Kimai vs solidtime: Which Is Better for Self-Hosted Time Tracking in 2026?

Kimai is the better choice if you want to self-host a free, multi-user tracker with invoicing, rates and LDAP or SAML login. solidtime is better if you want desktop apps for Mac, Windows and Linux with local automatic activity tracking, and you can live without self-hosted invoicing unless you buy its Business license. Dayflow, our Mac app, suits personal recall rather than billing.

The real difference between Kimai and solidtime is where the paid line falls once you run them on your own server. Kimai’s free self-hosted edition is built around billing, with rates and invoicing included, while solidtime’s free self-hosted edition keeps invoicing behind a paid Business license but adds desktop apps that can see which app is in focus.

Disclosure: Dayflow, the third option in this article, is our product. It is a free, MIT-licensed Mac app, not a self-hosted server, so it shows up only where it actually fits the job. This article is a comparison of vendor documentation and nothing more: the Kimai and solidtime pages were checked on October 4, 2026, and the Dayflow facts are reviewed against Dayflow 2.2.0.

Quick comparison

Tool	Best for	How it tracks	Price	Platforms
Kimai	Self-hosted teams and freelancers who bill clients	Manual timers, multi-timer and punch-in punch-out in a web app	Self-hosted free; Cloud from €2.99 per user & month on annual billing	Web (self-hosted or Kimai Cloud)
solidtime	Freelancers and agencies who want desktop apps	Timer, calendar and weekly timesheet; desktop app adds local automatic activity tracking	Self-hosted €0; Solo cloud free for 1 user; Professional €8 / user / month billed annually	Web, Mac, Windows, Linux
Dayflow (ours)	Remembering and reviewing your own Mac workday	Records the screen at one frame every 10 seconds; AI writes a timeline	$0, MIT licensed; optional Pro at $20 a month	macOS 14 or later

Key takeaways

• Both are open source under the AGPL v3 and both can be self-hosted for free. The difference is what the free self-hosted edition includes.
• Kimai includes invoicing with configurable templates, rates by user, customer and project, and SAML and LDAP login. It has no automatic tracking.
• solidtime has desktop apps for macOS, Windows and Linux with automatic activity tracking that stays on the device until you log it. Self-hosted invoicing needs a paid Business license from €49 a year.
• On hosted plans, Kimai Cloud is cheaper per seat: €2.99 versus €8 per user per month on annual billing. solidtime has a free single-user cloud plan; Kimai Cloud is paid after a 30-day trial.
• Neither vendor states any AI features. Dayflow is the AI-timeline option, but it is Mac only and does no invoicing or team reporting.

What Kimai does better

Kimai is the stronger pick when the point of tracking is getting paid. Its tracking model is classic project time: you start a timer against a customer and project, or use the multi-timer mode to run several at once, or switch to punch-in punch-out mode for attendance-style tracking. Tags sit on top, and rates can be set per user, per customer and per project. That last part matters for agencies where a senior and a junior bill the same client at different rates.

Invoicing is part of the feature set, with configurable templates. On the pricing page checked, invoicing is not among the features Kimai reserves for Cloud Professional, so a self-hoster gets it without a license fee. If you have never worked out what your rate needs to be once unbilled hours are counted, the real hourly rate calculator is a quick way to check before you set those rates.

Kimai also leans toward organizations. The vendor says it handles freelancers as well as companies with dozens or hundreds of users. It supports SAML and LDAP login and two-factor authentication, ships in over 30 translations and has a plugin marketplace. Data exports and a JSON API mean you can pipe hours into payroll, a BI tool or your own scripts.

Self-hosting requirements are stated plainly: a web server, PHP 8.2 or newer and MariaDB or MySQL, with Docker images if you prefer containers. Anyone who already runs a LAMP-style stack will recognize the shape of it.

If you do not want to run a server, Kimai Cloud is inexpensive. Standard is €2.99 per user & month on annual billing, and the vendor states it is hosted in Germany and GDPR compliant. The company is based in Austria. Note that working hour accounts, expenses, custom fields and SSO sit on the Cloud Professional plan.

