ActivityWatch vs Clockify
ActivityWatch and Clockify are both time tracking software. ActivityWatch is open source under MPL-2.0, with 19k GitHub stars. Clockify is a commercial product from CAKE.com.
Which to pick
- Pick ActivityWatch when
- You want private automatic time tracking without a cloud service.
- Pick Clockify when
- A team wants free time tracking for many users and may add paid features later.
Side by side
Automatically records which apps, windows and websites you use and shows how you spent your time, keeping data on your own machine.
Time tracker and timesheet app with a free unlimited-user plan, plus paid scheduling, approvals and invoicing.
Browser and editor tracking need extra watchers, and team use is not its focus.
Many useful features such as approvals and audit logs are on paid tiers.
Production-ready (both)
Desktop app
Cloud service, desktop app, mobile app and browser extension
Python and Rust
Not published
Open source, MPL-2.0 (weak copyleft)
Closed source, sold by CAKE.com
You can use it inside a product you sell; changes you make to its own files must be shared.
Closed source: you use it under the maker's terms and cannot change or resell the code.
19k GitHub stars
No Wikipedia article of its own
Established: started 10 years ago, latest release v0.14.1.
Not known
Other comparisons
More time tracking apps
Both sides were judged on 2026-11-03 from makers' descriptions, Wikipedia, READMEs and GitHub data. License, age and popularity lines are worked out directly.