The 7 Best Time Tracking Apps for Software Developers on a Mac in 2026

For a Mac developer who wants to remember the whole day for standups and PR descriptions, with recordings kept on the Mac, pick Dayflow ($0). WakaTime is better for per-language coding metrics and AI-tool usage. ActivityWatch is the free, local, cross-platform option. Timing is best for billable hours on a Mac, and Toggl or Clockify are best for team timesheets.

This ranking is for software developers who work on a Mac and want an honest record of their working time. The job is rarely payroll. More often it is answering “what did I do yesterday?” at standup, writing a PR description that explains the two detours before the fix, or seeing how a week split between feature work, review and incidents. Much of that work happens outside the editor, in the browser, the terminal, Slack and docs. The real choice is between tools that watch the editor and tools that watch the whole screen. This list covers WakaTime, ActivityWatch, Timing, Rize, Toggl (formerly Toggl Track) and Clockify. Head-to-head pages exist for ActivityWatch vs Dayflow, Timing, Rize, Toggl and Clockify. For the broader list beyond developers, see our guide to choosing a time tracker for Mac.

Dayflow is our product, so weigh its placement with that in mind. It ranks first because the criteria that count most here are capturing work outside the editor, keeping data local and producing text you can reuse in a standup. Those are the things it was built for. It does not win on two criteria. For coding-specific metrics, WakaTime is clearly better. For billing and team features, Timing, Toggl and Clockify lead, and Dayflow has none.

Quick comparison

Tool	Best for	How it tracks	Price
Dayflow	Remembering the whole workday for standups and PRs	Screen frame every 10 seconds, AI writes a timeline	$0; optional Pro $20/month
WakaTime	Coding time by language, project and AI tool	Plugins for 100+ editors, IDEs and terminals	Free ($0, 1 week history); paid from $9/mo billed monthly
ActivityWatch	Free, local, scriptable tracking on any OS	Active app, window title, AFK, plus extensions and editor plugins	Free
Timing	Billable hours on a Mac	Automatic tracking of apps, websites and documents	From $9/month billed annually

Quick picks by use case

Best overall for remembering the day: Dayflow. It is $0 and MIT licensed, with an optional Pro plan at $20 a month. It gives you a written timeline that covers code review, debugging and meetings as well as typing.

Best for coding metrics: WakaTime. The Free plan is $0 but keeps 1 week of history. Premium, which you need for full history, is $14/mo billed monthly or $12.83/mo billed $153.96 yearly.

Best free and cross-platform: ActivityWatch. It is free with no feature gates, stores data on your own device and runs on Mac, Windows, Linux and Android.

Best for billing a client from a Mac: Timing. Professional is $9 per month billed annually or $11 billed monthly. It adds billing status tracking, report rounding and, depending on the plan, Linear sync.

Best for AI focus coaching: Rize. Basic is $9.99/mo billed annually or $12.99 billed monthly. Your data is hosted in the cloud.

Best for teams: Toggl or Clockify. Toggl’s Free plan covers up to 3 users, and Starter is $9 per user per month billed annually. Clockify’s Free plan covers up to 5 users, and Basic is $3.99 per seat per month billed annually.

How we compared them

Criterion	Weight	Scores high	Scores low
Captures work outside the editor	25%	Records review, terminal, browser and meetings without a timer	Sees only editor events or depends on you starting a timer
Data stays local	20%	Raw activity stays on your Mac by default	Activity goes to a hosted service as a requirement
Output for standups and PRs	20%	Produces readable text you can paste or export	Produces only charts and totals
Coding-specific detail	15%	Breaks time down by language, project, editor or AI tool	Has no idea what a repo or language is
Cost for one developer	10%	Free, or a full product at a low price	Useful features locked behind higher tiers
Billing and team features	10%	Invoicing, billable rates, approvals, shared reports	Built for one person with no billing

We compared all seven tools from each vendor’s own pricing and product pages on October 4, 2026, and from Dayflow 2.2.0’s published facts. No benchmark was run, and the scores behind the ranking are judgments.

The 7 best time tracking apps for developers on a Mac, ranked

1. Dayflow

Dayflow is a free, open-source Mac app. It records your screen at one frame every 10 seconds and has AI write the day into a readable timeline. Because it captures the screen rather than editor events, it gives equal weight to a PR review in the browser, an incident thread, a terminal session and a design doc.

For a developer, the output is a plain-language log of what you actually did. That log is raw material for a standup or the “what changed and why” section of a PR. You can export a date range as Markdown from Settings → Export.

