Best free issue tracker software in 2024

With more than 80 percent of consumers saying that a good customer service experience increases the likelihood they’ll buy again, it’s crucial for companies to stay organized and on top of any problems that may arise. As your business scales and evolves, you’ll need to start considering issue tracker software, which helps you manage employee inquiries, requests, and customer support tickets.

Some companies, however, might not have the means to invest in issue tracking software or may shy away from going all-in on a solution without trying it out first.

Our comprehensive guide will help you learn more about the best free issue tracker software as we explain the basics, benefits, and features of issue trackers. Meanwhile, our list of the top 15 issue tracker software options will help you pick the right one for your business.

15 best free issue tracker software

1. Zendesk
2. Jira
3. Zoho Desk
4. Freshdesk
5. Spiceworks
6. Shortcut
7. SysAid
8. Wrike
9. LiveAgent
10. GitHub
11. Vision Helpdesk
12. Slack
13. ClickUp
14. HubSpot
15. Backlog

1. Zendesk

Features: Issue tracker software free 30-day trial

• Omnichannel support
• Analytics and reporting
• Integrations and apps
• Routing and intelligence
• Ticketing management
• Time tracking
• Customizable workflows
• Live chat and messaging
• Self-service options, knowledge base, and help center
• 24/7 customer support
• Easy setup
• Conversational AI and chatbots
• One unified customer view

When you sign up for the Zendesk issue tracking system free trial, you get full access to the benefits and tools, allowing you to see how the software can help your business. The easy integration with your tech stack gets you up and running quickly so you can start enjoying the capabilities, like sending all customer tickets and inquiries to a shared inbox that provides a unified view of customer issues.

Meanwhile, omnichannel support features enable you to interact with customers on any channel—email, voice, text, live chat, social media, or messaging app—and seamlessly pick up conversations right where they left off.

2. Jira

Features: Issue tracker software free version

• 10 users
• Scrum and Kanban boards
• Customizable workflows
• Apps and integrations
• Project management
• Advanced permissions
• Audit logs
• 2GB file storage
• Reporting and analytics
• Mobile device management
• Developer tool integrations

Jira is an issue tracking software that seamlessly connects your engineering and support teams so they can efficiently resolve development issues. Jira includes core functionality to easily escalate, route, and link tickets in your current support system or within Jira’s systems.

One thing that makes JIRA stand out is its comprehensive view of all customer conversations related to development issues. This gives support and engineering teams full context to understand the problems and collaborate on the solution.

Learn more about Zendesk for Jira.

3. Zoho Desk

Features: Issue tracker software free version

• 3 free agents
• Email ticketing
• Multiple language options
• Help center
• Mobile app
• Customer management
• Knowledge base
• Predefined SLAs
• Email support

Zoho CRM helps your team log, track, and prioritize issues based on desired criteria in a unified platform. The system sends alerts for updates and new tickets so customer support agents are aware of any changes. You can personalize your interface, too.

Among Zoho Desk’s biggest benefits is the automation capabilities. You can automate workflows, create rules, set SLAs, and more. The platform also provides solid analytics and reporting features to help elevate your customer service.

4. Freshdesk

Features: Issue tracker software free 21-day trial

• Integrated ticketing across email and social
• Ticket Dispatch
• Knowledge base
• Ticket Trend Report
• Out-of-the-box analytics and reporting
• Choose your data center location
• Team collaboration
• 24/7 email support
• Up to 10 agents

Enhance your internal or external customer service with an omnichannel solution that allows tracking, recording, and issue management. Freshdesk is best for small businesses and startups with its affordable pricing and user-friendly interface.

Freshdesk features social media tracking, AI, chatbots, and a unified support team dashboard. Another perk of Freshdesk is its Freshworks Academy, which helps new agents learn and train on the new system.

5. Spiceworks

Features: Issue tracker software free version

• Unlimited tickets and users
• Premium support
• IT community with millions of IT pros
• Ticket management
• Asset tracking
• Remote support
• Network connectivity dashboard

Spiceworks offers its issue tracker for free. Packed with comprehensive features, the cloud-based platform helps IT and internal support teams streamline their service operations. The issue tracking software boasts a powerful ticketing system that’s simple to install and manage. The reporting features, alerts, ticket routing, and custom ticket creation help make the support team’s job easier and customers happier. Spiceworks also provides remote support capabilities.

