Open Source DeskTime Alternatives
A curated collection of the 1 best open source alternatives to DeskTime.
The best open source alternative to DeskTime is ActivityWatch. If that doesn't suit you, we've compiled a ranked list of other open source DeskTime alternatives to help you find a suitable replacement.
DeskTime alternatives are mainly Time & Task Management. Browse these if you want a narrower list of alternatives or looking for a specific functionality of DeskTime.
An automated time tracker that stores everything locally, for people who want a detailed record of their computer use without handing it over.
ActivityWatch records what you do on your computer so you can see where the time actually went, and it keeps that record on the machine that produced it. The project's stated goal is collecting as much life data as possible without compromising privacy, which rules out the usual trade of detail for a hosted account.
A local server stores the data and exposes a REST API and a query engine, with a web interface on top. Small programs called watchers feed it: one reports the active application and window title, one reports the active browser tab and its title, and one detects when you are away from the keyboard.
The design answers the complaints the maintainers had with other trackers.
- You own the data: storage stays on your own machine instead of a vendor account.
- Decentralised sync: still in progress, moving data between devices through a folder synced by Dropbox, Syncthing or similar, with no server that sees everything.
- High resolution: raw data is kept rather than long pre-aggregated intervals.
- Extensible: browser extensions and editor plugins already exist, and new watchers can be written against the API.
- Two server implementations: a Python server is the current default and a Rust one is the planned replacement.
Builds are published for Windows, macOS, Linux and Android, and a guide covers building from source. This repository is a bundle of the core components and official modules as submodules, which is also where releases of the whole suite appear.
