
Ask HN: What are you using as an issue tracker in 2018? - xjia
I went through two startups and decided to use Redmine for both.  Tried GitHub once and later migrated over, due to data ownership concerns and bad usability for project management.  Tried self-hosted GitLab for a small group but abandoned it later due to inconsistency with internal workflow.<p>Redmine also has its own shortcomings.  As a Xoogler occasionally I really miss the ease of use of Google&#x27;s internal bug tracker.<p>I&#x27;ve also heard people using Phabricator if they were in FB.  But I never had the chance to give it a try.
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christefano
Redmine. With some setup, it’s easily the most powerful, customizable, and
intuitive issue tracker I’ve used so far, and it meets my needs for a self-
hosted solution. I recommend checking out the following plug-ins:

Redmine Mentions [https://www.redmine.org/plugins/redmine-
mentions](https://www.redmine.org/plugins/redmine-mentions)

Redmine Banner
[https://www.redmine.org/plugins/redmine_banner](https://www.redmine.org/plugins/redmine_banner)

Redmine Slack [https://www.redmine.org/plugins/redmine-
slack](https://www.redmine.org/plugins/redmine-slack)

I’m partial to the Agile, Checklists, CMS, and CRM plug-ins from RedmineUp,
too. I think they’re essential. There are both free and “pro” versions:

Redmine Agile
[https://www.redmine.org/plugins/redmine_agile](https://www.redmine.org/plugins/redmine_agile)

Redmine Checklists
[https://www.redmine.org/plugins/redmine_checklists](https://www.redmine.org/plugins/redmine_checklists)

Redmine CMS
[https://www.redmine.org/plugins/redmine_cms](https://www.redmine.org/plugins/redmine_cms)

Redmine CRM
[https://www.redmine.org/plugins/redmine_contacts](https://www.redmine.org/plugins/redmine_contacts)

We still use GitLab, just not for issue tracking anymore. At the free and
lower-cost tiers, GitLab lacks a bunch of issue fields (they seem to prescribe
using tags for things like priority), and very annoyingly GitLab’s agile board
cannot display issue cards from multiple projects simultaneously on one board.

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maelkum
In a true hackerish style, I rolled my own solution:
[https://github.com/marekjm/issue](https://github.com/marekjm/issue)

Back in 2015, I decided that all the issue tracking systems I knew are too
heavy-weight. I don't need kanban, agile, or any other buzz - I just need a
simple tool to track my issues. I had several requirements: 1/ it must work
off-line, 2/ it must be distrubuted (to allow many people working
simultaneously on their off-line clones), 3/ it must work in command line, 4/
it must provide minimum distraction, 5/ it must allow me to tag, and search
the issues, and I worked from there.

 _fast forward to 2018_ ...and I'm still using it. It does the job for my Free
Software projects, and helps me at work (tested in three companies already).
It is definitely not bug-free (but the risk of data-loss should be low), and
the installation must be done manually from GitHub, but it Works For Me (tm)
;-)

Sample workflow:

    
    
        $ issue open "OH noes, a bug"
        $ issue ls --open
        deadbeef OH noes, a bug
        $ issue slug --git-checkout --git-branch --git deadbeef # or just issue sl -gBC de
        ...hack, hack hack...
        $ git commit -am "Fix"
        $ issue close -g HEAD de
        $ git checkout master
        $ git merge -
    

By using the `-` as the placeholder for "last active issue" I can make this
sequence even shorter. Minimal distraction, no switching between the terminal
and the browser, no waiting for slow Web interfaces.

/end of shameless plug

~~~
corobo
It took me far too long to realise deadbeef was your example issue ID and not
a username or something. Maybe I'm a little slow or maybe it's a lack of
coffee.

~~~
maelkum
Probably the latter. The "deadbeef" string as a "random" hexadecimal example
is pretty common.

