Toggl alternative

The best Toggl alternative in 2026

  • Toggl is great if you remember timers. Most people don't.
  • If you're switching, the next question is 'manual or automatic' — there are good options in both camps.
  • Honest table below, not just a Temporal.ist promo.

If you're searching for a Toggl alternative you usually fall into one of three buckets: cheaper, automatic, or better-integrated. The right answer depends which of the three matters most.

Start tracking time, free No credit card. Free during early access.

Why people look for a Toggl alternative

  • You forget to start timers — and the data you do have doesn't reflect the work you actually did.
  • Per-seat pricing is climbing as your team grows.
  • You want invoicing in the same tool, without paying for Toggl Plan separately.
  • You don't use Toggl's integrations enough to justify the price.

Toggl alternatives compared

Temporal.ist That's us

Free during early access

Automatic tracking from file edits and URLs with invoicing built in — idle time and PC sleep deducted on their own, offline-first desktop apps plus a headless Linux CLI. No screenshots.

Best for: Freelancers and small teams who forget timers and bill hourly.

Clockify

Free; paid from ≈ $4/user/mo

The 'free forever, unlimited users' manual tracker. Wide feature set.

Best for: Teams whose primary constraint is budget.

Harvest

≈ $12/user/mo (Pro)

Manual timer + mature invoicing with deep QuickBooks/Xero integration.

Best for: Agencies running their billing on QuickBooks/Xero today.

Timely

≈ $11–$22/user/mo

AI-summarised timesheet from comprehensive desktop activity capture.

Best for: People who want an AI draft of their week.

Memtime

From ≈ €11/mo

Visual day-timeline tracker (Mac/Win/Linux) with strong professional-services traction.

Best for: Teams that want a horizontal timeline reconstruction of the day.

ActivityWatch

Free, open source

Open-source, fully local automatic tracker. No SaaS.

Best for: People who'll only run open-source software they can audit.

Why teams pick Temporal.ist

Temporal.ist replaces 'remember to start a timer' with 'open the file you'd be working on anyway'. A file save or a visited URL starts the session and attributes it to the right project, an idle timeout closes it 15 minutes after your last save, and time your PC spends asleep is deducted automatically — so the hours are right even when your discipline isn't. Invoicing is built in rather than a separate product: per-client rates, unbilled sessions pulled straight onto auto-numbered invoices. And it tracks where Toggl's apps don't reach: a headless Linux CLI for servers, offline-first desktop apps that sync when you're back. If your bottleneck is human timer discipline, this is the fix. If you depend on Toggl-specific integrations we don't ship, switching might cost you more than it saves — be honest with yourself first.

What you get when you switch

The pitch above, made concrete — this is what's in the box.

Tracking that starts itself

A file save or a visited URL starts the session and files it under the right project. No timers, no screenshots, no activity scores.

Invoices from tracked time

Projects link to clients with per-client hourly rates. Unbilled sessions become line items on auto-numbered invoices — nothing re-typed.

Hours that stay honest

Sessions close by themselves after 15 idle minutes, time your PC spends asleep is deducted automatically, and you can pause with one click.

Sessions or whole days

Think in days, not sessions? Optional day-span mode shows one session per project per day, first save to last — reversible, and applies to your whole history.

Everywhere you work

Apps for Windows, macOS, and Linux, a headless CLI for servers over SSH, and extensions for Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Safari. Offline-first, syncs later.

Teams without surveillance

Organisation and team roll-ups with a live dashboard. Managers see project totals — never screenshots or keystroke records.

Flow diagram: a saved file and a visited URL are captured automatically, become a tracked session on the DMI project totalling 2 hours 30 minutes, and land two clicks later as a 2.50-hour line item at 90 dollars an hour on invoice DMI-202607-0012 totalling 225 dollars
From a file save to an invoice line — attribution and billing happen on their own.
Three panels: a session closes itself after 15 minutes without a save; 41 minutes of PC sleep between 12:31 and 13:12 are recorded as a break and deducted from the day's total; a session paused at 15:04 and resumed at 15:26 with the gap not billed
Idle timeout, sleep deduction, and one-click pause keep the hours something a client can trust.
Four panels showing where Temporal.ist tracks: desktop apps for Windows, macOS, and Linux that work offline and sync later; browser extensions for Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Safari that only see sites you add; a headless Linux CLI running temporal watch on a server; and one-click manual sessions for meetings and calls
One account across desktop, browser, and servers — with manual sessions for the rest.

Frequently asked questions

Will I lose my Toggl history?

Not if you export. CSV import works; native Toggl import is on the roadmap.

What's the cheapest Toggl alternative?

Clockify, by a long way. Their free tier is genuinely unlimited.

Which alternative is most automatic?

Temporal.ist (file + URL) and Timely (everything-capture + AI). Different tradeoffs.

Ready to stop reconstructing your week?

Track time automatically. Bill clients in the same tool. No surveillance, ever.

Start tracking time, free