FogBugz compared to OnTime [closed]

Question

Has anyone used both FogBugz and Axosoft's OnTime and care to offer an opinion? AxoSoft has a big feature comparison chart but I'm also interested in more subjective thoughts on things like ease of use and stability.

Iphagenia

Answer 1

I've used both from a project lead perspective and a team member, to manage parallel projects and teams.

OnTime has a big feature matrix, but that doesn't translate into more value in an organization. For ease of use, OnTime fails. OnTime does NOT have a well designed interface, so for me, it does not stand out in the crowd. FogBugz, on the other hand, is pleasant to use, and I found myself "happier" to login every morning.

For me, the most important "feature" is: How well the tool presents and tracks issues and simplifies participation by team members. If it does this poorly, most of the other features fade. If it does this well, then some missing features can be forgiven.

On this one point, I find OnTime particularly inadequate and FogBugz particularly superior.

OnTime is loaded with different tabs in which information becomes lost or difficult to track. Teams and individuals often use different tabs for different purposes. I have to click around or I might miss something.

FogBugz tracks the issue with minimal clutter, like a discussion thread. When updates are made to the issue, all parties are notified via email, and no information is visually lost. At a glance, I always know what is going on with FogBugz.

OnTime 2009 also doesn't allow us to assign and track issues with multiple team members in parallel. You simply assign to a single person. No way to CC others. Big deficiency for team work.

Also, when performing a project review, we often take down a lot of fast issues as the customer speaks. With FogBugz I can use the quick mode to punch the issue in as fast as I can type descriptions, and return later to flesh it out. We cannot do this with OnTime, with its various required fields. Besides that, OnTime is just sluggish, taking 5-6 seconds just for the defect window to popup. I need to be able to enter issues during a meeting as fast as I can type it into Excel. The total time & clicks to create an issue in any tool is a key benchmark.

In short, with customers who use OnTime I see people constantly fallback to email for discussions, and I also see degraded communication (someone enters notes that others never see). I do not see this trend with FogBugz.

Feature matrixes look good on paper, but it is difficult enough to keep teams using a tool properly without the tool adding more difficulty. FogBugz makes it as simple as you want, while allowing you to drill down as needed.

OnTime, however, feels like a very detailed tracking database with quick WinForms app thrown on top.

The downside for me with FogBugz is price for upgrades. Yearly maintenance is steep at 50% of the original cost. I could not justify upgrades, in part because we are happy with FogBugz 6, but in part because I could not see what I was getting for my yearly maintenance fees. FogCreek wasn't very flexible on licensing discounts for us, after all they need to make a living, so we just decided to stick with v6 forever.

UPDATE 2014: A year or so after I wrote this, FogCreek sent me a free upgrade to v7 to fix a security bug. Just this year, they did the same thing again. They are the only company I've ever deal with to give me a free upgrade just to fix a bug, even without maintenance. A top-notch company with good people.

I'd still spend my money again on FogBugz without a second thought.

Fitted

Never used FogBugz, but I have to echo your comments on OnTime. It's not well-designed, and it makes issue tracking unpleasant. The side-effect of this is that we don't use it very often because of the mental obstacle of having to use the darn thing. Features != quality. – Fuss

Answer 2

I actually encouraged the company I work for to begin tracking bugs with software (specifically FogBugz) and have been very pleased with FogBugz.

We blindly let our customers send bug requests into FogBugz through email, which has it's advantages and disadvantages. But we really haven't had any problems integrating FogBugz into a team that was totally unfamiliar with any bug tracking software. Overall, I'd rate FogBugz about a 9 on ease of use and stability.

Inutility

Answer 3

I've used both extensively in production software development environments.

OnTime isn't bad - once you set it up to handle support tickets sent to an email, it has all the daily activities of software developers pretty well integrated.

I personally prefer FogBugz, because of the predictive estimation stuff that it includes. Being able to pick a due date, and then getting a likelihood of hitting that date based on your past performance is pretty awesome. I also think in general FogBugz is faster to use and organize your features/defects, and I like how it tracks time better.

One area where OnTime wins out is that it is much easier to make reports against OnTime. It stores everything in a SQL server so it is easy to access (granted if you get the non-hosted FogBugz maybe you could do this too). Also, it includes a report designer so you can get to your data. FogBugz has the weakness that while you can track and enter the time you spent per item for the purposes of its experienced-based scheduling, it doesn't give you an easy way as a manager to look at how much time a given employee spent on what things that week. Hopefully they will add that in the near future.

Hillside

Answer 4

OnTime is more an ALM tool - it's trying to do everything.

FogBugz just deals with bugs (and feature requests) and at that it's excellent. I'm not sure about some of the newer extensions (like discussions), but for bugs it's really good.

There's lots of stuff that I'd add to it in terms of better reports, searching and the like, but I can definitely recommend FogBugz.

Juliannejuliano

Answer 5

I've used OnTime for a few years now. It's actually a very easy tool to use and not just a bug tracking tool as was suggested. Where it falls down for me is the slowdown I've experienced as the volumes of Features / Defects/ Tasks have grown. Also, the web client tries too hard to be a parallel of the winform version and can be flaky as a result.

Pixie

Answer 6

I have not tested the OnTime thing, but keep in mind that both FogBugz and OnTime have free versions as well, Axosoft for 1 user and FogBugz for 2 Users, although it's the hosted version. (Check my answer here to see how to sign up for the free FogBugz version)

So you can have some real first-hand experience on both systems.

Diacetylmorphine

Axosoft don't offer a free hosted version - Fogbugz do. – Dispread

Answer 7

• Are you bug tracking or project planning?

FogBugz has better bug tracking features. FogBugz has better e-mail integration, state tracking and triggers. FogBugz is easier to drill down to an individual task without needing to apply a lot of filters.

For project planning, however, OnTime is the superior tool. The monte carlo estimation feature in FogBugz is cool--don't get me wrong--but honestly, getting the project entered into FogBugz so you can actually use the estimator is such a pain in the rear it can be downright frustrating. The scrum planning board in OnTime is really sexy. If you're used to using whiteboards or sticky notes, it's a breeze to enter and visualize.

OnTime provides better project overview information and custom reporting; this is better for managers.

FogBugz provides better drill-down information; this is better for implementers.

FogBugz has more features; this is better for tech-centric users.

OnTime is more graphical; this is better for non-engineers (project planners, artists and other people who often have to use scheduling tools).

Other factors: Some people have mentioned speed issues. I haven't noticed speed issues with either, but my only experiences have been local installs. OnTime is expensive for mid-sized teams; it's free for a single user and by the time you get to 10+ users the price is average, but for 3-6 man teams it's expensive especially if you want the pivot charts.

Quite honestly if you can afford it, it would not be stupid to consider both. Use OnTime for writing quotes, and FogBugz for tracking defects. They are radically different tools, and neither one excels in all areas but both are very good at select tasks.

Chaffee

Tried both, FogBugz UI is ugly. OnTime, way too slow for internet app. In the end we went with Countersoft Gemini. It is a 20mb download and does what both of these are doing+. – Sarsaparilla

Answer 8

I haven't worked with FogBugz, although I recently recommended our company goes with that. OnTime is what the company decided to use and I personally don't like OnTime because of slowness and badly organized GUI. We opted to host it ourselves, but I don't think the machine is slow. The web app doesn't really look like a web app, more like it copies a windows app, just as Brian Scott said in his answer. And don't try using the windows app over Internet (over VPN). It's awfully slow. I suppose it could be due to our Internet connection latency.

Of course, my experience might be different than other people's, I could be having network issues. Someone else will have to confirm my claims of slowness. :)

Robichaud