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shijie
We’re using Airtable at work. It’s easily the best issue tracker I’ve ever
used, mostly due to the near-infinite customizability. Airtable is just a
spreadsheet on steroids, with cool, different views like a kanban view for
your spreadsheet. I have absolutely loved it so far. We switched from Jira, so
maybe I’m finally just getting over my Stockholm syndrome, but I love
Airtable.

~~~
andrei_says_
Last time I tried airtable it was inpossible to link to a specific single row.
Is this still the case?

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bluem-ap
Was happily using Bugzilla but the company decided to switch to Jira and it's
unpleasant to put it politely.

One of my main gripes is the ability to atomically update an issue vs
incremental updates. For example, Bugzilla allows you to edit multiple fields
then hit commit to save, Jira on the other hand applies changes automatically
when you edit certain fields (e.g. assignee). This causes people problems
(person gets assignment email before the comment about why it was assigned to
them has arrived or vice versa), and automation problems (if you have anything
driven by receipt of the emails, you now need to collate many before action
can be taken). It may well be possible to configure Jira in a way that's more
useful to us, but sadly we've got one mega instance that's supposed to be all
things to all people and as such, doesn't do many things well!

Used Redmine before Bugzilla and thought that was pretty good.

~~~
cimmanom
To make several changes at once, use the "edit" button in the top left of the
issuevderail screen to open the editing modal.

~~~
bluem-ap
Yes, good thing to point that out. It can be a great help in some cases, but
unfortunately that modal dialog blocks access to the comments on the bug, so
composing your reply in it can be frustrating.

Yes I can compose my reply in another editor and paste it once it's final.
However, IMO an issue tracker is something you use so often that working
around these small issues comes at a high cost to me when it should not.

~~~
cimmanom
Yeah, I agree that the UI and modal abuse could use some work. I still prefer
it over most other issue trackers, though, because it can be queried as a
database.

~~~
xjia
[https://confluence.atlassian.com/jirasoftwarecloud/advanced-...](https://confluence.atlassian.com/jirasoftwarecloud/advanced-
searching-764478330.html)

Is this the query language that you are mentioning? I don't have experience
with it but from the documentation it looks very limited.

~~~
cimmanom
It supports any type of filtering you could need. It hides the complexity of
what I assume behind the scenes are table joins. It's not for quantitative
reporting but rather for retrieving manageable lists of relevant issues out of
a data base of hundreds to hundreds of thousands. What sort of query would you
want to run against an issue tracker that you don't see supported there?

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vaceletm
If you're looking for a powerful tracking system, I'll recommend Tuleap[1] and
esp. the "Trackers"[2]. If you need to build custom workflows or to adapt tool
to an existing internal workflow, it's a tool of choice. We (I'm part of the
dev team...) make a strong stand to make the tool adaptable to organizations
instead of forcing orgs to adapt to the tool. Oh, and it's open source ;)

[1] [https://www.tuleap.org/](https://www.tuleap.org/) [2]
[https://www.tuleap.org/features/issue-
tracking](https://www.tuleap.org/features/issue-tracking)

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billconan
I like the concept of [https://crocagile.com](https://crocagile.com) , it is
like a game.

~~~
xjia
Never heard of it before. Looks really fun!

~~~
noelbaron
we try our best to keep it light. hit us up if you have any questions or ideas

~~~
billconan
need to import bitbucket issues

~~~
noelbaron
For sure... have bitbucket and github on the roadmap. Right now we're wrapping
up a Jira issue import that totally migrates your whole deal over to Croc.

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monkbroc
Clubhouse has been a good balance of structure and simplicity. They have a
good API for automation too.

[https://clubhouse.io](https://clubhouse.io)

~~~
skinnymuch
Yep I use Clubhouse for software dev projects as well. It’s great. The longest
I’ve kept using an issue tracker.

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karmakaze
Pivotal Tracker at work. It's not great and not the worst. Missing a board
view so I create several column queries. Asana was the slowest and their
boards are completely disconnected.

For small side projects, I tend to just use the repo's issue management. Still
looking for a light visual tracker that hits that 'just enough' sweet spot.

