nitpick

Not what you're asking but something similar to BE: https://github.com/travisb-ca/nitpick Also, your be usage experience may depend on how you're using it. In-branch/separate-branch/without-vcs? As a single user, I use it outside vcs and am reasonably happy with it.

The article I wrote was really just documenting all I had learned while researching distributed bug trackers and, when I didn't find any existing distributed bug trackers I liked, writing one myself[0]. I certainly don't dismiss distributed bug trackers and am quite happily using one on a regular basis. My big question is why distributed bug trackers aren't more popular considering the popularity of distributed version control and the general weakness of the bug trackers on sites like github or bitbucket. [0] https://github.com/travisb-ca/nitpick

That is one advantage of on-branch distributed bug tracking. One advantage you also get, which is more important on large projects, is knowing which bugs have had their fixes merged into the branch you are working on. This is a bit unwieldy with just text TODO files since you have to keep finished TODOs around and then merge them, usually manually solving conflicts, as changes move between branches. For this purpose I use a dedicated distributed bug tracker https://github.com/travisb-ca/nitpick after I had evaluated pretty much all the alternatives. For a very small team a simple text file can work, but for teams of more than a handful some tool support is necessary.