6. Shortcut

Features: Issue tracker software free version

• Manage all ongoing work in Stories
• Create docs and connect them to ongoing work
• Plan multiple sprints using Iterations
• Get tailored reports for quick insights
• Filter and view Kanban views
• Access to Slack, Figma, and VCS integrations

Shortcut helps speed up and improve the accuracy of your issue tracking process. It’s ideal for engineering teams who frequently create and add new features and respond to ticket requests. When integrated with a solution like Zendesk, Shortcut enables you to associate tickets with Shortcut’s Story interface so your team never misses a bug fix or feature request.

With Shortcut, you create Stories for each issue or task. You can keep yourself and your team updated with a Kanban-style board. You can also add milestones and reports to track progress toward broader efforts.

Learn more about Zendesk for Shortcut.

7. SysAid

Features: Issue tracker software free trial

• Ticket automation
• Self-service automation
• Asset management
• Reporting and analytics
• Cloud or on-premise deployment
• White-glove implementation

SysAid is best for IT and internal support teams seeking a robust yet simple issue tracking solution. But it’s versatile enough to meet the needs of departments across the board, such as HR, maintenance, finance, and more.

SysAid includes self-service options that let users pick from the categories you set up for ticket requests, incident reports, and more. SysAid’s customizable workflow can automatically route requests based on your specified rules.

8. Wrike

Features: Issue tracker software free version

• Web, desktop, and mobile apps
• Personalized app experience (AI Work Intelligence™)
• Task management
• Live activity stream
• External and internal collaborators
• Interactive board and spreadsheet views
• Account-wide work schedules
• Cloud storage integrations
• Active task limitations
• 2GB storage space per account

Wrike is a great project management tool for teams just getting started, and it performs quite well as a project issue tracker.

Here’s how it works: When you set up a custom issue reporting form, a task is automatically generated. You can then customize your workflows and statuses, create task labels, and update their status as needed.

You can also track and monitor auto-generated tasks with ease. The best part? It’s all housed within Wrike, so there’s no need to manage multiple platforms.

9. LiveAgent

Features: Issue tracker software free version

• 7 days of ticket history
• 1 chat button
• 1 phone number
• 1 email address
• Basic reports
• Customer portal + forum
• Customer service

A cloud-based help desk, LiveAgent is a standout in the realm of customer service.

The company’s free plan, targeted more toward small businesses, allows users to access basic features. LiveAgent also offers a free 14-day trial that lets users try the full version with over 180 features, including unlimited email ticketing, omnichannel support, automation options, and more.

Keep in mind that once you sign up for a free account, you’ll lose access to the 14-day trial with full features, and vice versa. You can, however, upgrade to a paid subscription at any time.

10. GitHub

Features: Issue tracker software free version

• Unlimited public/private repositories
• Automatic security and version updates
• 2000CI/CD minutes (free for public repositories)
• 500MB of packages storage (free for public repositories)
• New issues and projects (in limited beta)
• Community support

GitHub offers a ton of collaborative features, including a unified view of projects and tasks to help teams stay on schedule. This functionality makes GitHub a good choice for issue tracking as well. GitHub is flexible and user-friendly, offering integrations that help your business easily organize and track issues. You can create actionable tasks, make boards and tables, and more.

Learn more about Zendesk for GitHub.

11. Vision Helpdesk

Features: Issue tracker software free 30-day trial

• Workflow automation
• Multichannel support
• Ticket routing
• Multiple escalation rules
• Multiple SLA rules
• Help desk reports
• Custom alerts
• Gamification elements
• Collaboration tools

Vision Helpdesk is an issue tracker that streamlines support requests you receive through multiple channels like email, voice, live chat, and social media. Its robust automation options help you save time and more easily track and resolve tickets. You can also automate workflows so tickets are routed to the appropriate team members.

12. Slack

Features: Issue tracker software free version

• Message and file history (90-day access)
• 10 integrations with other apps
• Audio and video clips
• One-on-one Slack huddles
• Data encryption
• Two-factor authentication
• One admin workspace
• Admin channel posting permissions
• Standard support

Though Slack is primarily thought of as a messaging app, it’s much more than that. It can integrate with most of the issue tracking solutions on the market. You can easily configure Slack to facilitate issue routing, add ticket comments, and get alerts.