Recordings and the timeline stay on your Mac. Analysis runs in one of three ways:

• on-device, through Ollama or LM Studio
• through a cloud provider you configure
• through Dayflow Pro

The app is $0 under the MIT license, and Pro is $20 a month.

The limits are real:

• It requires macOS 14 or later.
• It has no editor plugin, so you get no breakdowns by language or editor.
• It has no invoices, payroll approvals, team reports or website blocking.
• AI summaries can miss or misread work, so check them before you share.

Pick it if you want to remember the whole day, not just the hours spent in the editor.

2. WakaTime

WakaTime is a developer time tracker built on open-source plugins for more than 100 editors, IDEs and terminals. The plugins automatically record coding time and AI usage per project, language and editor, then send it to a hosted web dashboard.

That gives developers numbers no screen-based tool produces:

• hours per project and the split by language
• programming goals and private leaderboards
• AI adoption across Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot and Codex
• AI-generated versus human-written lines, and model spend

For a team lead trying to understand AI tool usage, that last set of metrics is the main reason to look.

Pricing:

• Free: $0, with 1 week of dashboard history, unlimited projects and 1 goal.
• Basic: $9/mo billed monthly, or $8.25/mo billed $99 yearly.
• Premium: $14/mo billed monthly, or $12.83/mo billed $153.96 yearly. You need this for full history.
• Team: $21/dev/mo billed monthly. There is a 14-day trial with no card required.

The honest limit is the plugin boundary. Anything outside a supported editor or terminal does not exist to WakaTime. That includes review in the browser, a long Slack debugging thread and a whiteboard call. Data goes to WakaTime’s cloud, and the hosted service is not open source.

Pick it if you want hard coding metrics or visibility into AI tool spend.

3. ActivityWatch

ActivityWatch is a free, open-source automatic tracker, licensed under MPL-2.0. It records the active application, the window title and whether you are away from the keyboard. Browser extensions add the active tab title and URL, and editor plugins add coding activity.

The vendor states that all data is stored on your device and never sent to any server. For a developer, the appeal is that it is hackable. It has custom watchers and a local API, so you can build your own reports or pipe the data into scripts. It also runs on Windows, Linux and Android, which matters if your week includes a non-Mac workstation.

It is free, with no feature gates, usage limits or ads.

The limit is output. ActivityWatch lists no AI summaries, so you get charts of apps and window titles, and you write the standup yourself. Sync between devices is still a work in progress, and there is no iOS app. Window titles also tell you less than a screen frame: “Terminal” is all it knows about a long debugging session.

Pick it if you want free, local, scriptable tracking that works across operating systems, and you are happy to read the data yourself.

4. Timing

Timing is a Mac-only automatic tracker. It records time across apps, websites and documents, down to specific URLs and Mail threads, and it supports manual entries and iOS activity import.

For developers, it pairs automatic capture with real billing tools:

• billing status tracking and report rounding
• GrandTotal invoicing integration
• two-way Linear and ClickUp sync
• scripting, a Web API and Zapier

Some of these depend on the plan. Every plan includes AI activity summaries and AI integration via MCP, plus AI-powered suggestions for time entries. The vendor states that tracked times are stored locally and never leave your Mac unless you opt into sync.

Pricing:

• Professional: $9 per month billed annually, or $11 billed monthly. Covers 1 Mac with limited web app access.
• Expert: $11 billed annually, or $14 billed monthly.
• Connect: $16 per user per month billed annually, or $20 billed monthly.

There is a 30-day trial with no credit card. The limits are no free tier, Mac only and closed source. For a salaried developer with no client to bill, most of what you pay for goes unused.

Pick it if you are a contractor who bills hours from a Mac and wants the record to build itself.

5. Rize

Rize is an automatic tracker for Mac and Windows. It records apps and websites and uses AI to categorize and tag them. Connecting Google Calendar adds meeting time.

The AI goes further than most tools on this list. It includes chat, productivity and focus insights, and an MCP server on Pro and above, all metered in monthly AI credits. Pro and above also add an API, webhooks, Zapier and client reports in PDF and CSV. The vendor names developers among its target users, and the focus insights suit someone trying to protect deep work.

Pricing:

• Basic: $9.99/mo billed annually, or $12.99/month billed monthly. Includes 500 AI credits.
• Pro: $23.99/mo billed annually, with 1,000 credits. For monthly pricing, see the vendor’s pricing page.
• Max: $39.99/mo billed annually, with 3,000 credits.
• Team: $29.99/seat/month with annual billing, or $39.99 billed monthly.

