Best ticket tracking packages?

August 14, 2006 11:12 AM

Open source ticket/job/bug tracker recommendations?

I'm looking for a ticket tracker that will ideally allow:

• File attachments -- some of them over 100MB.


• Workflow based on ticket status (ie move to this user when ticket at this stage


• File export from all attachments, across all tickets.

I'm currently looking at bugzilla. Are there alternatives I should consider? I'm hosting this on an intranet, and open source is preferred.

posted by bonaldi to computers & internet (10 comments total)

I think Trac and RT are the most commonly-deployed solutions after people get sick of wrangling bugzilla. The only other solution I've heard anything positive about is Fogbugz, which isn't open source, but is a pretty good app.
posted by anildash at 11:17 AM on August 14, 2006

I've used Flyspray well, it's very web 2.0 but otherwise somewhat limited if you're not an IT nerd.
posted by SpecialK at 11:38 AM on August 14, 2006

RT is very much ticket based, it's not really suited for software development and bugtracking, IME.

It also doesn't do "clients" real well; it's mostly an internal package, or was the last time I looked at it in depth (3.4).

Flyspray and track are both pretty new; I gather the MythTV people are reasonably happy with Trac. Rockbox is using Flyspray.
posted by baylink at 11:58 AM on August 14, 2006

Eventum may fulfill your requirements.
posted by jimw at 1:13 PM on August 14, 2006

Another vote for RT. There are RPM's for Centos 4.x that work great.

RT is all perl based, and easily modifyable.
posted by SirStan at 3:04 PM on August 14, 2006

Bugzilla is designed for developers to track bugs with each other, not so much for support to customer interactions. RT works well. Bugzilla is ugly, clumsy, and the opposite of user friendly.

But it kicks ass when it comes to tracking bugs in software. :)
posted by jeversol at 3:39 PM on August 14, 2006

Sorry, I should have clarified slighty: there will be no customer interaction in this system -- all the "tickets" will be generated internally, as a way of keeping a hugely sprawling project in check. Most crucial is the file handling and attachments, if anyone has experience there.
posted by bonaldi at 3:57 PM on August 14, 2006

Have a look at Mantis. We used this at work with great success. It does have file handling capabilities, but I don't have any first-hand experience with it.
posted by zzztimbo at 5:27 PM on August 14, 2006

Well Trac seems to be the standard for software projects, but I'm not sure if thats what you are exactly looking for. For instance, I'm not sure if you can say "when a ticket is at x, always file to y" in trac.

One nice thing about trac is that its open source and written in python, so I'm sure hooking up a plugin to handle you specific needs woudn't be too bad. I know I'd rather hack python then perl or c (bugzilla, I think) to add a plugin.

Trac does handle attachments well, and can also be set up to email people and output to rss.
posted by rsanheim at 5:51 PM on August 14, 2006

Make sure you know what you want. A ticket system usually does not serve well as a bug tracker, and vice versa.

A ticket system is typically addressed through an external medium such as email or phone, where a ticket needs to be handled fast by dedicated staff, escalated or moved around to different people, and where the communication between sender and recipient is direct. A bug tracker may address these issues, but they typically do not.

You particularly need a ticket system when you want to distinguish between the "outside" and "inside" of your QA process. For example, sometimes bugs relate to specific customers and might contain sensitive information. Bugzilla has a rudimentary access control system, but it only works by project, not by bug.

One feature typically offered by ticket systems, and not by your run-of-the-mill bug tracker, is email-based ticket tracking, where from the user's point of view the entire workflow happens via email.

The only proper ticketing system I have encountered is OTRS, the "Open Ticket Request System". Web/email-based, GPLed, seems very much up to the task. No idea about attachment sizes, however.

Trac's bug tracking support is very simplistic; I would hesitate to use it for anything except tiny-scale personal projects. Bugzilla, however, is very good.
posted by gentle at 9:51 AM on August 15, 2006