FogBugz vs. Sentry vs. SpiraPlan

FogBugz has been a very useful tool to our organization, and much preferred over other options we reviewed, mainly JIRA. There are still some improvements needed, but with the fairly recent acquisition by DevFactory, we have a great deal of hope for what is in store given DevFactory's focus and transparency. It seems like both DevFactory and FogBugz customers are eager for substantial improvements on the front-end, but there is/was a great deal of backend housecleaning that definitely needed to take place first.

Incentivized

Great for standard web application performance monitoring, analytics and error reporting. Shows line level code errors, gives insight into performance issues (plugins, API issues, etc.). Automation and scheduled scanning in production gives client visibility into 'after deployment' value. Also lets a relatively small number of developers keep tabs on a handful of different site/applications without needing a bunch of tools. The UI is pretty complicated and can be overwhelming for new users. Documentation could be better for the learning curve,

Incentivized

We selected SpiraPlan because the workflow allows us to start simple without adopting an entire methodology. It suits small teams and single users really well.

• Tasks, Subtasks, and notes. All three of these areas were critical for our team. Tasks in Fogbugz were a bit easier to see than in more bug based software like Trello or JIRA
• The entire screen is used to view a task or case. Clicking on a task or case will open up and take up the entire screen, aside from the sidebar nav columns. I like to see details and I think Fogbugz does this very well, using up as much digital real estate as possible.
• Flowcharting in Fogbugz with Creately is nice - instead of getting an exterior flowchart software like Lucidchart, Creately works right in Fogbugz.

Incentivized

• Great web interface. Lots of data available in a really clean format, with filtering options and more.
• Per-user exception tracking. User is complaining about something being broken? Look up their account ID in Sentry and you can see if they've run into any exceptions (with device information included, of course).
• Source map uploading. Took a little while to figure this out but now we have our deploy script upload sourcemaps to Sentry on each deployment, meaning we get to see stack traces that aren't obfuscated!
• Very generous free tier – 10,000 events per month. We're nowhere near that yet.

Incentivized

• Flexible requirements organisation structure. I'm able to group and sub-group requirements as I see fit.
• Competitive product pricing. Paying by active use instead of registered user was the winning point.
• UI is straightforward and easy to use.

• The simplicity of a single admin type user is not great because anyone who can create a job or client in the system, can also add and delete users. Content and User administrative rights should be separated.
• There are ways to change the terminology/lexicon within the tool, but we are not able to get it to work even after reaching out to tech support. So we are forced to use the system terminology that doesn't match up to our company making training a bit difficult.
• There is a subscribe function that you can opt into, there should be a way to add subscribers as you create a new task.

• Alert Configuration. Would be really helpful to have multiple logical groupings within the "If" section of a single configurable alert.
• Alert Copying. Being able to copy an alert from one project to another would be super beneficial.
• Alert Tags. Better UI around how we select which tags are getting sent with each alert instead of a tiny text box.

Incentivized

• Access from South East Asia is rather sluggish. Could be due to server location.
• Complimentary phone app to do simple tasks (e.g. create tasks, create requirements, add comments) offline would be beneficial because access to the internet can be an issue at the customer's environment.

Its incredibly versatile, but that leads to complexity for the uninitiated, which can be intimidating. Nevertheless its a well polished product, in our case leading to only using it for a focus on frontend is still more cost effective than buying a one-to-rule-them-all tool...

Incentivized

I like JIRA a lot better than Fogbugz for many reasons. If I had a choice, I'd use JIRA every time

Incentivized

It is cheaper and offers better support for front-end applications for enterprise large environments with more then 30 scrum teams and hundreds of micro frontend applications. The configuration options, both with the agent and from the user interface, are superior to other tools, and the documentation is also very easy to use.

Incentivized

Main differentiating factors: 1. Lightweight process 2. Plans based on active users instead of registered users.

• Saves time by quickly allowing Developers to make the necessary notes without getting bogged down in bloated UIs
• Has allowed us to look back easily and see the exact code changes made for the exact Case to aid in decisions for current changes, increasing the certainty of the decided path, without regression

Incentivized

• So it has helped us for quick error resolutions.
• From dashboard we are able to assign errors to particular member and see when its resolved.
• Without customer informing us about errors we know what happened in real time helps in customer service also.

Incentivized

• Allows us to manage simple IT requirements without major upfront costs. Allows us to expand our process complexity at our own pace.
• Slow UI response from a South East Asia country can make data entry a drag.