There is a 7-day trial with no card required. The limits matter for developers in particular. Data is hosted on Amazon Web Services, which may be a problem if your screens show client code. There is no free tier, and Linux is not available yet.

Pick it if you want AI coaching on focus and are comfortable with cloud hosting.

6. Toggl (formerly Toggl Track)

Toggl is a timer-based tracker that now combines time tracking with project planning. It is built around manual and real-time timers, timesheets and calendar integrations. The desktop app also lists automated background tracking and a timeline. The vendor states that it does not take screenshots or record keystrokes, which some teams will see as a plus.

For software teams, the draw is structure:

• billable rates and team reports
• timesheet approvals and profitability reports (Premium)
• Jira and Asana integrations (Premium)
• Toggl AI, which answers natural-language questions about workspace data, plus an MCP server

Pricing:

• Free: $0 for up to 3 users.
• Starter: $9 per user per month billed annually, or $12 billed monthly.
• Premium: $16 billed annually, or $24 billed monthly.
• Enterprise: contact the vendor.

Paid plans have a 30-day trial. The honest limit for an individual developer is that Toggl is mainly a timer. If you forget to start it before jumping into a production issue, that hour is a gap you reconstruct later. Data lives in Toggl’s cloud.

Pick it if your team needs shared reports, billable rates or Jira-linked time.

7. Clockify

Clockify is a timer and timesheet tracker from CAKE.com. You can log time by timer, timesheet, calendar or kiosk entry, and the desktop app includes an auto tracker. It runs on web, Mac, Windows, Linux, iOS and Android.

For developers, two things stand out. Its paid plans are the cheapest on this list. And it lets you choose where data is hosted: the EU (Germany), the UK, the USA or Australia. That can settle a compliance question for a team.

Pricing:

• Free: $0 for up to 5 users.
• Basic: $3.99 per seat per month billed annually, or $4.99 billed monthly.
• Standard: $5.49 billed annually, or $6.99 billed monthly. Adds invoicing and approvals.
• Pro: $7.99 billed annually, or $9.99 billed monthly. Adds scheduling, forecasting and activity monitoring.
• Enterprise: $11.99 billed annually, or $14.99 billed monthly.

There is a 7-day Pro trial with no card required. The limits are no AI features listed and a timer-and-timesheet core, so the record is only as good as your discipline. The activity monitoring on Pro is aimed at oversight rather than personal recall. Our piece on time tracking without surveillance explains why that distinction matters.

Pick it if a team needs cheap timesheets and invoicing across mixed operating systems.

Full comparison table

Tool	Price	Automatic capture	AI summaries	Where data lives	Open source	Platforms
Dayflow	$0; Pro $20/month	Yes, screen frame every 10 seconds	Yes	Recordings and timeline on your Mac; analysis local, your provider, or Pro	Yes, MIT	macOS 14+
WakaTime	Free $0; paid from $9/mo billed monthly	Yes, inside supported editors and terminals	No; tracks AI coding usage	WakaTime’s hosted dashboard	Plugins only	100+ editors, IDEs and terminals; web dashboard
ActivityWatch	Free	Yes, app, window title, AFK; tabs and code via add-ons	None listed	On your device	Yes, MPL-2.0	Windows, Mac, Linux, Android
Timing	From $9/month billed annually	Yes, apps, websites, documents	Yes	Local, optional sync	No	Mac
Rize	From $9.99/mo billed annually	Yes, apps and websites	AI insights and chat, credit-metered	Cloud (AWS)	No	Mac, Windows
Toggl	Free up to 3 users; from $9/user/month billed annually	Mainly timers; background tracking in desktop app	Toggl AI answers questions on workspace data	Cloud	No	Web, Mac, Windows, iOS, Android, browser extensions
Clockify	Free up to 5 users; from $3.99/seat/month billed annually	Mainly timers; auto tracker in desktop app	None listed	Cloud, EU, UK, USA or Australia	No	Web, Mac, Windows, Linux, iOS, Android, browser extensions

Editor plugin or whole-screen capture: which do developers need?

An editor plugin answers “how long did I spend coding, and in what?” Whole-screen capture answers “what did I spend the day doing?” Those are different questions. Most developers have noticed that typing code is a minority of the job.

