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[Michaël Samyn]

So far, we've always kept track of bugs and issues in wiki's, just the two of us. But now that we're going to work with people external to the company for beta-testing, I was wondering if we shouldn't use a bug tracking system, so that everyone can submit bugs easily and that we can sort them out.

I'd appreciate to hear about your experience with bug tracking applications.
Software recommendations are welcome too.

[Saint]

Yes, having a bug tracking system helps immensely when you get a lot of issues seeing as you automatically get information and communication categorized to the relevant issues and can track progress without having to rely on people formatting properly. If you get a lot of bugs it also helps a lot to have a system in place for grouping them into categories and assigning responsibilities.

TRAC is a free system that works very well, though it is more along the lines of a project management utility that includes an issue tracker. Roundup is another, pure issue tracker that is slightly simpler.

As for commercial solutions, We use Hansoft at work and while that is very good it is an all-encompassing production management tool that might be overkill for a project with only two developers. We've also used Devtrack and Testtrack which were both very solid solutions with a lot of options for customization, but again, they might be overly complex for a small company.

[Michaël Samyn]

Thanks for the tips!

Has anybody used XMsuite? It's a free web-based system that you just sign up for instead of having to install anything on your own server.

[AshleysBrain]

SourceForge have a good bug tracker, but that's for open-source only.  Otherwise Mantis looks good (http://www.mantisbt.org/) and you could always try Bugzilla (http://www.bugzilla.org/).