Issue tracking software
Issue tracking software can help improve support experiences for customers and employees. Level up your support with the best issue tracking solution for 2024.
A guide to the 15 best issue tracking software of 2024
Last updated December 6, 2023
Whether it's your customer service or IT support team, your business handles a wide range of issues every day. Without an effective way to manage these issues, things can get lost in the shuffle, leading to unsolved problems and frustrated customers and employees.
Issue tracking software can help you avoid these frustrations, empowering your business to deliver streamlined, omnichannel support and create helpful service interactions for your customers and employees.
In this guide, explore the 15 best issue tracking software solutions, key features to look for, pricing and trial options, benefits, and how to choose the best software for your business.
More in this guide:
What is issue tracking software?
Issue tracking software records the problems that customers experience with a product. It enables support agents, engineers, and managers to monitor issues until they are successfully resolved.
Internal-facing teams (like an IT department) and external-facing teams (like customer support) use issue tracking software to receive, respond to, and report on support requests such as:
Bug reports
Questions about using the product
Login difficulties
Product feature requests
Onboarding assistance
When customers or employees have questions or problems, they can contact support through live chat, social media, email, or another channel. Based on the information the customer provides when contacting the organization, the issue tracking software creates and logs a support ticket. From there, agents can use the platform to track, route, reply to, and report on customer issues.
Issue tracking software comparison chart
To help you choose the best issue tracking software, we’ve selected a list of the best options available today. Our comparison chart breaks down options by starting price, free trial length, and key features.
| Software | Starting price | Free trial | Features |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zendesk | $55 per agent/month (billed annually) | 14 days |
|
| Backlog | $0 per month (up to 10 users) | 30 days |
|
| Jira | $0 per month (up to 10 users) | 7 days |
|
| Zoho BugTracker | $0 per month (up to 3 users) | 10 days |
|
| Redmine | $0 per month | Not applicable |
|
| Bugzilla | $0 per month | Not applicable |
|
| YouTrack | $0 per month (up to 10 users) | 14 days |
|
| nTask | $0 per month (up to 5 users) | 7 days |
|
| GitHub Issues | $0 per month (basic features) | 45 days (Enterprise Server plan only) |
|
| GitLab | $0 per month (basic features) | 30 days |
|
| Taiga | $0 per month (community support only) | Unavailable |
|
| ClickUp | $0 per month (limited features) | Unavailable |
|
| SolarWinds Service Desk | $39 per technician/month (billed annually) | 30 days |
|
| HappyFox | $29 per agent/month (billed annually) | Unavailable |
|
| Freshdesk | $0 per month (up to 10 agents) | 14 days |
|
The 15 best issue trackers
Let’s take a look at what the best issue tracker has to offer, including an overview of each product, key features, pricing, and free trial information.
1. Zendesk
Zendesk is an automated ticketing system and service desk software that acts as a shared inbox for every support inquiry. No matter what channel customers or employees use—email, chat, phone, social, or other—your support agents always have a complete, omnichannel view, making ticket management much easier.
Our end-to-end issue tracking and help desk software features a unified Agent Workspace, so your team doesn’t have to jump from channel to channel or request repeat details from individuals who have contacted support in the past. Agents can collaborate with other agents for trickier conversations or seamlessly transfer them to a department better suited for the request.
Zendesk includes powerful artificial intelligence (AI) technology trained on billions of customer, IT, and HR service interactions, enabling your business to offer fast, 24/7 conversational support without any coding. Similarly, Zendesk works out of the box, improving your support experiences from day one.
Features:
Open and flexible platform
Automation and prioritization
Custom roles and responsibilities
Pricing:
Suite Team: $55 per agent/month
Suite Growth: $89 per agent/month
Suite Professional: $115 per agent/month
Suite Enterprise: Talk to sales
Suite Enterprise Plus: Talk to sales
*Plans are billed annually.
Free trial:
14 days
2. Backlog
Backlog by Nulab is a project management software designed for virtual teams. The software includes issue and bug-tracking functionality, including issue templates, custom fields, and milestones, as well as the ability to add issues via email.
Users can keep track of projects and issues using Gantt charts, task boards, and burndown charts. Additionally, every Backlog task has its own history, comments, and files section, enabling users to keep tabs on the progress of each issue.
