
Ask HN: Looking for an Alternative to Jira - philpem
I&#x27;ve been using Jira on a Starter licence since I was in university. Over time I&#x27;ve found that it&#x27;s become steadily more bloated, heavy and costly. Several key features which were previously built-in are now plugins with a fairly high aggregate cost.<p>I&#x27;ve been out of the open-source bug-tracker loop for way too long. Are there any good alternatives to JIRA?<p>Essentially I need a bugtracker which can handle multiple projects and separate the bugs out on that basis. Custom workflow support would be good, but not essential (as nerdy as it sounds, I sometimes use JIRA as a digital to-do list).
======
dragonsh
You can try Taiga [1] it supports kanban style or scrum style development with
a very beautiful interface. It has all you need built-in with issues, epics,
tasks, sprint or just a kanban board.

Both front-end and back-end are open source. It can be customized easily and
can be integrated with video conference, IRC, slack, CI, Gitlab, GitHub,
kallithea-scm or just with git and mercurial easily.

Backend is built using Python Django framework with celery and front-end as
SPA in angularjs. Give it a try I think it's also a very good example
production system in Django with angularjs to learn from.

[1] [https://github.com/taigaio](https://github.com/taigaio)

~~~
philpem
I've noticed a lot of people mentioning Taiga in the comments, and it looks
like it's got everything we'd need.

I'll have a dig and see if there's a Docker script to run up a test/eval
installation. I might have tried to install it before, but the separate
"backend" and "frontend" made it look quite complex to install.

Python is a big plus, I know how to make that decently performant on our VPS
(half our tech stack is Python based).

~~~
dragonsh
My team had built a lxd image to run it as lxd container. It's easy to do.

It also has great documentation check at [http://taigaio.github.io/taiga-
doc/dist/](http://taigaio.github.io/taiga-doc/dist/)

You can look at installation setup production system. It has a built-in script
which can automate installation too with systemd service setup.

Obviously forgot to mention you can have it as SaaS if you do not like to do
self-install. Check [https://taiga.io/](https://taiga.io/)

------
hliyan
If your source repositories are on Github, please consider Github issues.
You'll need to setup a lot of labels to handle the different status, priority
and component fields that you'd normally get in JIRA, and you'll have to use
Github "projects". You'll also have to use issue checklists instead of
subtasks. I'd do it myself if our organization's process wasn't so deeply
integrated with JIRA.

~~~
smackay
Any issue tracking system is only as good as your ability to act on the
information in it. Github issues' apparent simplicity is to your advantage
here so I'd stay away from trying to recreate Jira with it.

Kanban boards are a great visualisation tool but the lack of screen real
estate limits their effectiveness - more than two screen of information and
you end up not being able to see the forest for all the trees in the way.
Github projects help a lot with this as you can usually break a project down
by structure (modules) or time (milestones). On a given Github board you can
easily move cards between projects so the system becomes quite scaleable -
within reason.

Kanban boards (if you can keep them manageable) are also a great customer-
facing tool. The structure is simple enough to comprehend easily and the
customer, product manager, etc. can visualise progress much more easily. They
are a great communication tool as they deliver a certain amount of empowerment
to the customer.

Checklists are infinitely better for subtasks for similar reasons as the
boards - all information and all progress is forced to be on one card - that
means it has to be readable and understandable by everyone.

The only limitation I have found with Github issues is that the screen real-
estate in the editor is relatively limited. If they had a more complex editor
along the lines of Google Docs then it would be possible to achieve the Holy
Grail of Issue Tracking where all tickets were well written and had all the
information in one place.

------
void_ita
We've settled down with YouTrack (by JetBrains). It doesn't look pretty buy
it's designed by (and for) people that uses it. Its command management is
AWESOME. It's also quite cost effective compared to other solutions. Couldn't
find a more productive tool that that one if you want to have something more
organized than trello (eg. timetracking and customizable fields)

~~~
philpem
I absolutely love Youtrack from a feature perspective but it still has the
same dealbreaker problem as JIRA -- it's Java-based and needs a fair amount of
CPU/RAM resources.

Sadly that's one of the big reasons we're moving away from Jira. The full set
is:

* We don't have the money for a 10+ licence * It's slow (our VPS is underpowered and we don't have the money for a faster one) * Too many features are now part of pay-for licences, which pushes the aggregate cost over our self-imposed "how easy is this to justify to our attendees?" limit.

In the end, it boils down to the aggregate cost to get what we want.

