← Back to home
Comparison · PM

Redmine vs Tracecat

A side-by-side editorial comparison of Redmine and Tracecat — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.

Redmine vs Tracecat: at a glance

FeatureRedmineTracecat
SectorPMPM
Velocity score2.56.3
Sparks · 30d00
Top themesissue tracking, self-hosted, security patching, webhookssecurity-automation, ai-agents, mcp, observability
Last editorial update2mo ago20h ago
WebsiteVisit →Visit →

What is Redmine?

Twenty years in, Redmine is on a disciplined security-patch cadence behind its first major release since 6.0.

Redmine shipped 7.0.0 at the end of June with webhook triggers, a Rails 8 migration, and a header redesign, then followed it eight weeks later with 7.0.1 alongside backports to the 6.1 and 6.0 branches. That August release fixes five security defects, including a session-affecting API flaw and a stored XSS in the Textile formatter, and lands them on all three supported series at once. Alongside the real releases the feed also carries version-index wiki pages captured as entries, which are crawl artifacts rather than releases.

Read the full Redmine trajectory →

What is Tracecat?

Tracecat's 1.3 alphas keep reworking agent plumbing: tunnels, multi-org MCP, pluggable runners.

Tracecat is mid-cycle on 1.3, and nearly every change is agent infrastructure. The alphas route agent MCP and tool calls through tunnels, let one MCP OAuth login cover multiple organizations, trace LLM proxy requests, and raise agent timeouts to two hours. The nightly builds add a session command store, chat steering, and now a pluggable runner for stdio MCP servers.

Read the full Tracecat trajectory →

Redmine vs Tracecat: editorial side-by-side

Redmine logo2.5

Twenty years in, Redmine is on a disciplined security-patch cadence behind its first major release since 6.0.

◆ Current state

Redmine shipped 7.0.0 at the end of June with webhook triggers, a Rails 8 migration, and a header redesign, then followed it eight weeks later with 7.0.1 alongside backports to the 6.1 and 6.0 branches. That August release fixes five security defects, including a session-affecting API flaw and a stored XSS in the Textile formatter, and lands them on all three supported series at once. Alongside the real releases the feed also carries version-index wiki pages captured as entries, which are crawl artifacts rather than releases.

◆ Where it's heading

The maintenance pattern is consistent and easy to read: coordinated multi-branch security releases roughly every two to three months, with the newest series also collecting performance and API work. Redmine 7.0.1 adds project information to the wiki page list API and fixes an OAuth2-related user deletion bug, so the 7.0 branch is absorbing polish rather than new capability. The three-branch support window is holding steady as 5.1 drops off the list.

◆ Prediction

Expect the next coordinated release to cover 7.0, 6.1, and 6.0 on the same schedule, with continued API and OAuth2 refinement on the 7.0 branch rather than new features before 7.1.

T6.3

Tracecat's 1.3 alphas keep reworking agent plumbing: tunnels, multi-org MCP, pluggable runners.

◆ Current state

Tracecat is mid-cycle on 1.3, and nearly every change is agent infrastructure. The alphas route agent MCP and tool calls through tunnels, let one MCP OAuth login cover multiple organizations, trace LLM proxy requests, and raise agent timeouts to two hours. The nightly builds add a session command store, chat steering, and now a pluggable runner for stdio MCP servers.

◆ Where it's heading

The 1.3 line is making agents long-running, observable, and able to reach private infrastructure. Maintenance releases on 1.1 and 1.2 carried the same breaking org-scoping fix, so older lines are being patched in parallel.

◆ Prediction

Session commands and chat steering in the nightlies look set to land in the next 1.3 alpha as user-facing controls for steering running agent sessions.

Alternatives to Redmine and Tracecat

Other PM products tracked by Sparkpulse, ranked by recent ship velocity. Each card links to a full editorial trajectory and lets you pivot into a head-to-head comparison with either Redmine or Tracecat.

See all Redmine alternatives → · See all Tracecat alternatives →

Recent activity from Redmine and Tracecat

Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.

  1. 22h agoTracecatNightly: transaction-scoped advisory locks
  2. 1d agoTracecatNightly: Temporal SDK pinned to 1.32.0
  3. 1d agoTracecatNightly: Slack, comment and MCP agents use the selected backend
  4. 1d agoTracecatNightly: shared agent session sink, caller-owned turn results
  5. 2d agoTracecatNightly: stdio MCP servers get a pluggable runner
  6. 5d agoTracecatNightly: agent session command store
  7. 2mo agoRedmineRedmine 7.0.1, 6.1.4 and 6.0.11 released
  8. 4mo agoRedmineRedmine 7.0.0 is now available ⚡
  9. 4mo agoRedmineRedmine 6.1.3, 6.0.10 and 5.1.13 released
  10. 7mo agoRedmineRedmine 6.1.2, 6.0.9 and 5.1.12 released
  11. 7mo agoRedmine1.1.x series
  12. 7mo agoRedmine1.4.x series

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between Redmine and Tracecat?

They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. Tracecat is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 vs 2.5), with 0 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.

Is Redmine better than Tracecat?

Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. Tracecat is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 vs 2.5), with 0 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other PM products to evaluate alongside.

What are the best alternatives to Redmine?

Top Redmine alternatives in PM are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Redmine alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/redmine for the full list with editorial commentary on each.

What are the best alternatives to Tracecat?

Top Tracecat alternatives in PM are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Tracecat alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/tracecat for the full list with editorial commentary on each.