By identifying errors early in the development process (and if possible before the end user discovers them!), your team has a better chance of finding simple solutions with relatively little impact on your customer satisfaction. As a result, your team will have a better chance of finding simple solutions with relatively little impact on your customer satisfaction.You can also modify and improve your product over time by providing end users with an easy way to report bugs to your development team.
Bugs are a nasty nuisance, but they don't have to be a problem to deal with. There are dozens of bug tracking tools that help streamline and organize the bug management process. In this overview, I will explain what features to look for in these tools and what things to look for when trying to choose the right one. I also provide a detailed description of the best bug tracking software I've seen so far, including information on pricing, trial versions, integrations, pros and cons, and more.
Bug tracking tools (opens new window) automate the process of tracking and monitoring errors, defects and other issues that hinder the efficient operation of an organization's technology and information infrastructure. These applications enable rapid identification, diagnosis and resolution of disruptive bugs or other errors in multiple applications or processes. Bug tracking solutions also provide a variety of information management tools that contribute to an organization's knowledge base and distribute critical response or repair data throughout the development team. Bug tracking tools are linked to programming software & developer tools.
# What is bug tracking?
Bugs are errors in software, for example in a computer program or a website, which are hidden in the program code. They can be very small errors that cause little damage, but there are also exceptional errors that can lead to a system crash or loss of data in an emergency.
To avoid such errors as far as possible, bug tracking is carried out. Bug tracking includes some tasks such as:
- the process of debugging, i.e. finding and correcting errors in the program code.
- to all measures that are carried out to log and document the error history.
- especially for the second aspect, the documentation, the use of a special bug tracking tool is recommended.
A bug tracking tool is an issue management system. It records all bugs and other change requests (either from your own team or from your customers/users) and logs them. This provides your team with a clear listing of all pending changes. In a nutshell, you could say that a bug tracker creates a to-do list for you, which your IT team can work through step by step. Bug tracking tools automate the process of tracking and monitoring errors, defects and other issues that hinder the efficient operation of an organization's technology and information infrastructure. These applications enable rapid identification, diagnosis and resolution of disruptive bugs or other errors in multiple applications or processes.
# What advantages does bug tracking tool offer?
Working with a bug tracker offers numerous advantages:
- The information collected on a bug can be standardized.
- The management, typing and grouping of bugs can be simplified in a central system. This includes the use of name, ID, scope, impact, priority, processing status, etc.
- Workflows for editing and eliminating bugs can be defined.
- Archiving and searching for documented bugs can be optimized.
- The estimated and actual effort for bug fixing can be documented.
- The effort for reporting bugs can be reduced. The description of fixed bugs in changelogs is also simplified.
- Communication between support, development and users can be improved. Automated notification functions also help here.
# How much does bug tracking software cost?
Bug trackers are usually offered as SaaS (Software as a Service), i.e. they are cloud-based. The available plans are monthly subscriptions with terms of up to 12 months. Prices vary between 30 and 300 $ per month, depending on the size of the company, registered users and range of functions. However, some of the providers presented here also offer free trial versions or discounted rates for start-ups and smaller companies.
# Best bug tracking tools
At Sleekplan we use Bugsnag in combination with our Sleekplan widget (opens new window) to identify bugs in the code early. But there is a whole series of bug tracking tools that follow completely different approaches. We would like to introduce some of them here.
# 1. Bugsnag
In addition to the user actions that cause the error being searched for, there are other factors that can be decisive for the error. These include the version of the application, date and time, and the user context. One factor is particularly important on the Web: the operating system-browser combination. The browser - as the environment in which the application runs - is often the reason why it is difficult to find the error in the first place. To catch such bugs and gather all the information you need to fix them, you either have to invest a huge amount of manual work and develop your own tracking solution or use paid, established tools such as Bugsnag (opens new window). This tool supports a wide range of common languages and frameworks and provides good documentation that makes it easy to get started with setup and use. In addition, Sentry offers a "Free plan", which allows you to use and test Sentry without obligation.
# 2. Sentry
Sentry is another tool which, like Bugsnag, allows you to detect bugs in your code. Sentry supports languages like PHP, JavaScript, Python, Go and many more. There are also a lot of integration options. One integration that is helpful for many teams is Slack. In Slack, you define rules for reporting bugs in a Slack Channel. This means that you don't have to actively search for errors in Sentry (opens new window) yourself, but are notified automatically and promptly. To make error analysis even easier, you can integrate SessionStack into Sentry. SessionStack records interactions with the application, including JavaScript exceptions, faulty network requests and debug messages.
# 3. Jira
Bug and issue tracking software helps software teams find, document and track bugs in their software. In 2003 Jira (opens new window) was created for tracking and managing bugs in software development. Since then, the solution has been enhanced, and now allows all aspects of the software development cycle to be planned and tracked. From backlog maintenance to release management, Jira Software is designed to be the link for a software team.
# 4. Asana
As a project management tool, Asana (opens new window) allows you to report and collect bugs in one place. Instead of receiving a flood of messages from different channels or wasting time asking for more details, people reporting a bug can use a task template or form. With Asana (opens new window) you have all the information you need in one place.
# 5. Github issues
Github issues (opens new window) allows you to track ideas, improvements, tasks, or bugs for work on GitHub hosted projects. You can collect user feedback, report software bugs, and organize tasks you want to perform on issues in a repository.
# 6. monday.com
monday.com (opens new window) is a cloud-based project management software that allows you to track project workflow and help teams complete their tasks. Compared to many other relevant programs, the tool is kept quite simple and does not provide the user with complex functions.
# 7. Zoho Bug Tracker
With Zoho Bug Tracker (opens new window), you can report, track and fix errors and bugs that occur repeatedly in software projects. Administrators and managers can configure the status and workflow of the problem lifecycle as needed.
# 8. backlog.com
Backlog (opens new window) is an all-in-one project management tool for developers and their teams with features like issue tracking, version control and wiki on a single platform. The main features include projects, burndown diagrams, Gantt charts, problem resolution, watch lists, subtasking, comment threads, file sharing and bug tracking. Even non-developer users use the platform intuitively and can access it on the go via mobile apps for Android and iOS.
# 9. marker.io
Report visual errors directly in your favorite tools without leaving your website or web application Marker.io (http://marker.io) (opens new window) makes it easy for product teams and digital agencies to collect and report website feedback without driving developers crazy
# 10. Bugzilla
Bugzilla (opens new window) is a free web-based bug tracker, a tool for managing error messages and enhancement requests in software products.
# An approach, how we deal with bug tracking at Sleekplan
Bug tracking and debugging are tedious and thankless tasks. But they are just as important. No IT project can be planned 100 percent upfront and no team of developers is protected from making mistakes. Therefore, it is important to eliminate bugs quickly and properly in order to satisfy users and customers.
# Track bugs
We track bugs from two channels. First, customers can report bugs that occur while using the application directly via our feedback widget (opens new window). Once a customer has identified a bug and created an entry, they can add all relevant details, such as descriptions, severity levels, screenshots. The widget automatically prioritizes based on various factors such as votes from other customers, customer satisfaction, effort for resolution and implementation. On the other hand, we automatically track bugs on our server and in the frontend via Bugsnag.
# Assign and prioritize bugs
We load all bugs from both sources into a shared ticketing system. Here you can assign bugs and track their progress.
# Send notifications
Finally, when a bug is fixed and the new version is online, we set the status in Sleekplan App to "completed". This will notify all users who are watching this error. This is how we keep the users in flow. And of course, if it is an unreported error, we do not notify anyone. Psssst 😜