As websites grow in complexity, bugs, and vulnerabilities become more common. These issues can cause problems for website visitors and put sensitive data at risk. However, no matter how well-designed and maintained your website is, there is always a chance of bugs slipping through the cracks. That’s why you need the right tools to find bugs in website to help you identify and fix these issues before they become major problems.

Also Read: 9 Best Video Editing Software No Subscription: Transform Your Videos Like a Pro

Website Bugs

Before we dive into the specifics of finding bugs in websites, let’s first define what we mean by “bugs.” a bug is any error or defect in a software program that causes it to behave unexpectedly. Bugs can manifest in various ways, such as broken links, missing images, incorrect formatting, slow loading times, and more. These issues can result in a poor user experience, decreased search engine rankings, and lost business. These can range from minor issues, such as broken links or typos, to serious security vulnerabilities that could allow a hacker to gain unauthorized access to sensitive data.

22 tools to find bugs in the website

As software development becomes more complex, the need for efficient bug-tracking software increases. Bug tracking software helps developers track bugs, fix issues, and enhance the software’s performance. 

ClickUp

ClickUp is a project management tool that helps plan, organize, and track work across teams and projects. It can manage website bugs, features, tasks, schedules, etc. It provides a centralized view of website development and issues. It has mobile-friendly interfaces and apps for always staying on top of projects.

Features

• Time tracking to monitor how long it takes to fix a bug.
• Real-time notifications to ensure everyone stays up-to-date.
• Simply customize workflow and permissions management based on team roles.

IBM Rational ClearQuest

IBM Rational ClearQuest is an on-premise bug and issue-tracking tool. It provides flexible workflows, integration with development environments, and support for Agile methodologies. It can effectively manage bugs, enhancements, defects, and other website development and testing issues. Admin control, security, and scalability are strong suits.

Features

• Provides customizable dashboards to view key metrics.
• Advanced reporting to generate detailed bug reports.
• Support for tracking issues, defects, risks, tasks, features, enhancements, bugs, etc.

Jira

Jira is a popular open-source bug-tracking tool used by many tech companies. It provides issue tracking, project management, collaboration, and integration features for website projects. It offers a good balance of ease of use and technical capabilities for bug management. Scales from small to large teams and supports methodologies beyond Agile.

Features

• Agile boards for visualizing and prioritizing tasks.
• Search and filter to easily find and categorize bugs.
• Integrate with tools like Confluence, Bitbucket, Slack, etc.

Redmine

Redmine is another open-source project management tool focused on flexible issue tracking and project collaboration. It can plan, organize, and monitor website development projects. It provides a platform for the entire lifecycle of projects, from planning to development to deployment. Have around 30 plugins for integrating with other tools.

Features

• Provide multiple language support for global teams.
• Flexible issue classification, priorities, status, resolutions, duplication checks, etc.
• Track issues, tasks, time/cost entries, documents, changes, releases/deliveries, etc.

Backlog

BackLog tool manages product roadmaps, release planning, and issue tracking for agile software development projects, including websites. It helps align teams, prioritize features, and measure progress toward project goals.

Features

• Kanban boards for easy visualization.
• Tracking epics, user stories, bugs, issues, and metrics for development teams.
• Simple and intuitive road mapping for visualizing visions, strategies, releases, and milestones. 

GitHub

GitHub is a popular version control and project management platform. Although primarily a source code hosting service, GitHub also supports managing issues, projects, planning, bug issue tracking, and collaboration related to website development. However, it may require additional tools for comprehensive defect and project management.

Features

• Enables automating the development lifecycle.
• Provides real-time updates and notifications for issue status changes.
• Issues can be created, assigned, scheduled, estimated, prioritized, and managed through workflows like Bugzilla or Jira offers. 

nTask

nTask, a bug tracking tool, focuses on streamlining project management processes, including issue tracking for website development. Plan, organized and monitored bugs, tasks, enhancements, and other items from a single platform. Provide real-time status updates and alerts to keep teams on the same page.

Features

• Syncing of work and real-time updates across devices.
• Have customizable dashboards and reports for bug-tracking progress.
• Gives Reporting progress, blockers, priorities, resolution times, and parts affected on time.

Bugzilla

Bugzilla is an open-source bug tracking tool for tracking defects found o websites. It provides flexible issue classification, commenting, attachments, prioritization, duplication checking, and integration with source control tools. It has complete bug lifecycles that support development methodologies from Waterfall to Agile. Promote Access control and scalability used by large development teams.

Features

• Customizable statuses for bug tracking.
• Ability to track multiple bugs in a single report.
• Integration with version control systems such as Git and Subversion.