Features:
Open and flexible platform
Collaboration
Automation and prioritization
File sharing
Custom fields
Notifications
Pricing:
Free: $0 per month (up to 10 users)
Starter: $35 per month (up to 30 users)
Standard: $100 per month (unlimited users)
Premium: $175 per month (unlimited users)
Enterprise: Contact Nulab
Free trial:
30 days
3. Jira
Jira is software by Atlassian used for issue and project tracking. It features customizable templates for bug tracking, scrum boards, and kanban boards, as well as pre-built reports and dashboards.
The issue tracking software includes customizable workflows and automation using a drag-and-drop builder. With Jira, users can plan and track short and long-term projects using a timeline view.
Features:
Open and flexible platform
1,500+ apps and integrations
Collaboration
Real-time reporting and analytics
Time tracking
Automation and prioritization
Kanban and scrum boards
Pricing:
Free: $0 per month (up to 10 users)
Standard: $8.15 per user/month
Premium: $16 per user/month
Enterprise: Contact Atlassian
Free trial:
7 days
4. Zoho BugTracker
Zoho BugTracker is a bug and issue tracking software. Users can record and track bugs based on predetermined criteria like severity and due date. Zoho BugTracker includes automation features that enable administrators to trigger status updates and email notifications whenever preset rules are met.
The issue tracking system also includes time-tracking capabilities that let all team members log billable and non-billable hours. Additionally, users can communicate with teammates using private or group conversations.
Features:
Open and flexible platform
Collaboration
Real-time reporting and analytics
Time tracking
Automation and prioritization
Private and group chat
File sharing
Automated email notifications
Pricing:
Free: $0 per month (up to 3 users)
Standard: $3 per user/month
Premium: $7 per user/month
*Plans are billed annually.
Free trial:
10 days
Learn about Zoho BugTracker for Zendesk.
5. Redmine
Redmine is a project management web application with issue tracking capabilities. Unlike some other issue tracking software, Redmine is free and open-source. With Redmine, users can track issues using a calendar, Gantt chart, or timeline view.
The software also has forum capabilities, allowing users to communicate with one another using project-based forums. Additionally, Redmine has time-tracking functionality that lets users log hours for specific issues and projects.
Features:
Open and flexible platform
Collaboration
Time tracking
Email notifications
File sharing
Pricing:
Free
Free trial:
Not applicable
6. Bugzilla
Bugzilla is bug tracking software designed to help developers track and manage bugs, defects, and other issues. The software is free and open-source and supported on popular operating systems like Mac, Windows, and Linux.
The software includes advanced search capabilities for surfacing issues and milestones that let users track the progress of their products. Bugzilla also includes time-tracking capabilities, enabling users to log the hours dedicated to each bug.
Features:
Open and flexible platform
Time tracking
Email notifications
Custom workflows
Duplicate bug detection
Custom fields
Pricing:
Free
Free trial:
Not applicable
7. YouTrack
YouTrack is a browser-based project management, team collaboration, and issue tracker tool. Users can apply pre-made workflow templates or create their own using a drag-and-drop builder to automate the life cycles of issues.
The tool features a knowledge base that lets users share information and communicate with one another using discussion threads. It also offers messaging capabilities with Slack and Telegram integrations. The bug tracking tool also includes built-in time-tracking features to monitor the amount of time spent on issues, subtasks, and more.
Features:
Open and flexible platform
Collaboration
Real-time reporting and analytics
Time tracking
Automation and prioritization
Knowledge base
Kanban and scrum boards
Pricing:
1-10 users: $0 per month (cloud-based version)
11+ users: Starts at $3.67 per user/month (cloud-based version)
*Plans are billed annually.
Free trial:
14 days
8. nTask
The issue management software nTask enables users to keep track of tasks, projects, goals, and issues. With nTask, users can manage issues based on status and priority. The software also includes time-tracking functionality, allowing users to log time spent on each project.
The software allows users to add custom fields to issues, including dropdowns and checklists. Additionally, nTask offers collaboration features like built-in chat and file sharing for teammate communication.
Features:
Open and flexible platform
Collaboration
Real-time reporting and analytics
Time tracking
Automation and prioritization
Gantt charting
Custom fields
Pricing:
Basic: $0 per month (up to 5 users)
Premium: $3 per user/month
Business: $8 per user/month
Enterprise: Contact nTask
*Plans are billed annually.
Free trial:
7 days
9. GitHub Issues
GitHub Issues is a project planning tool designed for developers. Users can track issues by breaking them into actionable tasks with progress indicators. GitHub Issues also features customizable views for tracking projects, including tables, timelines, and boards.
