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I'm in the market for a ticketing system and I'm curious what everyone else is using. I'd like to welcome everyone to post their favorite ticketing system and the reason they like it so much.

My criteria in selecting a ticketing system is:

  • Should be open source
  • Users should be able to do 100% of their interaction by email. No need to use the web interface at all. I don't even really care if there is a customer web interface.
  • Should let me handle as much by email as possible. (at least, let me reply to tickets by email)
  • Should be fairly simple to install with few dependencies.
  • The web interface shouldn't make me want to gouge my eyes out.

Things I don't really care about:

  • Time tracking.
  • Prioritization is not a huge priority. (groan)
  • Sub-tasks, task depdencies, queues, etc.
  • Pretty much anything else that doesn't aid getting issues out of my email and into a tracking system.

I've used Trac successfully as a ticketing system in the past (just turned off the wiki, repository, etc) and I wouldn't mind using it or Redmine again if I knew of some email plugins. At a previous company, I used Request Tracker which fulfills nearly all the criteria, but had so many dependencies that nothing else I run needs that I finally just decided it wasn't worth it.

I have OTRS up and running, and it fulfills all the email requirements, was pretty straightforward to setup, but I really dislike the (IT) web interface. Perhaps I'm using it wrong, but the way it handles listing tickets and helping me find what to do is far inferior to RT.

Perhaps I'm just being really nit-picky, but I figure I'm going to have to be using whatever system I choose all day long every day so I might as well really like it. And as long as the users only have to interact with help@example.com, it's transparent to them.

So what are you using/have used that you really really like and why?

HopelessN00b
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abourg
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15 Answers15

11

Request Tracker all the way.

The dependencies aren't nearly as much of an issue as they used to be, as long as you don't care about having the absolutely latest version. On RHEL5 systems, you just configure your system to use EPEL and run "yum install rt3". On Ubuntu, it's something more like "apt-get install request-tracker3.6", but "apt-cache search request-tracker rt3" will give you a list of all the related packages.

Yes, both of those options pull in a whole lot of perl modules, but so? There's somebody else who's already built them and is worrying about keeping them current.

freiheit
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9

We use "RT: Request Tracker" by Best Practical. I'm 99% sure it's open source, but you've already used it, so you should know what it's capable of.

nullArray
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8

Opensource:

Redmine ; Definitive. It's easy to use, has a lightweight footprint and it fulfills my needs.

Proprietary:

Jira ; heavyweight. For realy process management into tickets.

Martin K.
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5

My favourite is JIRA. It's open source but not free. Works here for more that two years without a glitch. It's main strength are customizable workflows, so you can adjust the tracking system to your own workflow (that people are used to, h+owever bad it is), not vice versa.

Aleksandar Ivanisevic
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5

I would have to say OTRS. First off, its open source and used by many large organizations. I have implemented it at two companies including where I currently work. I used it everyday for everything. It has email to ticket functions and I have it authenticating with AD with ease. Give it a look or try. In the past I have used Numara Track-It and it was OK. But the client was slow and fat. I think their FootPrints web software would be a much better solution after using Track-It.

xeon
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4

We've started using SpiceWorks here and like it a lot. The only downside is a bland user portal.

Joel Coel
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4

Not trying to be ultra obvious here, but Bugzilla can be configured rather easily to allow bug replies via email and even bug reporting via email. It has a lot of other nice email features such as "whine" (run queries on open bugs and send the output by email), and has tons of available customizations and integrations. Finally installing it is really easy and it mostly wants some perl modules to be there and you can be up and running in no time.

In my company we use it very successfully and integrated it with the developers' IDEs (Eclipse with Mylyn), the subversion SCM (using hooks and WWW::Bugzilla) and even the build system. The QA guys are using Deskzilla which is a brilliant ticket managing desktop application (which also has a Jira version if you go for that).

Guss
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4

I just started to use FogBugz and like it so far.

Beau
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NitroxDM
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2

Hmm, I don't think there are a lot of people that actually like a ticket system, let alone have a favourite one.

If you'd ask which ticket system do you hate most, my answer would be the Remedy Action Request System.

Ludwig Weinzierl
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2

Request Tracker's fairly solid. We mostly use it for legacy reasons (it's what we have had for the last few years), and it hasn't caused us any grief. It does the job as it should; there's not much more to say.

koenigdmj
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2

We use TrackIT. Been using it for year and years... so far so good.

Alan
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1

Simple and great Hosted Solution: Zendesk

Heavy Ticketing with amazing reporting and process management/workflows (also highest barrier of entry): JIRA

Windows based system, integrates with system management, agent deploy: Kaseya

iainlbc
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  • 19
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1

Assembla is fast and light-weight while providing what you need.

Aidan Ryan
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1

I've used Kayako before. It runs on Open Source (php/mysql), however it does cost some money. It's not too bad in terms of pricing, but I'm not sure if you were asking for free or just Open Source technology. Everything is done through email, it's easy on the eyes, fairly affordable, easy to install and solid support.

osij2is
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1

I've had good experiences with Flyspray.

chaos
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