------
Philomath
You can give a try at Redmine. I've used it and I think the differences might
be pros for some and cons for others. The UI is, in my opinion, bad, and it
lacks some features from Jira. That being said, since it's open source (coded
in Ruby), you can personalize it, add your own features (or others that are
already out there) and host it yourself. At the same time there's a lot of
hosting companies that do that for you if you don't want to play this kind of
game. Using hosting services usually makes it a lot more complex to add your
own features though!

~~~
mister_hn
+1 for Redmine, as it can be self-hosted and doesn't need to hand out your
information to SaaS ones like Trello or Taiga

~~~
majewsky
Taiga is open-source and can be self-hosted.

------
cnorthwood
You can get reasonably far with Trello, if all you're doing is item tracking.
If you're trying to do anything more than a free-for-all workflow, or wanting
to do reporting, it's less good.

~~~
rrjanbiah
[https://restya.com/board](https://restya.com/board) is open source Trello
alternative

~~~
philpem
Thanks for the link to that -- I've been looking for something like this too!

------
Spidler
A few years ago we migrated from Jira to Gitlab. To use their project-planning
features (Epics, etc) they take a massive preḿium if you're not interested in
the other features.

Still, the basics are sound, and even without epics and a few of the other
neat but expensive features, it goes pretty far.

~~~
Freak_NL
> massive preḿium

That massive premium bothers me too. I don't mind paying for those premium
features, but as a small company (less than 20 employees) the cost is not
justifiable.

We already use GitLab's community edition as a self-hosted package combined
with MatterMost, and we love it. We are not using its issue tracker, only the
git repository hosting and integration with MatterMost.

However, having to go to enterprise tier just to get epics is not an option
for us. I really wish GitLab would price their tiers more appropriately for
small businesses.

Also, what on earth are you doing with that acute accent on that poor m?

------
ss_y2n
Checkout gitlab. They have issue tracker and wiki along with everything else
DevOps.

You can also have a look at [https://clubhouse.io](https://clubhouse.io)

~~~
dmarinoc
For me, Clubhouse has the best UX ratio of personalization, features and
simplicity... Hopefully it will continue to be only improved and not extended

~~~
almostkorean
Agreed, we've been using Clubhouse for the past few months and it really hits
the sweet spot. Not as complicated as Jira but more features than Trello.

------
te_chris
Clubhouse. It's genuinely brilliant
[https://clubhouse.io/](https://clubhouse.io/). Basically super trello, has
epics, projects, milestones, GH integration etc, but doesn't feel bloated.

~~~
strokirk
How do you work with bug triage in Clubhouse? So far I've found categorising a
bit difficult, especially for long-term tracking of issues.

------
benbristow
Azure DevOps is pretty good - [https://azure.microsoft.com/en-
gb/services/devops/](https://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/services/devops/)

Comes with a full suite of Agile project management tools with Kanban boards,
Wiki etc. and then integrates with pull requests etc. through its Git
repository hosting system.

~~~
the_duke
DevOps has a horribly confusing and slow interface, IMO.

~~~
benbristow
Seems fast on my machine. It seems to be constantly improving. I've only
recently started using it but it's quite god.

~~~
benbristow
* good

------
sorich87
Did you try the "New Jira"[1]? It has been pretty decent for us.

[1] [https://www.atlassian.com/blog/jira-software/the-new-jira-
be...](https://www.atlassian.com/blog/jira-software/the-new-jira-begins-now)