You can use Slack as an issue management solution by integrating it with other issue tracking software, too. You can automate tasks, create Slack channels for bugs and issues, and communicate and collaborate across departments.

13. ClickUp

Features: Issue tracker software free version

• 100MB of storage
• Live chat
• Unlimited members
• Two-factor authentication
• Collaborative docs
• Whiteboards
• Email
• Kanban boards
• Time tracking
• Unlimited tasks
• In-app video recording capabilities
• 24/7 support

ClickUp is a cloud-based issue tracker that’s ideal for encouraging communication and collaboration and assigning tasks and tracking their statuses. ClickUp’s activity stream displays tasks in real time and lets you report, monitor, and prioritize issues—all in one place.

Linking ClickUp tasks to tickets is easy once you’ve integrated it with your existing tech stack. This allows you to add ticket data between ClickUp tasks and the issue tracker. When tickets are linked to tasks, you’ll receive updates automatically.

Learn more about Zendesk for ClickUp.

14. HubSpot

Features: Issue tracker software free version

• Live chat
• Basic bots
• Team email
• Customizable quotes
• Email scheduling
• Ticketing
• Shared inbox

HubSpot's issue tracking software features a shared inbox with an overview of customer issues so your team can stay organized. Users have access to over 500 integrations in the HubSpot marketplace, too.

The software also allows you to:

• Create and view reports on all active issues
• Automate escalation and issue tracking for key issues so nothing falls through the cracks
• Track customer details and satisfaction throughout their lifecycle

15. Backlog

Features: Issue tracker software free version

• 10 users
• 1 project
• 100MB storage
• Git & Subversion
• Kanban-style boards

Known as the “all-in-one issue management tool for creators,” Backlog is a cloud-based issue tracker best suited for design, marketing, and IT teams.

Backlog uses Gantt charts, enabling users to create project timelines and workflows. It features templates for teams to document the details of each issue and allows you to manage bugs and projects in a single place.

Backlog has a mobile application for both iOS and Android devices. Support through email, chat, and an online knowledge base is available, too—but only with a subscription.

Issue tracking software allows agents to organize, manage, and resolve customer and employee tickets. Once the customer or employee provides the needed information, the issue tracking software generates a ticket, logs it into the system, and routes it to the appropriate department. From there, support teams work on resolving the issue quickly and efficiently. The goal is to improve the overall experience for both customers and employees.

Some companies offer free versions of their issue tracking and bug tracking software, which usually have fewer tools, capabilities, and support. Others may offer free trials of the paid versions so businesses can try the software without risk.

Free versions and free trials of bug tracking software offer different features, depending on the brand. Because of the wide range of capabilities provided by varying platforms, this section discusses the general benefits of issue tracking software—both the free and paid versions.

Top 6 features for the best free issue tracker software

Ultimately, issue tracking software provides an easy path of resolution for a support ticket and needs features that streamline the process. Here are a few features to consider when picking a tracker.

Conversational AI and chatbots

Conversational artificial intelligence (AI) isn’t just the stuff of science fiction anymore. This technology has become more mainstream in recent years, with 66 percent of customers agreeing that AI makes their lives easier and improves their overall customer experience. Mostly recognized in the role of a virtual assistant (like Alexa or Siri), conversational AI can learn customer behaviors and recognize voice and text inputs to provide solutions to common problems.

Chatbots simulate human conversations and can offer personalized service by pulling customer data and injecting it into the conversation. They deliver 24/7 support and fast responses, so customers don’t have to wait to speak with a human agent. This eases the workload of support agents, freeing them up to tackle more complex issues.

Issue tracker software with AI can also help during peak times when the support queue is backed up. If someone reaches out through live chat, a chatbot can tell them the wait time for speaking with an agent and offer callback or self-service options.

Omnichannel support

The best issue tracking software allows customers or employees to connect with support agents and IT departments through the channel of their choice. When people have a problem, they want to jump on the most convenient communication channel to report it. Channels can range from traditional methods like voice and email to live chat, text, and social media.

