Mantis Bug Tracker

Mantis Bug Tracker
Original author(s)	Kenzaburo Ito (2000-2002), Victor Boctor (2002-Present)
Initial release	February 4, 2006; 18 years ago
Stable release	2.26.2 (May 11, 2024; 6 months ago) [±]
Preview release	none [±]
Written in	PHP
Operating system	Cross-platform
Available in	Multilingual
Type	Bug tracking software; Ticket tracking software
License(s)	GNU General Public License v2
Website	MantisBT.org

Mantis Bug Tracker (sometimes referred to as MantisBT or simply Mantis) is an open-source, web-based bugtracker and testing tool. The most common use of MantisBT is to track software defects; however, MantisBT is often configured by users to serve as a more generic issue tracking system and project management tool.

The name "Mantis" and the logo of the project refer to the Mantidae family of insects, known for the tracking of and feeding on other insects, colloquially referred to as "bugs".

Product history

Kenzaburo Ito started the Mantis Bug Tracking project on November 18, 2000 on SourceForge, beginning with version 0.9.0 on December 1, 2000.^[2]^[3] In 2002 Victor Boctor became the maintainer of the project, though it's not clear why. Version 1.0.0 was released in January 2006^[1], followed by 1.1.0 in December 2007.^[4]

In November 2008, the project switched from using the Subversion revision control tool to Git, a distributed revision control tool.^[5] In February 2010, version 1.2.0 was released.^[6] Shortly afterwards, Mantis was named SourceForge Project of the Month for April 2010.^[7]

Features

The main features of Mantis Bug Tracker include^[8]:

project, sub-project, and category support
user-based security
advanced search tools
reporting and graphing
e-mail and RSS feed support
customizable issue pages and workflow
revision control integration
document management
customizable fields and personal start pages
time tracking
user and issue grouping
optional wiki and chat integration
mobile access through MantisTouch^[9]

Hardware/software requirements

MantisBT 1.1.x

PHP 4.3.0 and higher
MySQL database 4.1.1 and higher, MS SQL, or DB2
a web server (Apache, IIS, etc.)

More requirement information can be found here.

MantisBT 1.2.x

PHP 5.2.0 and higher
MySQL database 4.1.1 and higher, MS SQL, DB2, or PostgreSQL
a web server (Apache, IIS, etc.)

More requirement information can be found here.

Videos, screenshots, and other media

An online demo is available on the MantisBT site, though it appears users must register for access to it.

A video demonstrating the installation of Mantis can be found on YouTube.

Entities using Mantis

Examples of entities that use Mantis include:

AirBus, Asystance, Creative GIS Solutions, Delaware Environmental Observing System, German Aerospace Center, Health Management Associates, Institute for Computational Biomedicine, LimeSurvey, Motorola, Ritlabs, Saab, six apart, The City of San Diego, Toshiba Europe, Xerox, ZyXEL

A full directory of Mantis users can be found at the Mantis website.