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Best Free Bug Tracking Tools in 2026

The 15 best free bug tracking tools we track: 2 completely free and 13 with a free plan alongside paid tiers. No credit card needed to start.

free tools screened
17
free tools screened
100% free
2
100% free
free plan + paid
13
free plan + paid

Ranked by public user ratings (G2, Capterra, Trustpilot), not vendor pitches. Every rating shows its date.

As featured in
  • TechCrunch
  • Forbes
  • Bloomberg
  • The Verge
  • Business Insider
Key Takeaways
  • Jira is our free pick for bug tracking in 2026, and our overall pick.
  • We evaluated 17 bug tracking tools to create this ranking.
  • 15 tools offer free plans, perfect for getting started.

Top 5 free bug tracking tools at a glance

Top 5 free bug tracking tools: free plan type, user rating and best use, as of October 2026
ToolTypeRatingBest for
JiraFree plan3.6 (8,109) as of Sep 2026
The industry standard for software development tracking and agile workflows
ShortcutFree plan4.5 (540) as of Sep 2026
Project management for software teams
UserbackFree plan4.7 (361) as of Sep 2026
Collect, understand, and act on user feedback to build better products faster.
RollbarFree plan4.5 (435) as of Sep 2026
Real-time error tracking and debugging
Pivotal TrackerFree plan4.2 (249) as of Sep 2026
Agile project management and issue tracking for software development teams.

Ratings from G2, Capterra, and other public review sites. Each cell shows the snapshot date so a cited number is never an undated one.

Toolradar data

The bug tracking tools market in numbers

Toolradar data: Toolradar tracks 23 bug tracking tools as of October 13, 2026. 74% of the bug tracking tools on Toolradar are free, freemium or open source. Toolradar re-checked the pricing of 83% of bug tracking tools in the last 90 days. Toolradar aggregates 10,633 public user reviews (G2, Capterra, Trustpilot and other review sites) across 15 rated bug tracking tools. The most cross-shopped bug tracking tool is Jira, listed as an alternative to 51 other tools on Toolradar. The most compared bug tracking tool on Toolradar over the last 90 days is Jira, with 557 side-by-side comparisons. Computed from the Toolradar catalog and on-site activity.

  • 23 bug tracking tools tracked
  • 74% are free, freemium or open source
  • 83% of prices re-checked in the last 90 days
  • 10,633 public user reviews aggregated across 15 rated tools
Most cross-shopped bug tracking tools on Toolradar, as of October 2026 Listed as an alternative to the most other tools on Toolradar
Rank Tool Listed as an alternative to
1 Jira 51 tools
2 Linear 37 tools
3 Shortcut 16 tools
Most compared bug tracking tools on Toolradar, last 90 days to October 2026 Side-by-side comparisons by visitors, last 90 days
Rank Tool Comparisons
1 Jira 557
2 Linear 441
3 GitHub Issues 139

Source and method: live bug tracking tools statistics

Jira logo
1.

Jira

Free plan

The industry standard for software development tracking and agile workflows

3.6/5 across SourceForge, G2 and Trustpilot · 8,109 ratings, Sep 2026

Jira is the enterprise standard for issue tracking and project management in software teams. It's been around long enough that many developers have opinions about it-not always positive-but it remains dominant because it handles complexity that simpler tools can't. The configuration options are extensive. Workflows define how issues move through states-from backlog to development to review to done, with branches for bugs versus features versus support tickets. Custom fields capture data specific to your organization. Schemes control what appears in which project. This complexity serves a purpose. When you have a hundred developers across multiple teams, with compliance requirements, cross-team dependencies, and detailed reporting needs, you need a system that can model all of it. Jira does. Jira Software includes agile boards-Scrum and Kanban-that visualize work in flight. Sprints plan iterations, backlogs prioritize future work, and velocity charts track team capacity. These tools support standard agile practices without dictating exactly how you work. The integration ecosystem is vast. Atlassian's own products (Confluence, Bitbucket, Trello) integrate deeply, and the Marketplace offers thousands of apps for everything from time tracking to test management. Enterprise IT teams can build sophisticated toolchains around Jira. JQL (Jira Query Language) enables powerful filtering and reporting. Once you learn it, you can find anything-issues assigned to your team due this week, bugs created last month that aren't resolved, or complex queries combining multiple criteria. The criticisms are valid: Jira can feel slow, configuration is overwhelming, and the UI has accumulated cruft. Atlassian has been modernizing, but the legacy shows. For teams that need the capability, these trade-offs are acceptable.

Shortcut logo
2.