A day that ends with a one-line fix might include:

• an hour reading logs in the terminal
• forty minutes in a Datadog dashboard
• a Slack thread with the on-call engineer
• a review of someone else’s PR

WakaTime sees the terminal time if a plugin covers your terminal, and the minutes in the editor. ActivityWatch sees app and window names. Dayflow sees the frames themselves, so its timeline can say what you were looking at.

The tradeoff is privacy and precision. A plugin sends small, structured events: project, language, file type. A screen recorder captures everything, including the .env file you opened and the customer record in the admin panel. Where that data goes matters.

Dayflow keeps recordings on your Mac. With Local AI, analysis also stays on-device. With your own provider or Pro, selected screenshots leave the machine. The local and cloud processing guide explains each mode.

ActivityWatch never leaves the device. Timing stays local unless you turn on sync. WakaTime, Rize, Toggl and Clockify are cloud services by design.

If your employer or client has rules about source code on third-party servers, read those before you install anything.

Can a time tracker write your standup or PR description?

None of these tools posts a standup for you. Some get you most of the way there.

The useful property is text, not charts. A WakaTime dashboard tells you that you spent 3 hours 10 minutes in Go on payments-service. That is accurate, but it is not something you can say out loud at standup. A timeline that says you traced a retry bug through the webhook handler, reviewed a teammate’s migration PR and paired on a flaky test is close to what you would actually say.

Dayflow produces that kind of timeline. The Markdown export makes it easy to move into whatever writes the final draft. You can paste it into a daily work log or hand it to an AI assistant. The Codex work summary workflow and our guide to automatic standup updates show both approaches.

One caveat applies to Dayflow’s own data. Local storage does not make a cloud assistant conversation local. Whatever Dayflow data the assistant retrieves goes to that assistant.

Timing’s AI activity summaries and Rize’s AI chat cover similar ground inside their own apps. For PR descriptions, the timeline helps most with the “why”: the dead ends, the related ticket and the reviewer’s question you answered.

Treat any AI summary as a draft. It can miss work or describe it wrongly, so check it before your team reads it.

Where Dayflow is the wrong pick

• You want per-language, per-project coding numbers or AI tool spend. WakaTime wins. Dayflow has no editor plugin and does not measure lines or models.
• You work on Linux or Windows too. ActivityWatch covers Windows, Mac, Linux and Android, all locally. Dayflow is macOS 14 or later only.
• You bill clients by the hour. Timing gives you billing status, report rounding and invoicing integration on a Mac. Dayflow has no invoices.
• Your team needs shared reports, approvals or Jira-linked time. Toggl Premium or Clockify Standard fits. Dayflow has no team reports or payroll approvals.
• You want a tool that blocks distracting sites. Dayflow has no website blocking, so look elsewhere.
• You never want a screen image to exist at all. ActivityWatch records only app and window metadata. That may be the right line for you even with Dayflow’s local mode.

How much do they cost?

Tool	Plan	Price
Dayflow	Free	$0
Dayflow	Pro	$20 a month
WakaTime	Free	$0
WakaTime	Basic	$9/mo billed monthly, or $8.25/mo billed $99 yearly
WakaTime	Premium	$14/mo billed monthly, or $12.83/mo billed $153.96 yearly
WakaTime	Team	$21/dev/mo billed monthly, or $19.25/dev/mo billed $231/dev yearly
WakaTime	Business	$24/dev/mo billed monthly, or $22/dev/mo billed $264/dev yearly
ActivityWatch	ActivityWatch	Free
Timing	Professional	$9 per month billed annually, or $11 billed monthly
Timing	Expert	$11 per month billed annually, or $14 billed monthly
Timing	Connect	$16 per user per month billed annually, or $20 billed monthly
Rize	Basic	$9.99/mo billed annually, or $12.99/month billed monthly
Rize	Pro	$23.99/mo billed annually
Rize	Max	$39.99/mo billed annually
Rize	Team	$29.99/seat/month billed annually, or $39.99 billed monthly
Rize	Enterprise	Custom, contact vendor
Toggl	Free	$0, up to 3 users
Toggl	Starter	$9 per user per month billed annually, or $12 billed monthly
Toggl	Premium	$16 per user per month billed annually, or $24 billed monthly
Toggl	Enterprise	Contact vendor
Clockify	Free	$0, up to 5 users
Clockify	Basic	$3.99 per seat/month billed annually, or $4.99 billed monthly
Clockify	Standard	$5.49 per seat/month billed annually, or $6.99 billed monthly
Clockify	Pro	$7.99 per seat/month billed annually, or $9.99 billed monthly
Clockify	Enterprise	$11.99 per seat/month billed annually, or $14.99 billed monthly
Clockify	CAKE.com Bundle	$12.99 per seat/month billed annually, or $15.99 billed monthly