What solidtime does better

solidtime is the better fit when the person tracking time is also the person who forgets to start the timer. Its web app offers three ways in: a timer, a calendar view and a weekly timesheet. Filling a week in a grid after the fact is often more honest than pretending you clicked start and stop all week.

The bigger difference is the desktop app for macOS, Windows and Linux. It adds automatic activity tracking that sees which app and which document is in focus, plus idle detection. The vendor says that activity stays on the device until you turn it into a time entry. That gives you a local record to reconstruct your day from, without that record landing on a server by default. It is a reasonable answer to the worry covered in time tracking without surveillance: the data exists, but you decide what becomes an entry.

solidtime also has the friendlier free hosted option. The Solo cloud plan is free for one user and includes clients, projects, tags and tasks, the calendar and timesheet views, breaks, automatic activity tracking in the desktop app and reporting. The pricing page says “No credit card to start.”

Switching is easier too. solidtime lists imports from Toggl and Clockify, two of the hosted trackers people often leave when they decide to self-host. If you are still weighing those two, see Toggl vs Clockify.

On the paid Professional plan you get billable rates, invoicing, estimates and PDF or shareable reports, which covers most of what a small agency needs on the client side.

Head-to-head table

Capability	Kimai	solidtime	Dayflow (ours)
Automatic capture	No automatic app or website tracking	Desktop app tracks the focused app and document, with idle detection; kept on device until logged	Records the screen at one frame every 10 seconds
Timers	Timer, multi-timer, punch-in punch-out	Timer, calendar view, weekly timesheet	Automatic recording rather than timers
Invoicing	Yes, configurable templates	Professional cloud plan, or paid Business license when self-hosted	No
Team reports	Multi-user; vendor cites companies with dozens or hundreds of users; exports and JSON API	Team support on Professional; reporting on all plans	No
Website blocking	Not listed on the pages checked	Not listed on the pages checked	No
AI summaries	None stated	None stated	Yes, AI writes the day into a timeline
Data location	Your server, or Kimai Cloud hosted in Germany	Your servers, or EU-hosted cloud; desktop activity stays local until logged	Recordings and timeline on your Mac; screenshots leave only with your own provider or Pro
Free tier	Self-hosted free; Cloud has a 30-day trial	Self-hosted €0; Solo cloud free for 1 user	Free app at $0
Platforms	Web (self-hosted or Kimai Cloud)	Web, Mac, Windows, Linux	macOS 14 or later
Open source	Yes, AGPL 3	Yes, AGPL v3	Yes, MIT

Pricing compared

Tool	Plan	Price
Kimai	Self-hosted (open source)	Free
Kimai	Cloud Standard	€2.99 per user & month on annual billing, or €3.99 monthly
Kimai	Cloud Professional	€3.99 per user & month on annual billing, or €4.99 monthly
solidtime	Open Source (self-hosted)	€0 forever
solidtime	Solo (cloud)	Free, 1 user
solidtime	Professional (cloud)	€8 / user / month billed annually, or €9 monthly, excl. VAT
solidtime	Business (on-premise license)	From €49 / year; €199 / year excl. VAT shown for one organization with 5 users
solidtime	Enterprise (on-premise)	Custom
Dayflow (ours)	Free	$0
Dayflow (ours)	Pro	$20 a month

Kimai’s prices exclude tax, and solidtime’s exclude VAT. Kimai’s pricing page shows two figures per plan without labelling them. The lower one is read here as the annual price, based on the page’s statement that annual billing saves 20%. solidtime does not state a trial length for Professional, so for current trial terms, see the vendor’s pricing page at solidtime.

What does one person actually pay per year? If you self-host and invoice clients, Kimai costs €0 in license fees and solidtime costs from €49 a year for the Business license. Either way you also pay for whatever server you run it on. If you want hosting handled for you and need invoicing, Kimai Cloud Standard works out to €35.88 a year on annual billing (€2.99 × 12) or €47.88 paying monthly, while solidtime Professional is €96 a year on annual billing (€8 × 12) or €108 paying monthly. If you only need to track time for yourself without invoices, solidtime Solo is free and Kimai Cloud is not. For a team of five that wants self-hosted invoicing, solidtime shows €199 a year for the Business license and Kimai’s self-hosted edition stays at €0. Dayflow is $0; Pro at $20 a month comes to $240 over a year if you keep it all twelve months. Plan details are on the pricing page.

