Time Tracking

Last reviewed Aug 26, 2026 · 438 words

A time tracker answers one of two questions: "where did my hours actually go" or "what do I invoice this client." No tool in this category answers both well, and most bad picks come from buying an invoicing suite to satisfy curiosity, or a passive tracker to run a business.

How to choose a time tracker

Start with automatic versus manual. ActivityWatch records which application and window is active with zero effort from you, and all data stays on your own machine. It is honest but unbillable: it knows you spent 3 hours in a browser, not which client to charge. Manual timers like Kimai and Solidtime require you to press start, and in exchange produce clean per-project, per-rate records.

Next, decide whether money depends on the numbers. If it does, you want projects, clients, billable rates, exports, and invoice generation, which is Kimai and Solidtime territory. If no, skip that machinery entirely; a 128 MB tool beats a 512 MB web stack you have to log into.

Last, count the users. Solo trackers can be as small as a CLI: Watson (2,538 stars) and Timewarrior (1,641 stars) store plain local files and need 64 MB. Teams need a server with users, roles, and reporting. And one niche pick earns its slot: Wakapi (4,411 stars, Go, 128 MB) accepts data from WakaTime editor plugins, so programmers get automatic per-language coding stats from a single lightweight binary.

Where to start

ActivityWatch (18,714 stars, MPL-2.0) for anyone tracking themselves: install it, forget it, check the dashboard on Friday. Expect to spend an evening setting up categorization rules, and know that mobile support is limited. Kimai (4,943 stars, AGPL, maintained since 2006) for freelancers and agencies: mature, strong invoicing, plugin marketplace, and a straightforward Docker deploy, though configuration takes some reading. Solidtime (8,881 stars, first released 2024) is the modern-looking team option with billing rates and a REST API; it is the one I would demo to coworkers who refuse ugly software.

Know which side of the surveillance line you are on

Ever Gauzy records work sessions with optional screenshots and reports per-employee utilization. That is monitoring software, a different product with different consent implications than tracking your own time, and it is rated Hard at 2 GB besides. Do not deploy it casually because it appeared in a time-tracking list.

Default for a first-timer: ActivityWatch today, because it costs nothing to run and the data is immediately interesting. Add Kimai the day someone pays for your hours.