~~~
Djvacto
Maybe it's because it was an older version of Pivotal (not sure) but the
pivotal use I've been exposed to was horrendous.

------
hamandcheese
I previously have enjoyed using ZenHub — it’s a browser plugin that makes GH
issues actually useful.

Reasons I like ZenHub:

\- everything is just a GitHub issue

\- one less login

\- GH issues put the content front and center, and let you use markdown. Other
issue trackers do a poor job at visually distinguishing the issue metadata and
the actuall report.

\- Comments are big, first class citizens.

\- much lower learning curve compared to Jira, imho.

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strzibny
GitHub issues at current work. For personal projects everything really (Gnome
To Do included). I was always wondering how would Basecamp compare but never
had a chance to try it (and no I am not spending $100 for my own private Bc).
I would also like to see some kickass theme for Redmine.

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thomas-b
I've used a lot of Redmine, Phabricator and Jira. Redmine feels really old and
dealing with upgrades that will necessarily break one of the plugin needed to
make it decent is painful. If you don't touch it, it works just fine though.
Phabricator is really cool, requires some good tech knowledge to administrate,
biggest pain point was the ci cd apps that were more complex than the rest.
Jira is what I'm currently using, works great for all but your Jira admin will
decide of your happiness, a bad setup with bad workflow will kill
productivity.

~~~
finaliteration
> your Jira admin will decide of your happiness, a bad setup with bad workflow
> will kill productivity.

Ugh, I know all about this. We use Jira where I work and the implementation
was so botched and horrible that it easily costs me an hour a day just
fighting the awful workflows, required fields, etc., that were put in place by
someone who had no idea what they were doing. Not to mention the fact that the
same person accidentally wiped out our entire issue database/backlog during a
maintenance window one evening.

I’ve worked with Jira before and while it’s not perfect it can be set up
pretty well. But, man, when it isn’t, it sure is hell using it.

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ajainy
I haven't used too much many but just analyzing at whole project, using
altassian suite makes more sense to me. (even for small team projects.). Using
their hosted solutions is quite affordable and you don't want to spend your
energy in learning new product or host or learning integrations.

JIRA (tasks + bugs) + Confluence (for any kind of internal docs) is all you
need.

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dewey
Gitlab, has everything I/we need and having everything in one place. Bundled
with Slack notifications is also great to provide status update to non-
technical users who don’t necessarily have Gitlab open all the time.

------
rgbrenner
GitLab is pretty big for a small group. If you thought redmine was ok, try
gogs.

~~~
xjia
It seems that gogs is specifically for Git hosting rather than issue tracking
and project management?

~~~
rgbrenner
its like github-lite, but self hosted. it has an issue tracker. IIRC when I
used redmine, gogs issues supports everything in redmine.

Edit: also phabricator is an open source project.. so you dont have to be at
fb... I would compare it to github/gitlab:
[https://www.phacility.com/phabricator/](https://www.phacility.com/phabricator/)

------
danielcb
There's also taiga [1]. More or less an open source clone of jira.

[1]: [https://taiga.io/](https://taiga.io/)

~~~
purerandomness
Whoa, that's a bold statement.. Taiga doesn't have the air of overengineered,
slow monster that JIRA has become.

~~~
danielcb
I meant only in a way of: could be used instead of jira. :)

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dmurthy
Manuscript by Fogcreek.
[https://www.manuscript.com](https://www.manuscript.com)

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pcan77
For personal projects, definitely Trello!

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jdlyga
Jira works really well for a small team.

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dev_north_east
At work we use Trello. It's not suited for it at all.

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cimmanom
Jira. When properly configured it's awesome.

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Antoninus
Github issues.

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mindcrime
Bugzilla

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dalacv
jira

