Best Open-Source Toggl Alternatives 2026

Toggl Track charges $9/user/month on the Starter plan and $18/user/month on Premium. For a 15-person agency billing by the hour, that's $1,620-$3,240/year just to track the time they're billing. The free plan limits you to 5 users and omits invoicing, reports by client, and time rounding.

Open source time tracking tools have matured significantly. If you need a self-hosted alternative that handles project/client time tracking, team reporting, and export for invoicing — without per-seat costs — there are solid options in 2026.

TL;DR

Kimai is the most mature and feature-complete self-hosted time tracker — it's been in production for 15+ years and handles multi-user teams, client/project hierarchies, invoicing, and approval workflows. Solidtime is the best modern option if you want a clean, polished UI without Kimai's complexity. Traggo is the right choice for developers who prefer a tag-driven, minimal approach to time tracking. Timetagger is the best single-user or small team option for personal time tracking with a simple web interface.

Quick Comparison

	Kimai	Solidtime	Traggo	Timetagger
GitHub Stars	3.5K+	3K+	1.5K+	1.5K+
License	MIT	AGPL-3.0	GPL-3.0	AGPL-3.0
Docker Support	✓	✓	✓	✓
Multi-User	✓	✓	✓	Limited
Client/Project	✓	✓	Tag-based	✓
Invoicing	✓	Planned	✗	✗
Approval Workflow	✓	✗	✗	✗
Reporting	Excellent	Good	Basic	Basic
API	✓	✓	✓	✓
Self-Host Difficulty	Medium	Easy	Easy	Easy
Active Development	Active	Very Active	Moderate	Moderate

Kimai: The Production-Grade Time Tracking Suite

Kimai has been running in production environments since 2006. The current version (Kimai 2, built on Symfony) is a substantial enterprise-ready time tracking platform with a feature set that rivals commercial tools — and often exceeds them in customization depth.

With 3,500+ GitHub stars and a large deployment base across agencies, consultancies, and enterprises, Kimai is the tool to reach for when you need a serious multi-user time tracking system with invoicing, approval workflows, and detailed reporting.

Self-hosting: Kimai runs as a PHP application with MySQL or SQLite. Docker deployment is straightforward:

docker run --rm -ti \
  -p 8001:8001 \
  -e DATABASE_URL="mysql://kimai:kimai@database:3306/kimai" \
  kimai/kimai2:apache

A Docker Compose file with Kimai + MySQL is available in the official repository. Minimum: 1 vCPU / 512MB RAM. For teams with high entry volume, 1 vCPU / 1GB RAM is more comfortable.

Feature highlights:

• Multi-level hierarchy: Customers → Projects → Activities → Timesheet entries. Each level has its own billing rate, budget, and visibility settings
• Team timesheets: View, filter, and export time across all team members. Team leads can approve submitted timesheets
• Invoicing: Generate invoices from timesheet data with configurable templates (PDF, HTML). Apply per-project rates, tax rates, and discounts
• Approval workflow: Require employees to lock timesheets for weekly/monthly review before payroll processing
• Reporting: Charts for individual and team time by project/activity/user, export to CSV/xlsx, API access for external reporting
• Plugin system: 50+ community plugins for additional features (LDAP, Kiosk clock-in, expense tracking, barcode time recording)

Where Kimai wins vs Toggl: Kimai's invoicing is built-in and configurable — Toggl charges for invoice exports in higher tiers. Kimai's approval workflow for timesheet sign-off has no Toggl equivalent. The plugin system means you can extend Kimai for specialized needs (HR integration, kiosk-mode clock-in for shop floors, etc.).

Where Kimai falls short: The UI is functional but not as polished as Toggl Track's interface. Mobile apps are community-built rather than official. Initial setup has more steps than Toggl's SaaS signup. For very small teams that just want simple start/stop tracking, Kimai's depth may feel like overkill.

Solidtime: The Modern Open-Source Time Tracker

Solidtime launched in 2024 and has quickly become the recommended alternative for teams that find Kimai's complexity excessive. Built with Laravel and Vue.js, Solidtime has a clean, contemporary UI that tracks time simply and reports clearly — without the enterprise feature weight of Kimai.

With 3,000+ GitHub stars in a short time frame, Solidtime has earned rapid community adoption. Development velocity is high and the feature set is growing quickly.

Self-hosting: Solidtime deploys via Docker Compose with PostgreSQL. The repository includes a production-ready compose file. Minimum: 1 vCPU / 512MB RAM.

Feature highlights: Project and client management, timer with start/stop, manual time entry, team workspace with role-based access (owner, admin, member, viewer), tagging, filtering, CSV export, and a REST API. Invoicing and more advanced reporting are on the public roadmap.

Where Solidtime wins vs Toggl: For teams that want a SaaS-like experience from a self-hosted tool, Solidtime is the closest match in look and feel. Clean dashboard, simple time entry, and team reporting without the complexity of Kimai. MIT-free deployment with no per-seat cost.

