ActivityWatch vs Toggl Track
ActivityWatch and Toggl Track are both time tracking software. ActivityWatch is open source under MPL-2.0, with 19k GitHub stars. Toggl Track is a commercial product from Toggl.
Which to pick
- Pick ActivityWatch when
- You want private automatic time tracking without a cloud service.
- Pick Toggl Track when
- Freelancers or teams want simple time tracking that people will actually use, with clean reports.
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 with one-click timers, calendar view, projects, billable rates, reports and capacity planning.
Browser and editor tracking need extra watchers, and team use is not its focus.
Invoicing is basic and advanced features need 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 Toggl
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
53 Wikipedia readers a month on phones
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.