Changelog

Application FOSS Actively maintained Web / Windows / Android / CLI Simple entry Remarks
Clockify ❌ ✅ ✅✅✅❌ ✅ Marketed as free, but does have paid plans. Web app seems a little laggy, but it has the fantastic ability to drag to mark time blocks. Android app is clunky with no calendar function.
Toggl Time ❌ ✅ ✅✅✅❌ ✅ Looks very promising. This one is really clean and responsive. Feels more intuitive than clockify, and has generally more long-term users. The project planner on the other hand is not really necessary.
HourStack ❌ ✅ ✅❌❌❌ ❌ Involves pre-planning before executing the schedule. Difficult to see filled blocks of time, and time input is less intuitive.
Super Productivity ✅ ✅ ✅✅✅❌ ❔ Has potential, but looks cluttered (Electron-app). Issue has a lot of bugs and single maintainer since 2017.
Kimai ✅ ✅ ✅❌❌❌ ❌ Offers improvement over basic Excel spreadsheet input. No visualization of time. Looks unnecessarily complex with rate tracking.
ActivityWatch ✅ ✅ ❌✅✅❌ ❔ No syncing. More geared towards indiscriminate data collection, like Rescuetime.
Timewarrior ✅ ✅ ❌✅❌✅ ❔ CLI-only, with a couple desktop GUI wrappers. No sync capabilities.
Timestrap ✅ ❌ ✅❌❌❌ ❔ Promoted by the developer on HackerNews, but remains unstable. Incomplete features.
Timetrap ✅ ❌ ❌❌❌✅ ❔ Rarely updated.
Watson ✅ ❌ ❌❌❌✅ ❔ CLI-only, web GUI not maintained.
Traggo ✅ ❌ ✅❌❌❌ ✅ Only tags, no description of time spent. Very lightly maintained for bug fixes only.
Project Hamster ✅ ❌ ❌✅❌✅ ❔ The hamster died 4 years ago.
gtt ✅ ❌ ❌✅❌✅ ❔ No longer actively maintained in 2021.
Rescuetime ❌ ✅ ✅✅✅❌ ❌ Too much detail with few actionable items, often requires repeated categorization. Not suitable for project-based time tracking.
Google Calendar ❌ ✅ ✅❌✅❌ ❌ Input of individual tasks is very tedious.
Google Sheets ❌ ✅ ✅❌✅❌ ✅ Online-based web interface, often slow to respond and especially difficult to edit on mobile.

This made me realize that not all closed-source software are bad. The potential lock-in is risky, but provided the data being stored is not sensitive, the financial incentive of a company to improve a product often can be a much stronger driving force for development as opposed to free development time by the community.

I eventually selected Toggl Time for its simplicity and ease of use.