Where Solidtime falls short: Invoicing is not yet available (planned feature). The approval workflow and plugin ecosystem that Kimai offers don't exist yet. If you need invoicing from your time tracker today, Kimai is the better choice. Solidtime is the future-forward option for teams that can wait on those features.

Traggo: Tag-Driven Minimal Time Tracking

Traggo takes a completely different approach. Instead of projects and clients, Traggo organizes time entries around tags — arbitrary key-value pairs that you define. A time entry might be tagged project=website, client=acme, type=development. You define the structure; Traggo doesn't enforce a hierarchy.

This flexibility appeals to developers who want to track time across multiple dimensions simultaneously without being constrained by a client → project → activity tree.

Self-hosting: Traggo is a single Go binary or Docker image with SQLite storage. It's the simplest deployment on this list:

docker run -d -p 3030:3030 traggo/server:latest

Minimum: 512MB RAM. Traggo runs on the most minimal hardware of any tool here.

Feature highlights: Arbitrary tag-based time entries, configurable tag definitions, dashboard with time summaries per tag combination, time range filtering, REST API, and a clean web interface. Multi-user with separate tag configurations per user.

Where Traggo wins: Maximum flexibility for non-hierarchical time tracking. Developers tracking time across clients, projects, and task types simultaneously find the tag model more expressive than Toggl's project structure. Minimal infrastructure footprint — runs on a $4/month VPS easily.

Where Traggo falls short: No invoicing. No team approval workflows. Reporting is basic compared to Kimai or Solidtime. The tag model is powerful but requires discipline to keep consistent across team members — without a defined hierarchy, data quality depends on team habits. Not the right fit for agencies that need structured client invoicing.

Timetagger: Simple Personal Time Tracking

Timetagger is a Python-based time tracker designed for simplicity. The interface is a visual timeline where you tag time blocks directly on a scrolling daily view. It's intuitive for personal time tracking but also supports team hosting.

Self-hosting: Timetagger runs as a single Python process or Docker container. Setup takes minutes. SQLite storage means zero database configuration.

Feature highlights: Visual timeline entry (drag to create time blocks), tag-based entries similar to Traggo, calendar view, simple reporting per tag, REST API, and a desktop/mobile-responsive web interface. Self-hosted version supports multiple users with authentication.

Where Timetagger fits: Consultants and freelancers who want a visual, minimal time tracker they control. Single users or tiny teams (2-5 people) who don't need approval workflows or invoicing. The visual timeline is one of the better interfaces for reviewing how a day was actually spent.

Where Timetagger falls short: No built-in invoicing. Multi-user support is basic compared to Kimai. Development is slower than Solidtime or Kimai. For larger teams, Kimai or Solidtime is more appropriate.

Feature Comparison vs Toggl Track

Feature	Toggl Track Starter	Kimai	Solidtime	Traggo	Timetagger
Unlimited users	Paid	✓	✓	✓	✓
Client/project hierarchy	✓	✓	✓	Tags	✓
Invoicing	Paid	✓	Planned	✗	✗
Approval workflow	Paid	✓	✗	✗	✗
Team reporting	✓	✓	✓	Basic	Basic
CSV/Excel export	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
Time rounding	Paid	✓	✓	✗	✗
Mobile app	Native	Community	✗ (web)	✗ (web)	✗ (web)
API	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
Self-host	✗	✓	✓	✓	✓

Toggl's free plan caps at 5 users. All four open source alternatives have no user limits on self-hosted deployments.

Infrastructure Cost

All four tools run comfortably on minimal VPS hardware:

• Traggo or Timetagger (1-10 users): $4-6/month (1 vCPU / 512MB RAM)
• Solidtime (5-30 users): $6-12/month (1-2 vCPU / 1GB RAM)
• Kimai (any team size): $6-12/month (1-2 vCPU / 1GB RAM)

Compare to Toggl Track Starter at $9/user/month: a 10-person team pays $1,080/year. Running Kimai on Hetzner costs $72-144/year. The break-even against Toggl happens in weeks.

When to Use Which

Choose Kimai if: You run an agency, consultancy, or team that needs multi-client invoicing, timesheet approval workflows, or detailed project-level budget tracking. You want the most mature, plugin-extensible self-hosted time tracker available.

Choose Solidtime if: You want a clean, modern interface without Kimai's complexity. You're an early adopter comfortable with a growing tool. Invoicing can wait — you need clean time entry and team reporting now.

Choose Traggo if: You want maximum tagging flexibility without a fixed project hierarchy. You're a developer who likes to track time across multiple dimensions simultaneously. Minimal infrastructure footprint matters.

Choose Timetagger if: You're a freelancer or solo consultant who wants a visual, minimal time tracker for personal use. You want the simplest possible deployment with no database setup.

For teams with more complex project billing needs, the time tracking built into Kimai integrates with many invoicing tools that cover the full project delivery workflow. See also Best Open-Source HubSpot Alternatives 2026 if time tracking is part of a larger client relationship workflow.