When should you choose Kimai?

Choose Kimai when:

• You bill clients and want invoicing on your own server without a license fee.
• Different people bill at different rates, or one person bills different clients at different rates.
• Your organization needs SAML or LDAP login and two-factor authentication.
• You have more than a handful of users. Kimai’s own positioning reaches companies with hundreds of users.
• You want a JSON API and exports so hours can flow into other systems.
• You are comfortable maintaining a PHP and MariaDB or MySQL app, or running the Docker images.
• You want the cheapest hosted seat: Kimai Cloud Standard at €2.99 per user & month on annual billing.

Kimai is less suited to someone who forgets to start timers. Everything is manual.

When should you choose solidtime?

Choose solidtime when:

• You are one person and want a free hosted plan, or a free self-hosted instance, without needing invoices from the open source edition.
• You want native desktop apps on macOS, Windows or Linux.
• You want help reconstructing your day from automatic activity tracking, with that data staying on your computer until you log it.
• You prefer filling in a weekly timesheet or calendar over running a stopwatch.
• You are leaving Toggl or Clockify and want an import path.
• You run a small agency happy to pay €8 per user per month for the hosted Professional plan with rates, invoicing and estimates.

If you need self-hosted invoicing, budget for the Business license from the start rather than discovering it later.

Where both fall short

Both tools answer the question “how many hours went to which project?” Neither answers “what did I actually do all day?” in readable form.

Kimai records only what you tell it. If you forgot to start a timer at 2 p.m., that afternoon is gone unless you remember it. solidtime’s desktop activity tracking narrows the gap, since you can see which apps and documents had focus, but you still turn that raw activity into entries yourself. Neither vendor states any AI features, so nothing summarizes your day for you. Mobile apps were not confirmed for either on the pages checked.

This is the gap Dayflow covers, within limits. It records your Mac screen at one frame every 10 seconds and has AI write the day into a timeline you can read back. Recordings and the timeline are stored on your Mac. The analysis can stay on-device with local AI through Ollama or LM Studio, can go to a cloud provider you configure, or can run through Dayflow Pro, which under the privacy policy deletes screenshots after processing and may retain Activity Data for sync. The trade-offs between those modes are laid out on local and cloud processing. AI summaries can miss or misinterpret work, so check them before sharing anything.

The practical combination for some people is Dayflow for recall and Kimai or solidtime for the billable record. Dayflow exports a date range as Markdown from Settings, which you can use to fill in a timesheet; the export work history workflow and Mac timesheet without manual entry cover that approach. If you want to compare automatic options more widely, our roundup of Mac time trackers includes tools that sit between these models.

Where Dayflow is the wrong pick

Dayflow is not a self-hosted time tracking server, and for most readers of this article that settles it.

• You need to invoice clients. Dayflow has no invoicing. Kimai wins here, with invoicing included in the free self-hosted edition.
• You run a team. Dayflow has no team reports and no shared database. Kimai is built for multi-user organizations with SAML and LDAP; solidtime Professional is the alternative if you prefer its desktop apps.
• Anyone on the team uses Windows or Linux. Dayflow requires macOS 14 or later. solidtime has desktop apps on all three platforms.
• You need payroll approvals or attendance records. Dayflow does not do payroll approvals. Kimai’s punch-in punch-out mode and its working hour accounts on Cloud Professional are closer to that job.
• You do not want screen recording at all. Kimai records nothing you did not enter, and solidtime records app and document focus rather than the screen.
• You want a central server you control, with an API. That is Kimai’s design, and Dayflow is a local app on one Mac.

Dayflow makes sense alongside these tools when you are a Mac user who wants to remember and review your own day. Its free version costs nothing and is MIT licensed, which keeps the trial cheap. But if you want one tool and your actual job is billing hours, Dayflow alone will not do it.