Mantis

Similar to Bugzilla, Mantis manages bugs and issues for website development projects. Provide Wide issue tracking facilitates finding and fixing defects in websites before launch. With a simple interface, it is easy to adopt for both technical and non-technical users.

Features

• Ability to assign multiple developers to a single bug.
• Integration with email for easy bug reporting and updates.
• Customizable bug reporting fields and workflows for specific project needs.

BugHost

Bughost tool aims to simplify bug tracking for smoother website development cycles. Mobile-friendly real-time interfaces provide visibility into progress, blockers, priorities, and team productivity. It can facilitate bug management on the go.

Features

• Allow email alerts for bug updates.
• Can track bugs by user or department.
• Advanced reporting and analytics for bug tracking.

Kualitee

Kualitee helps in managing quality and evaluating customer experience for websites. It gives visitor feedback and metrics into usability issues, bugs, and other user experience problems. These can then be logged and tracked as site defects until resolution. This all-in-one dashboard helps prioritize and address issues for optimal website usability, conversions, and loyalty.

Features

• Real-time collaboration and communication tools for teams.
• Advanced reporting and dashboard capabilities for tracking progress.
• Integration with automation testing tools for comprehensive bug tracking.

Bug Genie (Pachno)

Bugenie, now known as Pachno, simplifies the bug reporting and key processes for website development projects. Bugs are automatically parsed, classified, and assigned to the right teams with notifications and updates. It provides visibility into bug lifecycles, status, priority, and teams responsible for resolution. Collaboration is enhanced through commenting and file attachments.

Features

• Integration with version control systems such as Git and SVN.
• Bugs are assigned with notifications to maintain accountability.
• Users can submit bugs, enhancements, and feedback in plain language using screenshots and attachments. 

Marker.io

Marker.io is an affordable bug tracking and site-testing solution for small businesses developing websites. You can submit bugs directly from the website using a snippet of code. It provides improved quality for resolution times and causes of issues. Also offer visibility into progress, status, priorities, and metrics.

Features

• Can Automatically track and prioritize issues.
• Easy workflows reduce issue transition between various lifecycles.
• Unlimited free website testing implemented through snippets of code.

FogBugz

FogBugz is an on-premise project and issue management tool focused on effective collaboration and visibility across website development workflows. Organize various issues into components, products, groups, or categories to improve search and reporting.

Features

• Identifies tracking progress and trends.
• Allows automatic bug assignment tracking.
• It can be installed on-premise or used as a hosted / SaaS solution based on specific infrastructure and management preferences.

Micro Focus ALM

Micro Focus ALM is an enterprise-grade application lifecycle management tool for planning and executing website projects. Offers planning to deployment, visibility, and control over progress, quality, budget, schedule, and key performance indicators. 

Features

• Bug tracking statuses for specific project needs.
• Ensures alignment between requirements and delivered solutions.
• Testing and bug-tracking capabilities for the entire application lifecycle.

Trac

Trac open-source project management and bug tracking tool which is suitable for website development. Its powerful workflows facilitate transitioning issues between different lifecycles and statuses. Have additional plugins extend functionality and integrations. Allows organizing work at higher levels beyond individual issues.

Features

• Allows advanced search and reporting capabilities.
• Provides complete history and notifications to keep teams updated.
• Provide Wiki-based documentation for project management and collaboration.

Shortcut

Shortcut, bug reporting, and resolution in a streamlined interface. Bugs are automatically parsed and prioritized by relevance and impact, then assigned to the right teams with notifications. Roadmaps and dashboards provide visibility into important issues, subscriptions, comments, files, and metrics for how bugs shape the product.

Features

• Agile project management tools and reporting.
• Provide updated notifications for issue status changes.
• Links issues with code commits and wiki edits for end-to-end visibility.

Userback

Userback is also an affordable website on bug tracking solutions with user experience at the core. Issues get assigned to relevant teams with notifications to maintain accountability and resolve key user journey problems. Permissions ensure only authorized access and meet governance standards while facilitating collaboration across teams and remote locations. 

Features

• Collaborative tools for team communication and issue tracking.
• Provides customizable feedback forms and surveys for user testing.
• Integration with project management tools such as Trello and Jira.

BugHerd 

BugHerd manages user experience for websites by converting feedback into data-driven insights. Issues are summarized automatically into reports on root causes, patterns, metrics, user journeys, key problems, and actionable recommendations for improvement. Reporting in easy-to-digest visual formats that help teams to make informed decisions and prioritize resources around issues impacting user experience.

Features

• Provide visibility into top issues.
• Issues get assigned to relevant teams.
• Mobile access increases responsiveness to user feedback.

BugLog

BugLog is an affordable one-stop shop for soliciting and analyzing user feedback to optimize websites. Synthesize raw feedback into easy-to-understand and best practices. Reporting aims to uncover key drivers that matter for product teams and stakeholders.

