Trac Reviews

The Python plugins allow for a tremendous about of flexibility and adaptation to business needs given enough time to make those changes

Python is a great language to implement and a great choice for making Trac accessible.

Documentation needs work and the administration controls are not always clear in describing what the actual effect is versus intended effect.

The documentation on the website is not always complete for the version of Trac you may be using. But each page allows the user to switch to different versions of Trac as it relates to the documentation, so that's a plus.

Do lookup what existing Trac plugins are out there before making your own.

We needed a way to get boots-on-the-ground to provide feedback and issues as quickly as possible. Setting up Trac and modifying it to meet those needs worked well for that small case.

Once a workflow is defined (properly), Trac can enable you to have a decent dashboard for looking at the current list of issues and priorities. It's extensible and has a built-in wiki component so you can put common project knowledge in the same place.

Trac looks, smells and acts like an engineering project. 10 years ago it looked like a 5 year old web interface. Today it's screaming not for a face lift, but a complete UI overhaul. (Apache Bloodhound?) It's far too easy to make a mistake with the overly cryptic process of creating ticket workflows, and when things don't work right it's hard to keep the team engaged in the tool, it can quickly create more work than it is replacing. ...that said, it doesn't forget like human do.

Don't spend a lot of time evaluating, if it seems clunky at first, it is.

bug tracking, milestone tracking, distributing work to members of a team, assisting to create reports

The easy-to-use ticketing UI helps encourage even non-developers to contribute feature requests and bug reports, while also helping to train them in progressive change coordination.

The programming language of choice for the platform (Python, rather than a more ubiquitous PHP) can make self-hosting a bit difficult.

Trac has excellent integrations with team messaging systems like Slack and IRC. I've even seen some prototype integrations with HipChat. Being able to reference longer-lived Trac conversations in instant messaging is a fantastic way to keep the conversation moving forward.

We need to coordinate a large team (hundreds of developers) across multiple timezones and countries. Trac is the software we use to track progress against new product versions and host discussions about bug reports and feature requests. Keeping the entire conversation accessible - online - has been a huge value-add for the distributed team.

My developers suggested using this tool, and there were definitely things we were lacking in our current system. It took some time to get set up, but it's working well for us now. Especially useful is the wiki functionality.

If you install this, you need to have someone very technical administering it. The biggest problem I've had personally is that there just isn't that much documentation or support out there, so we're kind of on our own. It's fine for now, but I don't know how it will be long term.

Make sure you have a developer running things and that multiple developers know the setup.

We needed to be more structured in our code and release schedule, and this has helped us to do so. The wiki functionality has also been helpful to build up a knowledgebase within the company.

Lots of plugins, built with python, fairly well documented and customizable

Feels dated, development seems very slow and some key features (git support) are only supported through post-installation modifications

Unless Trac gets a massive burst of development, I wouldn't really recommend adopting it to those unfamiliar with it. I myself may setup the odd new deployment since I've got my brain wrapped around it and it still does everything I want from it.

Trac, while dated, actually helps us keep our development activities straight. Obviously it hosts our SVN repos, but we also heavily use its ticket system. We'll probably eventually transition to something more modern, and yet trac does continue to meet all of our needs. I've worked at places that augmented and expanded on trac to manage most aspects of their entire businesses.

That it was open source and had a vibrant community for support.

Too fiddly. Too many options to get right before you can start.

If you are willing to put in the time, Trac is one of the most flexible solutions out there.

Software development feature and bug tracking. Switch to Trello which seems better for our small team.