The bottom line

If you want self-hosted, open source time tracking for billing, pick Kimai. Invoicing, per-user and per-project rates, directory login and an API are all available without a license fee, and the hosted seat is the cheaper of the two if you change your mind about running a server. The cost is manual tracking and a PHP stack to maintain.

Pick solidtime if you work alone or in a small team, want desktop apps on any platform, and value automatic activity tracking that stays local until you log it. Just know that self-hosted invoicing means buying the Business license.

Dayflow, our app, is the third option only if you are on a Mac and the problem is remembering what you did rather than billing for it. It is free and open source, and it pairs reasonably with either tracker, but it does not replace them.

Frequently asked questions

Is Kimai free to self-host?

Yes. Kimai's self-hosted version is free and open source under AGPL 3, and Docker images are available. You need a web server, PHP 8.2 or newer and MariaDB or MySQL. If you would rather not run a server, Kimai Cloud starts at €2.99 per user per month on annual billing, excluding tax, after a 30-day free trial.

Is solidtime free to self-host?

Yes. solidtime's open source edition is €0 forever to self-host under AGPL v3. The catch is invoicing. On your own server it needs a paid Business license, which starts from €49 a year, with €199 a year excl. VAT shown for one organization with 5 users. The free Solo cloud plan is another no-cost option for a single user.

Does solidtime have a Mac app?

Yes. solidtime has desktop apps for macOS, Windows and Linux alongside its web app. The desktop app adds automatic activity tracking that sees which app and document is in focus, plus idle detection. The vendor says that activity data stays on the device until you turn it into a time entry. The Kimai pages checked did not confirm a desktop app.

Does Kimai track time automatically?

No. Kimai is manual project time tracking in a web app. It offers timers, a multi-timer mode, punch-in and punch-out, tags, and rates by user, customer and project, but no automatic app or website tracking. If you want automatic capture, solidtime's desktop app or a Mac recorder like Dayflow fills that gap in different ways.

Which is better for invoicing clients, Kimai or solidtime?

For self-hosters, Kimai. Invoicing with configurable templates is part of Kimai's feature set and is not among the features its pricing page reserves for Cloud Professional. solidtime offers invoicing and estimates on its Professional cloud plan at €8 per user per month billed annually, but self-hosted invoicing requires its paid Business license.

Is Dayflow better than Kimai for billing clients?

No. Kimai beats Dayflow for billing. Dayflow does not create invoices or handle payroll approvals, and it has no team reports. It records your Mac screen and has AI write a timeline of your day, which helps you remember what you worked on, but you would still need a tool like Kimai to turn hours into invoices. Some people run both.

Where is my data stored with Kimai and solidtime?

Both can run on your own server. Kimai Cloud is hosted in Germany and described by the vendor as GDPR compliant. solidtime's cloud is described as EU-hosted and GDPR-friendly, and its desktop activity data stays on your device until you log it. Dayflow, by comparison, stores recordings and its timeline on your Mac.

Do Kimai or solidtime have AI features?

Neither vendor states any AI features on the pages checked on October 4, 2026. Both are built around timers, timesheets and reports. If you want an AI-written summary of your day, Dayflow does that on a Mac, with a choice of local AI through Ollama or LM Studio, your own cloud provider, or its Pro plan at $20 a month.

Can I import my Toggl or Clockify data into Kimai or solidtime?

solidtime lists imports from Toggl and Clockify as a feature, which makes it the easier move if you are leaving one of those services. The Kimai pages checked did not mention an import from either. Kimai does offer data exports and a JSON API, which helps if you are comfortable writing your own migration script.

How much does Kimai Cloud cost compared to solidtime Professional?

Kimai Cloud Standard is €2.99 per user per month on annual billing or €3.99 monthly, and Cloud Professional is €3.99 annual or €4.99 monthly. solidtime Professional is €8 per user per month billed annually or €9 monthly. All prices are in euros and exclude tax or VAT. For one user on annual billing, that is €35.88 versus €96 a year.