For one developer, the cheapest sensible setup is Dayflow at $0 with Local AI for the daily narrative, plus WakaTime’s free plan if a week of coding stats is enough. If you need longer coding history, WakaTime Premium at $12.83/mo billed $153.96 yearly is the next step, and a team that has to bill should price Clockify Basic at $3.99 per seat per month billed annually before anything more expensive. Dayflow’s plan details are on the pricing page.

The bottom line

If you want to remember everything you did on your Mac for standups and PRs, with the recordings staying on the machine, use Dayflow. If you want hard numbers on coding time and AI tool usage, use WakaTime, or run it alongside Dayflow. If you want something free, local and cross-platform that you can script, use ActivityWatch. If you bill hours from a Mac, use Timing, and if a team needs shared timesheets, use Toggl or Clockify.

Frequently asked questions

Is WakaTime or Dayflow better for tracking coding time?

For coding time specifically, WakaTime is the better tool. Its editor plugins break time down by project, language and editor, and they track AI coding usage across tools like Claude Code, Cursor and Copilot. Dayflow has no editor plugin. It records the whole screen and writes a plain-language timeline, so it is better at the work that happens outside the editor and weaker on precise coding metrics.

Does WakaTime keep my coding data on my machine?

No. WakaTime's plugins send coding activity to its hosted web dashboard, and the hosted service is not open source. If you want coding time recorded locally, ActivityWatch has editor plugins and its vendor states that all data stays on your own device. Dayflow also stores its recordings and timeline on your Mac, but it captures the screen rather than editor events.

What is the best free time tracker for a developer on a Mac?

Dayflow costs $0 and writes an AI timeline of your day. ActivityWatch is free, open source under MPL-2.0 and runs on Windows, Linux and Android as well as Mac, but it lists no AI summaries. WakaTime has a free plan, but it keeps only 1 week of dashboard history. Toggl and Clockify have free plans built around timers, for up to 3 and 5 users respectively.

Can a screen-recording time tracker see API keys and secrets on my screen?

Any tool that records the screen captures whatever is on it, secrets included. Dayflow stores its recordings on your Mac. If you choose Local AI, screenshot analysis also stays on-device. If you choose your own cloud provider or Dayflow Pro, selected screenshots are sent off-device for processing. Under the privacy policy, Pro deletes screenshots after processing. If your screens often show credentials, use Local AI.

Does Dayflow work on Linux or Windows?

No. Dayflow runs only on macOS 14 or later. ActivityWatch runs on Windows, Mac, Linux and Android, and Clockify has apps for Linux, Windows, Mac and mobile. WakaTime works anywhere its plugins do, which covers more than 100 editors, IDEs and terminals. If you split your week between a Mac and a Linux workstation, one of those tools will cover both machines and Dayflow will not.

Which developer time tracker connects to Jira or Linear?

Toggl lists Jira and Asana integrations on its Premium plan, which costs $16 per user per month billed annually or $24 billed monthly. Timing lists two-way Linear and ClickUp sync, depending on the plan. Dayflow does not sync to issue trackers. It exports a date range as Markdown, which you can paste into a ticket, a PR or a weekly update yourself.

How much does Timing cost for a developer?

Timing has no free tier. Professional is $9 per month billed annually or $11 billed monthly, and it covers one Mac. Expert is $11 per month billed annually or $14 billed monthly. Connect, for teams, is $16 per user per month billed annually or $20 billed monthly. There is a 30-day trial that does not require a credit card.

Can I run Dayflow and WakaTime at the same time?

They record different layers of your work, so they do not overlap much. WakaTime watches editor and terminal events and reports coding time by language and project. Dayflow captures the screen at one frame every 10 seconds and describes the whole day in plain language. Some developers will want both: WakaTime for the numbers and Dayflow for the narrative of reviews, meetings and debugging.

Does Toggl track time automatically on a Mac?

Mostly no. Toggl, formerly Toggl Track, is built around manual and real-time timers, timesheets and calendar integrations. The vendor does list automated background tracking and a timeline in the desktop app, and it states that it takes no screenshots and records no keystrokes. If you want a full automatic record without starting timers, Timing, Rize, ActivityWatch or Dayflow fit better.