particular use. But I remember when we started using it, even out of the box it was pretty capable.

Lars Ivar

5d ago

I always liked Trac, and it being open source rather flexible. I think you can enable/disable most features. Development has slowed down a lot over the years, but it isn't dead. I don't know that anyone hosts it, but I found it easy to install. Caveat: Haven't used it myself for quite some years.

https://trac.edgewall.org

Stefano

5d ago

I use BugGenie (http://www.thebuggenie.com/)

There's also Maniphest (used by Wikimedia Foundation) https://phacility.com/phabricator/maniphest/

Ignacio Manzano

5d ago

There are some open source alternatives that you can check
- https://www.tuleap.org/
- https://www.mantisbt.org/

parity11

5d ago

Please try redmine

Delores (not that one)

5d ago

Phabricator is pretty cool. Much more than just a bug tracker of course, but worth checking out even if you don't need most of its features.

https://www.phacility.com/phabricator/

Mie Hubbard

5d ago

I've tried just about everything mentioned here at one point over the years and Phabricator is the only one that stuck with our organization. It does a whole lot more than issue tracking for sure but it can easily be setup to get all of that out of your way. They do have a lightweight kanban style board feature that we make significant use out of though I'm not sure how that stacks up against Trello these days.

If you find yourself interested in it I recommend taking a look at how Blender and Wikimedia make use of it for some good ideas on how to organize things.

JamK

5d ago

Unfuddle always seems to do the job.

Yury Zholobov

5d ago

Check out https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/devops/boards/
It does drag and drop.

Pierre

5d ago

No matter if you use Git or not, you should have a look at Gitlab <https://about.gitlab.com/>; and Gitea <https://gitea.io/en-us/>;. Gitlab has a lot of features, including an "issue board" <https://about.gitlab.com/features/issueboard/>; that you may like cause it looks like Trello. Gitea is much simpler but also includes an issue tracker.

Both can be self hosted, and Gitlab also has a hosted plan.

If you use Git, both have nice features such as automatically mark an issue as fixed when a Git commit includes a message such as "Fix #21".

Hope this helps!

Benjamin

5d ago

Another vote for GitHub or GitLab built-in trackers, I like them both.

Alex

5d ago

Have you tried Airtable (airtable.com)? It's not a dedicated bug database, but a really amazing tool that lets you make very user friendly databases that work exactly how you want them to. There's an example of a bug tracker built with it here that you can use: https://airtable.com/templates/product-design-and-ux/expOzMycWirMsUOTL/bug-and-issue-tracker

Colin Doncaster

5d ago

We replaced FogBugz with Youtrack from JetBrains and it's been great - you can happily ignore all of the Scrum/Agile kruft and still take advantage of reports etc. The pricing model is nice too - we looked at open source solutions but we had better things to do with our time than maintain our bug database and the JetBrains folks are always improving the platform.

Enno

4d ago

Another vote for Mantis from me. I've used it on several games projects to collect reports from players, it's easy enough for non-programmers to use, and to keep them abreast of the status of their report. Whether you manually take the bugs from there and put them into Trello once they are confirmed by your internal test team or find other ways to manage them is up to you, but I find it useful to separate between well-written tasks in the task management system and bug reports of arbitrary quality.

Francisco Areas Guimaraes

3d ago

I've used Jira for almost 15 years now and I think it's the best in the market, if you can spend that cash. You don't have to use all the bajillion features they have, you can have a simple project and do what you need to do. Also, their search is awsesome.

Francisco Areas Guimaraes

3d ago

sorry to double post, but Jira cloud apparently is not so expensive:
Number of Users Price Per Month
Up to 10 users
(users 1-10) $10 Flat
For more than 10 users
(11-100 users) $5.00/User

https://www.atlassian.com/licensing/jira-core

Peter

2d ago

Is your homegrown bug tracker broken or have you lost the source code or platform?

Ron Gilbert

2d ago

@peter It was written in Python and ran on the old Google App Engine. It's not worth my time to update it. I have more important things to do.

Alwin Garside

2d ago

You should give YouTrack a try. I use that for a small project and I like how it focuses solely on bug tracking and not project management.

It also is very developer-focused, created by JetBrains.

Edmundo

1d ago

Hi Ron, I thought I'd add a few more opinions to the pile; I also have a lot of beef with project management and bug tracking apps and I've found so far from what I used, Github is the most decent option for trackign bugs with managed hosting.

> I don't use Github or Gitlab, so I'd have to create dummy accounts just to use the tracker. It's worth looking into, I'll do that.

Having a private Github repo costs a small monthly fee; it may be worth looking at Gitlab since it can offer free private repos.

> We also looked at Bugzilla, but it suffers from just being a big complicated mess (sorry if I've offended anyone).

No one was/got/will ever be offended.

Matthew Davey

1d ago

We use Jira with Bitbucket which ties nicely into our Git server repositories.
Jira does have a drag and drop like interface, but you need to create a Sprint with a set of tickets to see it.

Jim Tilander

22h ago

Try youtrack, amongst all bugtracking software it sucks less in my experience.