The issue tracking tool includes custom fields, allowing users to track issue metadata like priority, due dates, and interactions. Users can also collaborate with tagging, emoji reactions, comments, and file sharing.
Features:
Open and flexible platform
Collaboration
Real-time reporting and analytics
Automation and prioritization
File sharing
Timeline view
Custom fields
Pricing:
Free: $0 per month (basic features)
Team: $3.67 per user/month
Enterprise: $19.25 per user/month
*Plans are billed annually.
Free trial:
45 days (for the Enterprise Server plan)
10. GitLab
GitLab is a development, security, and operations (DevSecOps) platform powered by AI. The platform offers issue tracking and project management tool features, including a drag-and-drop board for monitoring issues from your backlog until completion.
Use GitLab to organize issues with custom labels and milestones and create multiple issue boards for each project. GitLab has various visualization options, including Kanban and Scrum boards.
Features:
Open and flexible platform
Collaboration
Real-time reporting and analytics
Time tracking
Automation and prioritization
Kanban and scrum boards
Custom labels
Pricing:
Free: $0 per month (basic features)
Premium: $29 per user/month
Ultimate: $99 per user/month
*Plans are billed annually.
Free trial:
30 days
11. Taiga
Taiga is an open-source agile management software with issue and bug-tracking capabilities. Agile management software can help users manage software projects with an iterative approach. With Taiga, users can customize issues based on type, priority, and severity. The software also includes filtering and search features for finding and organizing them.
The agile management software is available in over 20 languages and is customizable, letting users add custom tags, fields, and colors. Additionally, Taiga includes kanban and scrum boards for project management.
Features:
Open and flexible platform
Collaboration
Real-time reporting and analytics
Kanban and scrum boards
Custom fields
Team performance dashboard
Pricing:
Taiga Cloud Basic: $0 per month (community support only)
Taiga Cloud with Premium support: $70 per month
Free trial:
Unavailable
12. ClickUp
ClickUp is a productivity and issue tracking app that lets users assign tasks, monitor issues, and map out project workflows. Users can set custom task statuses and project milestones and access automatic activity reports to track their progress.
The productivity tool includes collaboration features, including customizable whiteboards, project comments, chat, and collaborative documents. Additionally, users can track issues and projects using a timeline, board, or Gantt chart.
Features:
Open and flexible platform
Collaboration
Real-time reporting and analytics
Time tracking
Automation and prioritization
Custom fields
Custom notifications
Pricing:
Free: $0 per month (limited features)
Unlimited: $7 per member/month
Business: $12 per member/month
Enterprise: Contact ClickUp
*Plans are billed annually.
Free trial:
Unavailable
Learn about ClickUp for Zendesk.
13. SolarWinds Service Desk
SolarWinds Service Desk is an observability and IT service management (ITSM) platform featuring help desk ticketing and asset management software. With SolarWinds Service Desk, users can set up automatic ticket classification and routing and access customizable reports.
The ITSM platform also includes IT problem management capabilities, allowing users to group similar incidents into a single issue to help eliminate duplicates amongst agents. SolarWinds Service Desk also includes self-service options, including a knowledge base.
Features:
Open and flexible platform
Collaboration
Real-time reporting and analytics
Automation and prioritization
Knowledge base
Service desk chat
Pricing:
Essentials: $39 per technician/month
Advanced: $79 per technician/month
Premier: $99 per technician/month
*Plans are billed annually.
Free trial:
30 days
14. HappyFox
HappyFox is a help desk ticket management software with issue tracking capabilities. With HappyFox, users can manage and track issues using customizable metrics like due date, priority, and issue status.
Users can also automate issue tracking by setting predefined conditions called Smart Rules, which can trigger tasks like escalating overdue tickets. Additionally, HappyFox features automated reporting to help users track agent performance and metrics like average first response time.
Features:
Open and flexible platform
Collaboration
Real-time reporting and analytics
Time tracking
Automation and prioritization
Knowledge base
Prewritten responses
Pricing:
Mighty: $29 per agent/month
Fantastic: $49 per agent/month
Enterprise: $69 per agent/month
Enterprise Plus: $89 per agent/month
*Plans are billed annually.
Free trial:
Unavailable
Learn about HappyFox for Zendesk.
15. Freshdesk
Freshdesk is a customer service and issue tracking software. With Freshdesk, users can track and collaborate on issues using a shared inbox. The software also offers customization features that enable support agents to create custom ticket statuses based on specific workflows.