~~~
tdewitt
Atlassian has a major flaw in their understanding of how a lot of developers
work and it is evident by all heir "new" versions of stuff. They've made
simple editing harder (WYSIWYG only, which often makes bad assumptions), made
drastic changes to the UI, broken workflows, removed keyboard shortcuts and
made it impossible to open an issue full page by clicking a linkbun the web
app without first loadingbit as an overlay. They are, hands down, the worst
offender of "if it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is" that I've ever seen. I'm
constantly advocating for anything else in every org I work with. An issue
tracker doesn't need to be full of sugar, it needs to be simple and
consistent. Atlassian fails magnificently at both of those.

~~~
beatgammit
It absolutely feels like a tool for managers, not developers. I just want to
see what I'm supposed to be working on and push them to the right person when
I've done my part, and all of the rest is noise to me.

Jira puts issue management first (and even fails a bit with that IMO), and
makes getting work done more painful than necessary.

------
Emielean
I would suggest you to take a look at Tuleap
[https://www.tuleap.org/](https://www.tuleap.org/), an all-in-one 100% open
source tool for agile management and development tool. You have a panel of
modules you can choose to work, with by project. It supports Scrum, Kanban,
waterfall-oriented approaches. It provides a powerful issue tracking system
with hight level of workflow customisation options. It integrates finely Git,
Gerrit, Jenkins and Test management as well as Document Management.

Disclaimer: I'm fan of Tuleap as I'm member of the Tuleap team :-)

------
grey-area
Which are the key features they've made paid only which you miss?

I'm currently working on an alternative to Jira at present with an issues list
and roadmap combined - very early stages as yet (just about to launch the
issue tracker product), but I'm really interested in feedback and happy to
offer discounts/free use in return for some feedback. It's at
[https://projectpage.dev](https://projectpage.dev)

Please get in touch at kenny at projectpage.dev as I'd be really interested to
get your perspective on this and let you try it out.

------
bobbygoodlatte
Linear [http://linear.app](http://linear.app)

Beautiful design, extremely fast, keyboard shortcuts. Still in private beta
for now, but you can request access on the site.

------
24daemon
[https://www.phacility.com/phabricator/](https://www.phacility.com/phabricator/)
I loved using this with my friends.

~~~
napsterbr
+1. Phabricator is great and such an underrated software!

It's much more similar to Gitlab than Jira, though, so you might want
something more specific. That said, I quite like the way Phabricator handles
Tasks and Projects.

------
trabant00
By far the best I've used and administered (self-hosted) is:
[https://bestpractical.com/request-tracker](https://bestpractical.com/request-
tracker)

Killer feature for me: "Seamless Email Integration". As a client or a provider
you never need to open the web interface. Just the managers do.

~~~
jabwork
I spent two years using and then administering two RT servers.

I arrived with effectively no real PERL knowledge but a high level of Linux
sysadmin competency

I hugely enjoyed working with the system. It was productive, flexible, and
never gave me unexplained errors.

Even scripting on the perl api was an excellent experience.

Moreover the devs were extremely helpful in their irc channel (circa 2014-2016
at least) and walked me through a manual upgrade caused by the previous admin
customizing the database schema in an unsafe way

Would highly recommend

------
tanenbaum
I've used Phabricator
([https://github.com/phacility/phabricator](https://github.com/phacility/phabricator))
for years. It's a bit rough around the edges, but it's robust, straightforward
and well maintained.

~~~
philpem
I actually tried to get Phabricator up and running not long ago -- the main
issue I have with it is that it seems to need a server (at least a database
server) all to itself. It's probably a resolvable issue using some kind of
container, but it scared me off a little bit.

------
majkinetor
I cant beleive nobody mentioned Redmine (foss). Its the best tool for that
purpose out there that can run hundreeds of projects with thosands of users
without a hitch. You can customize it to extreme with plugins to look whatever
you like but even clot instance is very capable. Its extremelly stable and
secure too. Cant recommend it highly enough.

Gitlab iz alternative too but most of it is complete DevOps platform with lots
of opionions you may not want or like many of which are not customizable.
Redmine has thousands of plugins and its focus is project management, not
necesserally development projects too, you can even use it as service desk for
end users.

------
trm42
Ended up evaluating bunch of different Saas services last year and the best I
found for the team and our use cases was Wrike. The UI was quite slick and
didn't come between the developer and the task too much. Had quite good
reporting and support for project hierarchies etc. Wasn't the most expensive
but wasn't the cheapest.

Currently using Jira with "next-gen" project. It's slicker (but still slower
to use than Wrike) to use and admin but lacks lots of useful features and is
buggy. This morning our project lost epics for few hours without any
explanation. Fffuun!

But yep, almost everything is better than Jira if you have the possibility to
switch.

------
vekzdran
Gitlab (issues+board), Github (issues+project) and Azure DevOps (free up to 5
users).

I used JIRA also, and it is huge indeed, well combined with bitbucket also as
code repo. I'd say stay with what goes well with your repo (what integrates
well).

------
23andwalnut
A self hosted option I developed - [http://duetapp.com](http://duetapp.com)

Actively working on it now, so if there are any specific features you need,
definitely let me know so I can add them

------
yodon
Huge fan of Asana. One feature I've only ever seen in Asana is the the ability
to have a single task added to multiple lists with the ability to
independently drag to prioritize on different lists. You might be ordering
your list by customer priority including marketing and sales tasks, I can
order mine by the order I'll tackle them in including unrelated devops tasks.
We can have different priorities without breaking things and it's still one
task so if either of us marks it as done the other sees it as done.

