The best issue tracking software is the one your team will keep up to date without being nagged. Small teams and open source projects can do well with a free or self-hosted tracker; product teams running sprints across several squads need boards, workflows and roadmaps that scale.
Every team tracks issues somewhere. In the early days it's chat messages and a shared document; then a customer bug gets lost, two people fix the same thing and nobody can say what shipped last week. That's usually when someone goes looking for an issue tracker.
This list covers open source and self-hosted trackers, developer-focused tools and agile project tools with issue tracking built in. If you're improving how your developers work more widely, see my guide to developer productivity tools worth having, and for code itself, these AI prompts for code review help find bugs earlier.
Issue trackers at a glance
Here's what each tool is, what it's good for and whether its own site names a free plan, a trial or neither. The list is alphabetical and in no particular order.
| Tool | Type | Good for | Free plan |
|---|---|---|---|
| Backlog | Tasks plus code | Developers and designers together | Trial only |
| Bugzilla | Open source bug tracker | Self-hosted bug tracking at scale | Yes |
| GitHub Issues | Repo-based tracker | Teams whose code lives on GitHub | Yes |
| Huly | Open source workspace | Replacing several tools at once | Yes |
| Jira | Agile issue tracker | Scrum and kanban at scale | Yes |
| Linear | Fast product tracker | Fast-moving product teams | Yes |
| MantisBT | Open source bug tracker | Simple bug tracking with clients | Yes |
| Redmine | Open source tracker | Hosting your own tracker | Yes |
| Shortcut | Software team tracker | Sprints, boards and roadmaps | Yes |
| YouTrack | Issues plus helpdesk | Dev teams with a support desk | Yes |
Issue and bug tracking tools
Backlog
Best for: Mixed teams of developers and designers who want issues, Git repositories and project tasks in one tool instead of three.
Bugzilla
Best for: Teams who want a mature, self-hosted bug tracker that large open source projects already trust with their own products.
GitHub Issues
Best for: Developers whose code already lives on GitHub who want issues and project boards sitting right next to their code and pull requests.
Huly
Best for: Small teams who want an open source workspace that combines issue tracking with chat, documents and a virtual office.
Jira
Best for: Software and product teams who want flexible boards, sprints and workflows that can grow from one team to a whole company.
Linear
Best for: Startup product and engineering teams who want a fast, opinionated tracker for issues, projects and roadmaps without heavy configuration.
MantisBT
Best for: Small teams who want a simple open source bug tracker they can start using in minutes, with clients able to report issues too.
Redmine
Best for: Technical teams who want to host their own issue tracker, wiki and roadmap on a cross-platform, cross-database application.
Shortcut
Best for: Engineering teams who want issue tracking, sprints and roadmaps built in, plus an AI agent for product engineering workflows.
YouTrack
Best for: Development teams who also run a helpdesk and want issues, support tickets, agile boards and a knowledge base in one JetBrains product.
The life of a well-tracked issue
- Report: someone records what happened, what they expected and how to reproduce it.
- Triage: the team sets priority, assigns an owner and links duplicates.
- Work: the issue moves through clear statuses as it's built, reviewed and tested.
- Release: the fix ships and the issue is linked to the change that fixed it.
- Learn: recurring issues are reviewed so the cause gets fixed, not just the symptom.
Give security reports a way in
RFC 9116, published by the RFC Editor, notes that when researchers discover security vulnerabilities, reporting channels are often lacking, so vulnerabilities can go unreported. It defines a machine-readable file format, security.txt, so organisations can describe their vulnerability disclosure practices.
Your issue tracker only helps with problems that reach it. Publish a clear route for outside security reports, then send those reports into a private queue in your tracker, separate from public issues, so they're fixed before they're discussed openly.
Want AI doing the heavy lifting in your marketing?
I build the systems that handle the boring 80 percent, so you get your week back. Done properly, with the human kept in.
Self-hosted or cloud tracker?
A self-hosted tracker runs on your own servers. You control the data and can customise more, but you also handle updates, backups and security. It suits technical teams with strict data rules or open source projects used to running their own tools.
A cloud tracker is ready in minutes and updates itself. It suits most product teams, and free plans on several tools let small teams start without any commitment.
What makes a bug report useful
- A short title that says what's wrong, not just that something's broken.
- Steps to reproduce, numbered, from a clean start.
- What you expected to happen and what happened instead.
- Device, browser, version or account details where they matter.
- A screenshot, recording or error message attached to the issue.
Add a template with these fields to your tracker. It takes ten minutes to set up and saves hours of back-and-forth questions on every unclear report.
Moving from chat and spreadsheets
Don't import every old message and row. Move the open issues that still matter, close the rest and note where the old record lives. Starting clean is the fastest way to get a team trusting the new tracker.
Then agree one rule everyone follows: if it isn't in the tracker, it isn't being worked on. It sounds strict, but it's what stops requests drifting back into chat within a month.
Do you make issue tracking software? Tool makers can ask to be considered for a featured place on this list.
My advice on choosing issue tracking software
Choose for the people who report issues, not just the people who fix them. If support staff, clients or designers find the tracker confusing, they'll go back to chat messages and your tracker will only show half the picture.
Keep the workflow small at first. Five statuses and a handful of labels cover most teams; you can add more once you see where work really gets stuck, and you'll avoid the overgrown setup nobody understands six months later.
Frequently asked questions
What is issue tracking software?
It's software that records bugs, tasks and requests as issues, so teams can prioritise, assign and follow each one through to a fix.
Is issue tracking the same as bug tracking?
Bug tracking is one kind of issue tracking. Issue trackers usually handle features, tasks and support requests as well as bugs.
Is there free issue tracking software?
Yes. Several trackers are open source, and some cloud tools have free plans for small teams. Check each tool's own site for the limits.
Should security bugs go in the normal tracker?
Report them through a published route and keep them in a private queue. RFC 9116 defines security.txt to describe how to report vulnerabilities.
Do non-technical teams use issue trackers?
Yes. Support, marketing and operations teams use them for requests and tasks, especially when they work closely with developers.
