ActivityWatch icon
ActivityWatch icon

ActivityWatch

Open-source, cross-platform app tracks time on devices, providing productivity insights, anti-procrastination tools, and Pomodoro timers in a privacy-focused, no third-party data system, customizable by user extensions, making it a versatile alternative to RescueTime and ManicTime.

ActivityWatch screenshot 1
ActivityWatch screenshot 2
+2
ActivityWatch screenshot 3

Cost / License

Application type

Platforms

  • Mac
  • Windows
  • Linux
  • Android  requires Android 6.0 and up
  • Android Tablet  requires Android 6.0 and up
  • Self-Hosted
  • Google Chrome
  • Rust
  • Python
  • Chromium
  • Mozilla Firefox
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Comments and Reviews

   
Comment summary: ActivityWatch is praised for its open-source nature, easy setup, and free offering, prioritizing user privacy by keeping data local. It's lauded as a strong alternative to RescueTime, with broad platform support and extensive features for time tracking, including browser integration. However, some users note slowness and the need for enhancements like better Android support and expanded analytics. While praised for simplicity and customization, its development stage leaves room for feature additions.
Top Positive Comment
Erik Bjäreholt
24

I think it's pretty good, but I'm not exactly an unbiased reviewer.

edmundosanchez
Replying to @Erik Bjäreholt

Well, thank you sir for this beautiful thing.

Top Negative Comment
endolith
-2

Open source, but you can only categorize things by keyword, not more reliable things like file paths or URLs. The categorization interface is extremely slow to refresh, and refreshes every time you add something to a category. You'll spend more time categorizing your time than your actual time.

Inbydev
Replying to @endolith

About the slowness, did you tried aw-server-rust?

Everlyst
0

Love everything about it. Was exactly what I was looking for. Tried making my own timeline with the API before I realized there was one built in, and again its exactly what I wanted.

Review from a new or low-activity account — shown here, but not counted in the app rating.
Robin Millette
0

Gently monitors my ADHD, an important part of my toolset.

Review from a new or low-activity account — shown here, but not counted in the app rating.
Tim-6119
0

Really nice and simple app to track where you spend your time, super easy to set up and customize, took me less than 5 minutes to do it ❤️

Review from a new or low-activity account — shown here, but not counted in the app rating.
wkoussay
0

It seems nice until now.

Review from a new or low-activity account — shown here, but not counted in the app rating.
KauanGodoy174
0

The best open-source time tracker. After initial setup, it works very well, consuming few system resources. I really like how you can visualize the time spent, whether through an overview of your day, week, or month, or through a timeline. The program also doesn't take up much disk space. I've been using it for about 1.5 weeks, staying on the computer for about 6 hours a day, and the activity history files are only 3.2 MiB. I think they could be even smaller though.

On the not so bright side, the software cannot distinguish the desktop from other applications, at least for me. This adds time that I don't think always should be factored in. Finally, the worst part was getting it to work on Arch Linux using Wayland. This is because the AUR package isn't well maintained, so it didn't work out of the box. And if Wayland is the system's display server protocol, you need to replace some bundled watchers with a third-party one. It's a simple process, but only after you KNOW what needs to be done, as it's not well documented and there are multiple third-party watchers for this purpose, each with its own quirks and perks.

Review from a new or low-activity account — shown here, but not counted in the app rating.
7 of 120 comments

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Official Links

Install from the command line

  • winget install -e --id ActivityWatch.ActivityWatch

Be careful what you paste into a terminal. Check what a command installs before running it.

What is ActivityWatch?

ActivityWatch is an app that automatically tracks how you spend time on your devices.

It is open source, privacy-first, cross-platform, and a great alternative to services like RescueTime, ManicTime, and WakaTime.

It can be used to keep track of your productivity, time spent on different projects, bad screen habits, or just to understand how you spend your time.

ActivityWatch information

  • Developed by

    SE flagErik Bjäreholt, Johan Bjäreholt and contributors
  • Licensing

    Open Source (MPL-2.0) and Free product.
  • Written in

  • Rating

    Average rating of 4.6 (48 ratings)
  • Alternatives

    125 alternatives listed
  • Badge

    Get an embeddable badge for ActivityWatch
  • Supported Languages

    • English

AlternativeTo Categories

Office & Productivity, Web Browsers, Security & Privacy, OS & Utilities, Sport & Health

GitHub repository

  •  19,190 Stars
  •  1,041 Forks
  •  187 Open Issues
  •   Updated  
View on GitHub

Our users have written 120 comments and reviews about ActivityWatch, and it has gotten 591 likes

ActivityWatch was added to AlternativeTo by Erik Bjäreholt on and this page was last updated .