The software has omnichannel support features, although users must toggle between three apps (Freshdesk, Freshchat, and Freshcaller), which can create a disjointed experience for agents and may negatively impact their efficiency.
Features:
Open and flexible platform
Collaboration
Time tracking
Automation and prioritization
Team inbox
Custom ticket status
Prewritten responses
Pricing:
Free: $0 per month (up to 10 agents)
Growth: $15 per agent/month
Pro: $49 per agent/month
Enterprise: $79 per agent/month
*Plans are billed annually.
Free trial:
14 days
See how Zendesk and Freshdesk compare.
Features of best issue tracking software
The best issue tracking systems have what your IT and service desk agents need to deliver seamless, personalized service and a positive customer experience (CX). When picking an issue tracker for your business, remember to look for the following features.
Analytics and reporting
As with any process, reporting is essential for ensuring issue tracking is as effective as possible. High-level analytics and custom reporting capabilities can help:
Monitor performance.
Track lead conversions.
Optimize funnels.
This can help team efficiency, improving customer and employee satisfaction and backend performance in the process. Just about every software option out there should include some form of customer service report, but access to advanced analytics may vary by offering.
Zendesk, for instance, offers advanced reporting and analytics features, including customizable and pre-built reporting dashboards with real-time and historical data you can use to identify trends and analyze your service and sales performance.
Time tracking
Time tracking is another valuable feature for issue and bug tracking software. Issue tracking tools with workforce management (WFM) capabilities, like time tracking, enable your business to track agent activity, productivity, and efficiency in real time. That way, you can see where your team spends their time and better anticipate how long certain issues take to resolve.
Automation and prioritization
Artificial intelligence and automation have become increasingly vital for ramping up efficiency across business processes—issue tracking included. An issue tracker with routing and intelligence capabilities automates routine tasks like ticket assignment, so you spend less time sorting through tickets and more time helping employees and customers.
Additionally, AI-powered chatbots can handle straightforward issues and questions, allowing your human agents to prioritize high-level interactions and focus on solving complex issues.
With Zendesk, our intelligent triage technology automatically analyzes each service request to determine customer intent, sentiment, and language. Then, it routes the ticket to the most capable agent for the job.
Integrations
When choosing a tool that’s supposed to make things easier, it’s common to focus solely on the tool’s functionality as it relates to your customer. But it’s equally important—if not more—to find an issue tracker system that makes your support agents’ and managers’ lives easier. This means opting for issue trackers with a wide range of native integrations, including project management tools, asset tracking systems, and survey tools.
For example, with Zendesk, you can effortlessly enhance your existing tech stack with 1,500+ apps and integrations with no coding required.
Collaboration
As the saying goes, “Teamwork makes the dream work.” Collaboration features are essential for empowering your support team to work together.
Whether fixing software bugs, answering customer questions, or handling an employee's payroll issue with HR help desk software, a complete issue tracking solution should feature a collaborative workspace.
For instance, Zendesk features a unified Agent Workspace support agents can use to collaborate across departments and access customer and employee data in a single place to provide quick and seamless resolutions.
Benefits of issue management software
When you implement the right issue management software, you can reach new levels of productivity, achieve higher employee and customer satisfaction, and access enhanced customer support capabilities. Read on to learn more about the benefits of issue tracking software.
Increased productivity
For most support teams, solving issues drives everyday workflow. As customer and employee issues arise, support teams must ensure the right person promptly handles these issues. With issue tracking software like Zendesk, you can automate this process by intelligently routing tickets based on agent availability, workload, and expertise.
And if your agents are busy, AI chatbots can quickly step in to help customers and employees, answering questions and providing self-service support. This kind of automation enhances the overall productivity of your support team even when they’re at their busiest.
Improved employee and customer satisfaction
Improved customer and employee satisfaction is a byproduct of a more productive support team. With issue tracking software, agents can readily access data that helps them deliver better and faster service. For example, agents can review past support interactions and provide personalized support without asking repetitive questions, increasing customer and employee satisfaction.
Additionally, a ticket tracker system ensures every issue gets addressed thanks to automated self-service and ticket routing. This positively impacts satisfaction because customers and employees can still get the help they need—even when agents are busy or away from their desks.
