Free, open-source alternatives to ManicTime

ManicTime records the apps, websites and documents you use, along with time away from the computer, and lays the day out on a timeline that you tag with projects and clients for timesheets and reports. On the Mac it runs as a menu bar tracker that sends its data to ManicTime Cloud or a ManicTime Server, where the timelines are viewed. The open-source apps below do the same core job of recording computer activity automatically and turning it into a timeline, with the data kept locally.

ActivityWatch is closest to ManicTime's tracker, logging the active app, window titles, away time and, with browser extensions, visited sites, and showing timelines in a local dashboard. TimeScribe leans towards timesheets, with projects, hourly rates, idle-based pausing and PDF, Excel or CSV export. Dayflow builds its timeline from periodic screen captures that an AI model summarises into activity cards.