
Ask HN: Best public-facing issue trackers? - jerrysievert
we&#x27;ve all struggle with issue trackers, and sometimes it&#x27;s hard to find just the right one.<p>I&#x27;m struggling to find one for my start-up that is public (customer) facing for closed-source projects that allow users to submit and track bug reports.<p>Trac has been the go-to for many people for a long time, but it is somewhat long in the tooth.<p>so, I ask you HN, what issue tracking software do you use for customers?  I&#x27;d prefer to find something that I can self-host.
======
Jugurtha
You can have your private repository on GitLab. They have a Service Desk
feature[0] which used to be in the basic tier but was moved not long ago.

Alternatively, if you're on a budget, you can:

\- Set up a support@yourstartup.com email address

\- In GitLab, open an account named "SupportStartup" for example with
support@yourstartup.com

\- As the project maintainer, add the SupportStartup member to the project

\- As SupportStartup on GitLab, you get a custom email address you can create
issues with simply by sending an email to that address[1]

\- As the admin of your email server, create an alias or automatically forward
incoming emails from support@yourstartup.com, to the custom email address you
get on GitLab. So any email sent to support@yourstartup.com will automatically
be routed to the email address that creates issues.

One other solution:

\- Create a form for issues in your application.

\- As a user, I write my complaint into that form, and I hit submit.

\- As SupportStartup, you generate a personal access token on GitLab[2]

\- In the backend, you get that message, and you use GitLab's API to create an
issue with the personal access token.

Another solution:

Add an issue button to the application with an `href`:

    
    
      <a href="mailto:support@yourstartup.com?cc=founder@yourstartup.com;cofounder@yourstartup.com&subject=The issue title&body=You can have a template here" rel="EMAIL">Complain!</a>
    

When the user clicks, it opens their mail client, with pre-filled email
addresses, and CC addresses, a prefilled subject, and a body with a template.
Everyone gets the email. Everyone gets notified on the most pressing issues,
everyone does support, and after the n-th email, people say "Okay, that's
enough" and they fix the most irritating stuff with high frequency/high
impact.

[0]:
[https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/service_desk.html](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/service_desk.html)

[1]:
[https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/issues/managing_issu...](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/issues/managing_issues.html#new-
issue-via-email)

[2]:
[https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/profile/personal_access_toke...](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/profile/personal_access_tokens.html)

------
atsaloli
Roundup [https://roundup.sourceforge.io/](https://roundup.sourceforge.io/) is
free and you could self-host.

------
dyeje
Product Board includes this but you'll probably want buy in from whoever
maintains your roadmap.

~~~
jerrysievert
this is a small startup, I am that person :)

------
pkrotich
osTicket- [https://osTicket.com](https://osTicket.com)

------
zenincognito
Phabricator is an absolute gem...