Seamless tracking and reporting
With issue tracking software like Zendesk, you can easily analyze and report on important employee and customer service metrics like:
Average resolution time
Average first reply time
Tickets handled vs. tickets resolved per hour
Occupancy rate
By effortlessly measuring support performance, issue tracker software helps managers make smarter, data-driven decisions about resource allocation and training. In the long term, this empowers organizations to learn, improve, and provide better service, whether solving IT requests like password resets or helping customers process a return.
Some examples of issue tracking scenarios
To help you better understand how issue tracking software can help your business, let’s walk through some issue tracking scenarios:
Scenario #1: An employee can’t log in to a company database.
An employee emails your IT help desk describing their issue.
As soon as the employee sends their message, issue tracking software automatically creates a ticket and intelligently routes the conversation to the best agent to provide a resolution.
The issue tracking software notifies the proper agent and provides them with context about the issue.
An agent quickly jumps in and instructs the employee on how to fix the issue.
Scenario #2: A customer is unable to change their password.
A customer goes to your company website and asks for help changing their password over live chat.
As soon as the customer sends their message, an AI-powered chatbot responds to the customer, sending a knowledge base article detailing the required steps to change their password.
The customer reads the article and follows the steps to change their password without human agent intervention.
In both scenarios, issue tracking software is crucial in saving agents time and providing employees and customers with speedy resolutions.
How to choose the right issue tracking software
Now that you’ve learned about issue tracking and understand how the software works, it’s time to choose the right solution for your business. When choosing issue tracking software, keep the following considerations in mind:
Total cost of ownership
Issue trackers vary widely in terms of cost and functionality. While free help desk ticketing systems and free trouble ticket software exist, they may lack essential features your business needs.
Finding the best issue tracking solution that offers only the necessary features and functions can be a challenge. However, as your company and support teams grow and change, your issue tracking software's ideal cost and functionality should, too. The best issue trackers have a low total cost of ownership (TCO) that meets your needs as your team evolves without any surprise fees. With Zendesk, for example, you won’t need an army of developers to get started, saving you money.
Time to value
Time to value (TTV) is a concept that refers to the time it takes a customer to realize a product’s value from initial onboarding. TTV is important because the sooner your agents, managers, and executives realize the value of the issue tracker, the easier it will be to secure buy-in.
This is why an easy, low-cost setup should be one of your buying priorities. The faster you can get your issue tracker up and running, the faster it can create value for your company. Choosing an out-of-the-box solution like Zendesk empowers your team to offer meaningful omnichannel support from the start.
Scalability
For small and midsize businesses (SMBs), issue tracking software is especially critical when managing resources—whether optimizing productivity for a small support team or providing customers with self-service options.
As your business grows, so does the complexity and number of tickets. Your issue tracker or help desk software for SMBs must contain tools that allow it to scale along with your company so customers continue receiving excellent service. With our AI-powered issue tracking software, Zendesk enables businesses to help more customers while taking work off of agents' plates.
The agent experience
A happy agent is a helpful agent. To make sure your agents are on their A game, keep them as happy as possible by providing them with an end-to-end issue tracking solution like Zendesk that offers the following features:
Chatbots, which can support customers or employees when agents are off the clock
Self-service to deflect ticket volume and lighten agents’ workloads
A unified agent workspace, so agents can respond to customers across channels in a single location
Routing and intelligence, which ensure agents only receive requests they can handle
Collaboration tools that enable agents to easily work with teammates on tickets
By improving the agent experience, you also improve the customer experience, customer retention, and CSAT in the process.
The customer experience
At the end of the day, offering a positive customer experience is vital. Because of this, you'll want to choose issue tracking software that enables your agents to meet customer needs and provide meaningful support interactions.
It’s also important to think about how issue tracking software can improve or maintain customer engagement. Prioritize a solution like Zendesk that will give customers access to efficient, personalized service, complete with feedback-collecting tools that account for their points of view.
Frequently asked questions
PURE delivers innovative internal support with a boost from Assist
“Zendesk helps reduce friction in our ticket escalation process by empowering teams to collaborate and share information smoothly, which creates a better experience for agents, brokers, and customers.”
Howard Muhlstein
Vice President of Infrastructure Services
Read customer story
Ready to start using an issue tracker?
To ensure your customers and employees receive the necessary support, choose issue tracking software that is scalable, offers a quick TTV and low TCO, and is built with agents and customers in mind. No matter where customers or employees reach out, Zendesk makes it easy to track issues from start to finish. Our complete support solution allows you to offer stellar support on day one without configuring complex software or hiring an army of developers. Try Zendesk for free today.
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