------
liangzan
We use Zenhub with Github issues. Zenhub adds more structure over Github
project. It hit the sweet spot for small teams, not too basic where we can't
use it to run our processes, yet not so bloated where we need a manual for
doing things. The tight integration with Github is a big win for us. But you
can't customise things so when the team gets bigger we expect to move.

[https://www.zenhub.com/](https://www.zenhub.com/)

------
rcarmo
Since nobody mentioned it...

I spent a number of years running and customising Trac
([https://trac.edgewall.org](https://trac.edgewall.org)) in a multi-project
environment (400+ repos, etc.).

It's not pretty and has some strange abstractions, but it can be customised to
a surprising extent.

Edit: also [https://gitea.io](https://gitea.io). The issue tracker works, even
if it's very streamlined.

------
nergik
Give Trello a try,really. I’ve been using Jira for small and medium projects
for years with custom workflows and similar cool features, but i’ve slowly
became tired of the extra complexity, which i could understand was needed for
some projects, but wasn’t my case, so gave it Trello a try, and yeah, lacks
lots of stuff, but honestly, it’s simple and fast UI will help you find
workarounds for your needs

------
gauthamshankar
We have built a lightweight alternative to JIRA -
[https://zepel.io](https://zepel.io)

Our primary focus is to help product teams plan and track their features. We
support bug tracking and cross-functional collaboration as well.

It's under active development. Check it out and let me know your thoughts.

------
aetherspawn
If your project is really small you might get away with “Microsoft Teams”
which for most business people comes free with Office.

It integrates directly into your Office 365 users and supports some very basic
features such as custom swim lanes, multiple channels, tagging (only a few
colours available), due dates, calendar view

~~~
xgulfie
You mean Azure DevOps?

------
whycombagator
Used PivotalTracker a while ago and liked it much more than JIRA. Trello will
get you pretty far. If you're using Github, Github issues and all their PM
tooling look feasible and I like the idea of code/PM living in the same
place/tool.

------
nvishal11
Has anyone tried: Freshrelease [https://www.freshworks.com/agile-project-
management-software...](https://www.freshworks.com/agile-project-management-
software/jira-alternative/)

~~~
gowthamgts12
It's buggy and not production ready

------
anotherevan
Mantis Bug Tracker might be worth a look for you. It handles multiple projects
well, and you can get quite far customising it via the config file.

[https://www.mantisbt.org/](https://www.mantisbt.org/)

------
iLemming
\- Try clubhouse.io

\- If Jira is settled in the org and there's virtually no way of getting rid
of it, then use tools like go-jira. I was skeptical at first, as it turned out
- Jira's UI is bulky and slow, its API is not so horrendous.

------
SMFloris
You should give Taiga a try, it is self-hosted but it is seriously fast and
fun to try.

~~~
raptorraver
We had that in my previous workplace and it worked like a charm for us.

------
tzabal
I would highly recommend GitLab for your use case. It is open source, it can
be either on-prem or use their cloud offering, and features the GitLab Issues
which is a neat issue tracker.

~~~
royjacobs
The free version of GitLab has very limited support for issues, though. Things
like 'related issues' are only available in the paid offerings.

------
chachan
I would suggest [https://notion.so](https://notion.so). It's not an open
source product but I like their UX approach

------
versale
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned bugzilla so far.

------
vault
Our product owners happily switched from jira to clickup:
[https://clickup.com](https://clickup.com)

------
sebazzz
We use Scrumwise. This is focused on Scrum and Kanban, and also supports
issues to a certain amount. The staff is very responsive.

------
dudado
Some free alternatives: 1) Trello (already mentioned) 2) Remember The Milk
(free for 2 people) 3) Todoist 4) PivotalTracker

------
factorialboy
GitLab works perfect for my needs. Using it for planning work, version control
and CI/CD. No complaints.

------
xet7
[https://wekan.github.io](https://wekan.github.io)

------
hidiegomariani
has anyone tried [https://monday.com](https://monday.com)? I've not tried them
yet, but I've seen lots of ads

~~~
nergik
yeah i did, its quite cool, JS heavy UI though, and you may end tired of so
many tables but has a lot of nice features!

------
Beltiras
Gitlab onpremises is a really good option.

------
ninjavis
just stumbled upon [https://quire.io](https://quire.io)

------
billconan
I just use gitlab's issue board