Shortcut

Free plan

Project management for software teams

4.5/5 across G2 and Capterra · 540 ratings, Sep 2026

Shortcut is a project management and issue tracking platform built for software development teams. It combines kanban boards, sprints, roadmaps, docs, and objectives into a single workspace so engineering, product, and design teams can plan, track, and ship work without juggling multiple tools. Deep integrations with GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket auto-update stories as code moves through review and deploy. Built-in reporting surfaces cycle time, throughput, and velocity metrics. Shortcut also offers an AI agent (Korey) and an MCP server for agentic coding workflows with tools like Cursor and Claude Code. SOC 2, GDPR, and HIPAA-ready security is available across plans.

Userback logo
3.

Userback

Free plan

Collect, understand, and act on user feedback to build better products faster.

4.7/5 across G2 and Capterra · 361 ratings, Sep 2026

Userback is a comprehensive user feedback software designed for product teams to streamline the process of collecting, understanding, and acting on user feedback. It provides a suite of tools that allow users to submit feedback directly from websites or applications, including bug reports, feature requests, and general insights. The platform helps product teams move faster by offering contextual information with every feedback item, such as user identification, video recordings, screen annotations, and session replays. This rich context eliminates the need for follow-up questions, enabling immediate decision-making and action. Userback also facilitates faster resolution and product improvement through automation, public roadmaps, integrations with popular tools, and efficient feedback management. It aims to bridge the gap between product teams and their users, ensuring that user input leads to tangible product enhancements and increased customer satisfaction. Userback is ideal for product managers, customer support teams, web agencies, and SaaS companies looking to improve their product development cycle, enhance user experience, and prioritize features based on actual user needs. It helps ditch traditional, less efficient methods like emails and spreadsheets for a more integrated and actionable feedback system.

Rollbar logo
4.

Rollbar

Free plan

Real-time error tracking and debugging

4.5/5 across G2 and Capterra · 435 ratings, Sep 2026

Rollbar monitors errors across stack and platforms. Error tracking with real-time alerting-catch problems before users report them. The grouping is intelligent. The real-time helps. The platform coverage is broad. Development teams monitoring production use Rollbar for comprehensive error tracking.

Pivotal Tracker logo
5.

Pivotal Tracker

Free plan

Agile project management and issue tracking for software development teams.

4.2/5 across G2 and Capterra · 249 ratings, Sep 2026

Pivotal Tracker is a story-based project management tool designed specifically for agile software development teams. It helps teams break down large projects into manageable "stories" (features, bugs, chores) and track their progress through an intuitive, drag-and-drop interface. The tool emphasizes collaboration, transparency, and continuous delivery, making it suitable for teams practicing Scrum or Kanban. It's primarily for software development teams, product managers, and stakeholders who need a clear, real-time view of project status and team velocity. By focusing on stories and iterations, it encourages a lean approach to development, helping teams prioritize work, estimate effort, and adapt to changing requirements efficiently. The built-in analytics provide insights into team performance and project health.

MantisBT logo
6.

MantisBT

100% free

Open-source issue tracker balancing simplicity and power for effective project collaboration.

4.4/5 across SourceForge and G2 · 114 ratings, Sep 2026

MantisBT is an open-source issue tracking system designed to facilitate collaboration among team members and clients. It offers a balance of simplicity, allowing users to quickly get started, and powerful features for managing projects and tracking issues efficiently. The platform is suitable for various project types, particularly software development, where tracking bugs, feature requests, and other project-related tasks is crucial. Key functionalities include customizable workflows, role-based access control, and email notifications to keep all stakeholders informed about issue updates. Users can tailor issue fields and notification settings to fit their specific project needs. MantisBT aims to streamline communication and task management, ensuring that teams can effectively collaborate on resolving issues and progressing projects.

Zipy logo
7.

Zipy

Free plan

AI-powered session replays, error tracking, and analytics for optimizing user experience.

4.9/5 on G2 · 52 ratings, Sep 2026

Zipy is an AI-driven platform designed to help engineering, product, and marketing teams understand user behavior, detect errors, and optimize conversions. It provides AI-powered session replays that automatically identify and prioritize UI bugs and user frustration points, eliminating the need to manually sift through countless recordings. The platform translates technical errors into user-facing messages, making issues understandable for both technical and non-technical teams. Beyond session replays, Zipy offers robust error tracking capabilities, capturing frontend JavaScript errors and API failures across various frameworks like React, Angular, and Vue.js. It provides real-time monitoring, smart alerts, and detailed context for debugging, allowing teams to quickly identify, prioritize, and resolve issues. By unifying user session replay, frontend, and network monitoring, Zipy aims to accelerate growth by proactively addressing user experience problems and improving debugging efficiency.

