Bug tracking defect issue problem tracker evaluation

PVCS Tracker vs. Bugzero

PVCS Tracker is expensive. Below is a true story we heard from a user using PVCS Tracker versin 6.5 in 2003. Experience may vary, and so you should try it out by yourself.
  • I recently joined a company that uses PVCS VM and PVCS Tracker (version 6.5). I work in a remote office and access the main office through VPN (through a T1 line). It turns out that, PVCS VM is very much un-usable for remote access. It took me 16 hours to get the entire code base (approximately 100Mb). And it takes 5 minutes each time to check in/out a single small file. Worst of all, any activity on my desktop will cause the PVCS VM window to refresh and freezes it for many minutes!
  • The PVCS Tracker itself is slow but bearable. On the other hand, if you have a slow network and the network went down, then you have to restart your PVCS tracker client to reconnect to the PVCS server.
  • One show-stopper problem with PVCS Tracker's windows version is that, you have to be the same user who installed the PVCS tracker to use it, otherwise, you won't have the odbc driver that is needed to connect to the database. So, if someone else installed the tracker on your computer, you have to uninstall it and then re-install it. Of course, you have to first install the corresponding database client.
  • PVCS Tracker does not handle the file attachment well. If you want to see the attachment, you first have to save the file and then open it, even for a simple text file.
  • PVCS Tracker windows client reloads itself periodically. If you have a slow network, it freezes for a few seconds every time it refreshes. It is extremely annoying if you are in the middle of doing something. Nobody knows how to turn this auto-refresh off.
  • PVCS Tracker has since been bought by Senera (in 2003 or 2004).
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Note: Statements above are time sensitive and they may not apply to the current versions of the product. You are advised to check out the current version and compare for yourself. The Senera Software wrote to us on 6/14/2006 pointed out that the above statements do not apply to their latest versions of the product.

Latest news (8/2004): Senera picked TeamTrack over PVCS Tracker and the latter is going to be discontinued.

Try out PVCS Tracker and Bugzero side-by-side, compare and see for yourself.

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