An Overview and Comparison of Technical Debt Measurement Tools
Journal article, 2021

There are numerous commercial tools and research prototypes that offer support for measuring technical debt. However, different tools adopt different terms, metrics, and ways to identify and measure technical debt. These tools offer diverse features, and their popularity / community support varies significantly. Therefore, (a) practitioners face difficulties when trying to select a tool matching their needs; and (b) the concept of technical debt and its role in software development is blurred. We attempt to clarify the situation by comparing the features and popularity of technical debt measurement tools, and analyzing the existing empirical evidence on their validity. Our findings can help practitioners to find the most suitable tool for their purposes, and researchers by highlighting the current tool shortcomings.

Tools

Software Quality

Source Code Analysis

Technical Debt

Author

Paris C Avgeriou

University of Groningen

Davide Taibi

University of Tampere

Apostolos Ampatzoglou

University of Macedonia

Francesca Arcelli Fontana

University of Milano-Bicocca

Terese Besker

Chalmers, Computer Science and Engineering (Chalmers), Software Engineering (Chalmers)

Alexandros Chatzigeorgiou

University of Macedonia

Valentina Lenarduzzi

University of Tampere

Antonio Martini

Chalmers, Computer Science and Engineering (Chalmers), Software Engineering (Chalmers)

Nasia Moschou

University of Macedonia

Ilaria Pigazzini

University of Milano-Bicocca

Nyyti Saarimaki

University of Tampere

Darius Sas

University of Groningen

Saulo Soares de Toledo

University of Oslo

Angeliki Agathi Tsintzira

University of Macedonia

IEEE Software

0740-7459 (ISSN) 19374194 (eISSN)

Vol. 38 3 61-71

Subject Categories

Software Engineering

Information Science

Computer Science

DOI

10.1109/MS.2020.3024958

More information

Latest update

5/31/2021