Ultimate Guide to Bug Tracking Tools: Features, Pros, Cons & Pricing

Bug Tracking Workflow

In today's online world, almost every company faces bugs in their products and must manage them. Which tool should be used? How to set up a bug tracking process? This article explores these questions in detail.

What Is Bug Tracking?

Bug tracking is the process of reporting, prioritizing, and handling bugs and issues. Though it may not sound exciting, a proper bug tracking and fixing workflow is essential for delivering good service.

What Is a Bug Tracking Workflow?

When you realize the need to integrate a bug tracking workflow in your company, you need to implement a specific workflow.

Typical Bug Tracking Funnel

New Bug

Reject or Confirm?

Prioritize and Assign

In Fix

Testing

Tested

Fixed

Alternative Workflow

Capture – capture bugs and issues

Report – report the bug

Assign – find the person responsible

Prioritize – team prioritizes the issue

Analyze – determine how to fix the bug

Fix – actually fix the bug

A Good Bug Report

A good bug report should contain the following information to help evaluate bug tracking tools:

What happened – screenshots, screen recordings, or workflow diagrams

Time and date of the issue

Severity

Reproduction steps

Bug status

Bug owner

What Is a Bug Tracking Tool?

A bug tracking tool provides a set of features that help efficiently solve and manage problems.

It stores discovered bugs, their timestamps, abnormal behavior descriptions, and how to reproduce them.

Core Bug Tracking Features

Workflow

Bug history

Analytics dashboard

Bug assignment

Priority and severity tags

Comments

Integration with other tools

Notifications (at least email)

Exploration reports

Search functionality

Storage and retrieval

Issue status

Advanced search

Factors to Consider When Choosing a Bug Tracking Tool

Support quality

Price

Learning curve

Number of integrations with other tools

Performance

Company longevity

Team size

Top Bug Tracking Tools

BugHerd

BugHerd is a web‑based issue tracking and project management tool that captures screenshots of the exact HTML element being annotated. It lets teams and clients report bugs and manage all communication directly on the site.

Pros : Visual simplicity, easy to use, works for non‑technical users.

Cons : Not ideal for managing and assigning issues to a team.

Bugzilla

Bugzilla is a popular open‑source bug tracking system created by Mozilla. It offers a system for tracking bugs, feature requests, and code changes across software development projects.

Pros : Free, open source, extensive features, strong API.

Cons : Outdated UI, steep learning curve, limited customization.

MantisBT

MantisBT is an open‑source issue tracker built with PHP, compatible with MySQL and PostgreSQL. It provides email notifications, source‑code integration, time tracking, and custom fields.

Pros : Free, plugin ecosystem, unlimited users and issues.

Cons : Outdated UI, complex configuration, limited customization.

DoneDone

DoneDone is a SaaS bug tracker that offers a simple way for teams to track and fix bugs. It includes external user task creation, notifications from various sources, customizable workflows, and priority management.

Pros : Many integrations, clean UI, project management capabilities, API documentation.

Cons : Can be pricey for larger teams, learning curve.

DebugMe

DebugMe is a visual feedback tool with a built‑in bug tracking solution. Users can annotate pages with drawings, highlights, or pins to add comments.

Pros : Wide integration list, flexible pricing, basic reporting for small teams.

Cons : Not suited for large projects.

Donedone

Donedone is a simple bug tracker that allows external users to submit bugs, supports various notifications, custom workflows, and status tracking.

Pros : Lots of integrations, simple UI, good support.

Cons : Pricing can be steep, cannot assign a bug to a project.

Marker.io

Marker.io is a modern visual feedback tool that captures screenshots and annotations, then sends them to existing project management tools such as Trello, Asana, Jira, GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, Slack, and Basecamp.

Pros : Fast setup, visual feedback, many native integrations.

Cons : Pricing tiers start at $59/month, integration limited to listed services.

Jira

Jira provides issue tracking, reporting, workflow, code integration, planning, and wiki features. It is highly customizable, supports agile projects, and offers a powerful query language (JQL) for advanced searches.

Pros : Customizable workflows, extensive plugin marketplace, strong reporting, powerful API.

Cons : Expensive for small‑to‑medium teams, complex configuration, steep learning curve.

Bughost

Bughost is one of the oldest and most mature bug tracking systems. It offers unlimited bugs, bulk updates, bug linking, client‑submitted bugs, and export capabilities.

Pros : Easy bug management, affordable pricing, solid support.

Cons : No native integrations or API, outdated interface.

Zoho Bug Tracker

Zoho Bug Tracker is a module of Zoho Projects that provides flexible workflows, issue categorization, time and project management, notifications, and integration with tools like Crashlytics, Zapier, Dropbox, GitHub, and Jira.

Pros : Many integrations, modern UI, bug categorization.

Cons : Limited customization, not ideal for complex projects, limited plans.

Backlog

Backlog is a stylish online bug tracker and project management tool that offers Gantt charts, burn‑down charts, wikis, issue history, built‑in Git/SVN, and extensive integrations via API.

Pros : Free tier, wiki, many integrations, good UI.

Cons : Too simple for large, complex projects.

Redmine

Redmine is an open‑source issue tracker with built‑in SCM integration, Gantt charts, calendars, wikis, role‑based access control, and multi‑language support.

Pros : Open source, free, agile‑friendly, highly customizable.

Cons : Outdated UI, performance issues, limited support.

Conclusion

If you are still using spreadsheets for bug tracking, it is time to switch. A dedicated bug tracking tool improves overall efficiency. This article presented several top tools, each with its strengths and weaknesses, to help you decide which solution fits your workflow and team size.

Author

Eugene Stepnov – Integration Lead / Product Manager