Issue tracking software with omnichannel support lets customers (and employees) communicate through multiple channels and centralizes all those interactions in one view for support teams to access.

For example, a customer can initially reach out with an email but follow up via WhatsApp. With omnichannel support, those messages are captured in one place so agents can read the exchanges as one seamless conversation. If the issue stretches across departments, the information travels with it, and the next agent understands the full context of the issue. This means the customer doesn’t need to repeat themselves, and the agent can jump right into solving the problem.

Reporting and analytics

A crucial issue tracking software feature is the ability to generate reports to analyze data and identify trends. Reports help managers better assess team performance and the allocation of resources for software projects. Management can then understand where there are opportunities for product and service improvement.

With an issue tracker, managers can have automated reports delivered to their inboxes. They can even create dashboards that track key performance indicators (KPIs) like first-reply time, ticket volume, and more.

Integrations

When technical issues arise, communication is crucial—especially between support agents and development teams. Issue tracker software must allow employees to clearly and easily communicate:

• Between departments
• Across platforms

For example, integrating a collaboration app like Slack can help your support team prioritize issues with a shared ticketing channel. This can make issues visible to relevant parties for faster communication, resulting in better collaboration for ticket resolution.

It's also important to pick an issue tracker that integrates with the project management systems, apps, and third-party tools that you already use. This can help your team perform efficiently without having to learn an entirely new system.

Messaging

Customers expect a great experience across channels, and messaging makes it easier to deliver top-notch experiences. Meet your customers where they already are by offering support on social channels—like Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram—and adding messaging to your website and mobile app.

The Zendesk Agent Workspace helps teams manage conversations in a centralized place. Bringing all interactions across channels into one continuous conversation prevents customers from repeating information. Features include:

• Proactive messaging
• Third-party integrations
• Group messaging

Using customer data, you can personalize your conversations based on their needs and preferences. With AI and chatbots, you can offer 24/7 support and surface self-service options so customers and employees can find answers themselves.

Routing and intelligence

Being able to route tickets to agents who are best suited to handle specific issues is an important time-saving and efficiency-boosting feature. Whatever the problem, admins can create skill categories that match an agent’s expertise so certain requests are automatically routed to them for faster, smoother resolutions.

With AI, you can also automate support queues to prioritize time-sensitive tickets first. AI even collects all relevant customer or employee information and stores it in one place. This auto-populates ticket fields with data to help streamline workflows.

Self-service options

The number of tickets and their complexity increases as a company grows. Issue tracking software should offer self-service options so customers and employees can find information and resolve basic issues on their own. Self-service also helps deflect tickets and reduces agents’ workload while simultaneously helping to scale your business.

Some self-service options include:

• Chatbots
• Knowledge bases
• FAQ pages
• Help centers
• Conversational AI

Ticketing management

The best issue tracking software should be able to track, prioritize, and manage tickets across channels in one location. It should also integrate with your existing ticketing management system.

A ticketing management solution provides support agents with the customer information and context they need to handle interactions seamlessly. The unified view eliminates the need to switch between apps to find information. Managers can also quickly view team performance in a centralized dashboard.

Customer feedback loop

Capturing customer feedback with an issue tracker can give you valuable insights into your products, services, customer experience, or overall brand. Once an issue is resolved, your tracking software should automatically reach out to the customer to collect feedback on their experience so you can determine what you did well and find opportunities for improvement.

Common feedback tools include:

• Customer satisfaction (CSAT)
• Net Promoter Score® (NPS)
• SMS surveys

Time tracking

Choosing issue tracking software with a time tracker will save you more than just time. It also measures how long it takes to resolve a problem, identifies less profitable tasks, helps you keep workflows and projects on track, and leads to a more productive team.

Customized workflows

The best issue tracking systems should allow you to customize your workflows to best fit your business. You may want to enable your agents to reopen a closed ticket, adjust priority levels, or automate routine tasks like assigning tickets.

No matter how or when customers and employees reach out for help, the best issue tracking software should make it easy to organize and monitor problems as they arise. Integrate Zendesk into your existing tech stack so you can resolve issues quickly, effectively, and conveniently. Best of all—you can do it all in one place.