The Best Time Tracker for Programmers

Image Credit: Austin Distel

If you’re an independent contractor writing software, then this post is for you.

Even if you do project-based invoicing, accurate time tracking is important for measuring the effort you’re devoting to each client and in return how much you should be charging for your time.

Time trackers can be grouped into manual and automated categories:

Automated time trackers

WakaTime - A time tracker for developers, using open source IDE plugins

WakaTime is a dashboard for developers and dev teams, using IDE plugins to automate time tracking. Since it’s built for programmers, it automatically detects your projects, feature branch, and programming languages. WakaTime also measures how many lines of code you generate using AI, giving an AI vs Human breakdown for your projects. Make sure to increase the default Keystroke timeout preference so you’re not under-reporting your actual work time.

ActivityWatch - An app that automatically tracks how you spend time on your computer

Tracks active application and window title, with data stored locally on your computer. It’s not made specifically for devs, but if you don’t need team features then ActivityWatch is a good automatic time tracker to measure your productivity.

Manual time trackers

Toggl - A simple time tracker with stopwatch app for many platforms

Use this if you’re not a software engineer. Its simplicity and support for multiple platforms has made it the leader in general time tracking.

FreshBooks - An invoicing platform, with a time tracking feature

Use this if you have a lot of clients where sending invoices and collecting payments is taking up a lot of your time.

Upwork - A freelancer platform with a screenshot desktop app

If you’re just starting out and need to find work, Upwork can be a good place to find new clients. However, their time tracking app takes screenshots of your desktop every 10 minutes. Not everyone is comfortable with that level of monitoring.

The Winner?

Each one is a leader in their space so they’re naturally best for the specific use that they were targeting. If you don’t have concerns about your privacy and don't mind having to be more involved in the time tracking process, try Upwork. If you just need simple manual time tracking with no automatic features, use Freshbooks or Toggl. If you’re a programmer, WakaTime is the best time tracker. It's fully automatic and gives you all the insights a developer needs, for ex: time tracking per commit, file, or project.