Features

• Automatic alerts for issue updates.
• Provides unlimited free projects, issues, files, and integrations.
• Analyze user feedback to optimize websites, mobile apps, and digital products. 

Lighthouse

Lighthouse provides audits, metrics, and action plans for improving user experience and accessibility of websites. Manual and automated methods evaluate usability, performance, accessibility compliance, and search engine optimization. Monitored progress through re-audits and metrics on improvements. 

Features

• Identifying issue tracking progress.
• Evaluate key metrics impacting industry standards.
• Evaluates performance, accessibility, and search engine optimization.

Bird Eats Bug

Bird Eats Bug provides an easy-to-use bug tracking tool tailored to the needs of small businesses developing websites. Bugs can be reported and managed from any device using mobile-friendly interfaces. Workflows facilitate smoothly progressing issues between statuses through permitted transitions until resolution.

Features

• You can easily track bug issues via email integration.
• Provides customizable labels for issue categorization.
• Comes with In-app screenshot capture for bug reporting.

How to find bugs in the website?

User testing: Conduct tests with real website users to identify issues from a user perspective. Ask users to perform common tasks on the site and observe any difficulties or confusing steps. Note down complaints, suggestions, and pain points. This can uncover bugs impacting usability, user experience, and key metrics.

• Exploratory testing: Explore the website yourself systematically to find potential problems. Try different workflows, edge cases, invalid inputs, broken links, incorrect data, accessibility issues, etc. Look for anything that does not work as intended or confuses the navigation and content.
• Automated testing: Use tools for automating tests on websites, including scraping, crawling, screenshot testing, load testing, etc. Set up test suites to monitor website performance, availability, functionality, and quality at scale. Recurring runs can detect bugs even after changes are deployed.
• Code auditing: Review website code line by line for issues like security vulnerabilities, Broken references, Dead/ duplicated code, Complexity, Tight coupling, etc. Get feedback from senior developers and follow standard coding practices and guidelines. Refactoring and cleanup can also uncover hidden bugs.
• Competitor analysis: Compare your website with competitor websites and industry standards. Evaluate key metrics, features, design elements, usability, and user experience. Identify any areas of improvement where your website lags behind competitors. Make a plan to enhance and fix gaps to match industry benchmarks.
• Crowdsourcing: Use online communities or marketplaces to crowdsource website testing and feedback. Recruit adequate participants to evaluate workflows, content, design, UX, responsiveness, metrics, etc. Aggregate reviews and suggestions to determine critical bugs impacting audience experience and engagement.
• Page speed testing: measure page load times and performance using tools like Google PageSpeed Insights, GTmetrix, etc. Optimize as per industry standards and best practices. Slow pages lead to high bounce rates, so bugs causing performance issues must be fixed.
• SEO auditing: Assess how optimized your website is for search engines. Check for internal link structure, meta titles, content quality, mobile-friendliness, XML sitemaps, 404 pages, keywords, alt attributes, etc. Fix any SEO bugs to improve search rankings and traffic.
• monitoring: Regularly monitor website metrics, analytics, uptime, traffic, conversions, feedback, reviews, rankings, etc. Look for drops or underperformance, which could indicate new bugs or degraded user experience. Analysis of trends also highlights opportunities for improvement.
• Get user feedback: Provide easy options for website visitors to submit feedback, report issues, or ask questions. Encourage contributions from active users and community members. Monitor discussions and messages closely for complaints or problems about new bugs.

Tips for Preventing Website Bugs

While finding and addressing bugs is important, preventing them from occurring in the first place is even better. Here are some tips for preventing website bugs:

1. Keep Software Up to Date
   Keeping all software and plugins up to date can help prevent vulnerabilities that hackers could exploit.
2. Use Secure Coding Practices
   Secure coding practices can help prevent common vulnerabilities like XSS and SQL injection.
3. Use HTTPS Encryption
   Using HTTPS encryption can help protect sensitive data by encrypting it in transit between the user’s browser and the website’s server.
4. Implement Access Controls
   Implementing access controls can help prevent unauthorized access to sensitive data or functions within a website.
5. Regularly Test and Monitor Your Site
   Regularly testing and monitoring your website can help identify and address bugs before they become major issues.

In the end, Finding and fixing bugs in your website is essential for ensuring a smooth user experience, maintaining search engine rankings, and preventing security breaches. By using the right tools and regularly monitoring your site’s performance, you can quickly identify and fix any issues. Whether you choose a free tool like Google Search Console or a paid tool like Pingdom or Bugsnag, regularly test and optimize your website to keep it running smoothly.

FAQs