Firebase Crashlytics logo

Track, prioritize, and fix app crashes faster with AI-powered insights and real-time monitoring.

4.2/5 across SourceForge and G2 · 33 ratings, Sep 2026

Firebase Crashlytics is a comprehensive crash reporting solution designed for app developers to efficiently manage and resolve application crashes and Application Not Responding (ANR) errors. It automatically captures and groups crashes into manageable issues, prioritizing them based on user impact, allowing developers to focus on the most critical problems first. The tool provides AI-powered insights, leveraging Gemini and Firebase's extensive crash knowledge, to accelerate troubleshooting and identify root causes. It offers deep contextual information, including event timelines and metadata visualizations, to aid in reproducing bugs. Crashlytics integrates seamlessly into existing development workflows, supporting popular tools like Jira, Slack, BigQuery, and Android Studio, enabling developers to debug directly within their IDE. It also provides real-time release monitoring, custom logging, and alerts to ensure app stability and a smooth user experience.

Shake logo
9.

Shake

Free plan

Streamline bug and crash reporting for mobile apps and websites with rich, automatic data.

4.9/5 across G2 and Capterra · 8 ratings, Sep 2026

Shake is a bug and crash reporting tool designed for mobile apps and websites, providing developers, testers, and product managers with comprehensive data to quickly identify and fix issues. It automatically attaches crucial information to each bug report, eliminating the need for vague explanations and manual data collection. The platform offers an SDK for mobile applications that allows users and testers to submit reports directly from within the app, capturing over 70 unique data points including device model, OS version, app version, HTTP logs, and steps to reproduce. For web applications, a free Chrome extension enables users to send detailed bug reports without any coding. Shake aims to centralize all bug reports and user feedback, integrating with existing tools and offering features like team collaboration, automated ticket creation, and customizable reporting to enhance the debugging and resolution process. Shake is built to be lightweight, ensuring it doesn't affect app speed, and is GDPR & CCPA compliant, prioritizing user data security. It helps teams understand user behavior better, prioritize issues effectively, and ultimately deliver a more stable and user-friendly product experience.

BetterBugs logo
10.

BetterBugs

Free plan

Capture, annotate, and report bugs and feedback directly from your browser.

BetterBugs is a browser extension designed to streamline the bug reporting and feedback collection process for software development teams. It allows users to quickly capture screenshots or record videos of issues directly within their browser, annotate them with various tools, and then automatically generate detailed bug reports. The tool integrates with popular project management and communication platforms, making it easy to share reports with developers and stakeholders. This tool is ideal for QA testers, developers, product managers, and anyone involved in the software development lifecycle who needs an efficient way to document and communicate software defects or gather user feedback. By simplifying the reporting process, BetterBugs helps reduce the time spent on bug reproduction and communication, leading to faster issue resolution and improved product quality. Key benefits include eliminating back-and-forth communication, providing clear visual context for bugs, and integrating seamlessly into existing workflows. It aims to make bug reporting less tedious and more effective, ensuring that all necessary information is captured the first time.

GitHub Issues logo
12.

GitHub Issues

Free plan

Project planning and issue tracking built for developers, integrated directly into GitHub.

GitHub Issues provides a flexible and powerful way for development teams to plan, track, and discuss their work directly within their repositories. It allows users to create issues, break them down into sub-issues, track progress with indicators, and add custom fields for metadata like priority or story points. The platform supports rich conversations using GitHub Flavored Markdown, mentions, emojis, and attachments, all while referencing commits, pull requests, and deploys. Beyond basic issue tracking, GitHub Issues offers "Projects" which are adaptable planning canvases. These projects can be visualized as tables, boards, or roadmaps, allowing teams to create custom views for sprints, backlogs, or releases. It includes features like project insights with burn-up charts to identify bottlenecks, shareable project templates, and keyboard shortcuts for efficient navigation. GitHub Issues is designed for developers, offering integration with GitHub CLI and mobile apps for managing work on the go, ensuring planning stays connected to the code.

OneDev logo
13.

OneDev

Free plan

The powerful and simple DevOps platform for code, CI/CD, and issue management.

OneDev is a comprehensive DevOps platform that integrates source code management, CI/CD pipelines, and issue tracking into a single, cohesive solution. It provides advanced features like language-aware symbol search, fast code search with regular expressions, and automated security and license scanning for dependencies and binaries. The platform streamlines development workflows by enabling discussions directly on code snippets, suggesting and applying changes, and automating pull request merges based on review and test results. Designed for development teams of all sizes, OneDev aims to simplify the DevOps process by offering an intuitive GUI for CI/CD job creation, customizable issue states and fields, and built-in AI capabilities for natural language queries and code explanations. It supports both containerized and bare-metal CI/CD execution, with scalability options via Kubernetes or agents. OneDev also includes a built-in package registry and robust project hierarchy for efficient organization and settings inheritance, making it suitable for managing complex software projects with ease.

GlitchTip logo
14.

GlitchTip

Free plan

Collect, organize, and alert on software errors and performance in real-time, affordably.

GlitchTip is an open-source error tracking, performance monitoring, and uptime checking tool designed to help developers and teams monitor their software applications. It collects errors from projects in real-time, organizes them for usability, and provides alerts, all while being compatible with Sentry client SDKs. This makes it an accessible alternative for those already familiar with Sentry's ecosystem but seeking a more budget-friendly or self-hosted solution. The platform emphasizes simplicity, affordability, and the freedom that comes with open-source software. Users can choose to run GlitchTip on their own servers for complete control or opt for the hosted version. It's ideal for individual developers, small teams, and organizations looking for a robust yet economical solution to maintain the health and performance of their applications without breaking the bank. GlitchTip is developed by Burke Software and Consulting, a team committed to open-source development.

Taiga logo
15.

Taiga

100% free

Open-source agile project management for cross-functional teams with intuitive UI and self-hosting options.

Taiga is a free and open-source project management tool designed for cross-functional agile teams. It offers a rich set of features for planning, team interaction, and gaining insights into project progress, all through an intuitive user interface that requires no extensive training or complex setup. The platform supports both Kanban and Scrum methodologies, allowing teams to define deliverables, manage backlogs, plan sprints, track issues, and visualize progress with burn-down charts. Taiga emphasizes transparency and communication, helping teams align on priorities, share progress, and address bottlenecks effectively. It also provides extensive customization options for workflows, roles, permissions, and reporting. Taiga is ideal for teams looking for a flexible, adaptable, and open-source solution for agile project management. It caters to organizations that prefer to host their data on-premise or require significant customization, offering self-hosted options alongside cloud-based plans. Its focus on ease of use and comprehensive agile features makes it suitable for teams of varying sizes and complexities.

Related

Why choose free bug tracking tools?

Free bug tracking tools are an excellent way to get started without financial commitment. Whether you're a startup, freelancer, or small business, these tools offer essential features at no cost.

What to look for in free bug tracking tools

  • Feature limitations: Understand what's included in the free tier vs paid plans
  • Usage limits: Check for restrictions on users, storage, or API calls
  • Data ownership: Ensure you own your data and can export it
  • Support: Free tiers often have community-only support
  • Upgrade path: Consider future needs if you outgrow the free tier

Free vs Freemium: what's the difference?

100% free 100% free, no payment ever

Completely free with no paid upgrades available. Best for simple, focused workflows that don't require advanced features.

Free plan Free tier + paid upgrades

Generous free tier with optional paid plans that unlock advanced features, higher limits, or team collaboration.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best free bug tracking tool in 2026?

Jira is our free bug tracking pick in 2026. Jira offers a free plan alongside paid plans: The industry standard for software development tracking and agile workflows.

Is Jira really free forever?

Jira uses a freemium model: there is a permanent free tier you can use without a credit card, plus optional paid plans that unlock higher usage limits and advanced features. The free tier itself does not expire.

What does the free tier of bug tracking tools typically include?

Free bug tracking tools typically include the core workflow features needed to evaluate the product. Paid plans usually unlock higher usage limits, team collaboration, advanced analytics, integrations, and priority support. The specific cap differs per tool.

When should I upgrade from a free bug tracking tool?

Upgrade when you hit one of the free tier ceilings: usage quota (output count, storage, contacts, projects), team size, or a paid-only feature your workflow depends on.

Are there bug tracking tools that are 100% free, not just freemium?

Yes. We found 2 completely free bug tracking tools (no paid upgrade path) and 13 tools with a permanent free tier alongside paid plans. MantisBT, Taiga are 100% free.

Are free bug tracking tools good enough for business use?

Yes, for most startups, freelancers, and small teams. Jira and Shortcut both offer free tiers robust enough for production workflows. Larger teams typically upgrade when they need SSO, audit logs, advanced permissions, or usage past the free quota.

Last updated: October 9, 2026

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