The 9 Best Hubstaff Alternatives Compared (2025)

Hubstaff shows up on many lists of the best time tracking apps, but let’s be honest, that doesn’t mean it’s the best. Between the surveillance-heavy features, limited integrations on lower-tier plans, and clunky workflows, it’s no surprise that some teams seek a different tool.

So, we’ve scoured the market for Hubstaff alternatives that tackle these pain points. This guide explores nine options, with each app rated for ease of use, time tracking, analytics, and pricing.

Now let’s start with a quick summary of the best Hubstaff alternatives.

Best Hubstaff alternatives: Executive Summary

Why users look for Hubstaff alternatives?

While Hubstaff works well for some teams, it’s not without drawbacks — especially for companies that value trust, flexibility, and actionable insights over constant monitoring. Here are some key reasons why Hubstaff users may start searching for alternatives:

Misplaced focus on productivity

Hubstaff was developed in 2012 as a better way for remote teams to track employee hours and measure productivity. While it delivers detailed time tracking and reporting features, its primary focus is employee output, not necessarily business impact. For many teams, that’s a dealbreaker.

Heavy employee monitoring

Hubstaff leans on employee monitoring tools like real-time activity tracking, idle time detectors, and employee screenshots to ensure the work gets done. This level of visibility might appeal to some managers, but it can feel invasive to teams.

As one G2 user points out, “I believe that in the wrong hands, it can lead to bad or uncomfortable situations. If the person in charge is micro-managing every aspect, it can lead to them approaching you asking why you spent 23 mins on a single email.”

Spotty features

Some of the platform’s features — like GPS tracking and geofencing — don’t always perform reliably, according to some Capterra users. And if you rely on a variety of tools, you may find Hubstaff’s limited integrations frustrating. In fact, you’ll need to pay for one of the more expensive plans to unlock more than a single integration.

While it’s still a great pick for many, there are other alternatives on the market that might be a better fit for your team. A better tool can improve your team’s productivity, boost morale, and even save you money. Sounds great, right? Let’s take a closer look at some of the top alternatives.

How we curated our list of Hubstaff alternatives

To compile this list, we combined real user reviews with our own hands-on testing while writing this article, evaluating each tool in a real-world context.

We focused on four key criteria:

We set up a writing project on each app and tracked the time to perform various tasks like research, writing, editing, and such. While doing this, we also recorded our experience while keeping the four criteria in mind.

• Ease of use: How easily can team members adopt the new platform?
• Time tracking: Is tracking time on the app easier than Hubstaff?
• Analytics: Does the tool offer more valuable insights and reports than Hubstaff?
• Pricing: Does it offer more value for money than Hubstaff?

At Toggl, we don’t support employee surveillance — but we know some teams prioritize monitoring capabilities. That’s why we’ve split this list into two sections (tools with and without surveillance) so you can find the best fit for your team’s values and needs:

❗DISCLAIMER:

With that out of the way, let’s jump into the app reviews!

Hubstaff Alternatives without Employee Monitoring 

Even if employee monitoring is a priority, experience tells us a work culture built on trust brings out the best in your employees. 

If you agree, here are a few time tracking apps that get the job done while respecting employee autonomy and privacy.

Note: If this is definitely not your cup of tea, you can jump directly to our list of Hubstaff alternatives with employee monitoring.

1. Toggl Track – Best Hubstaff alternative overall

In 2006, Alari Aho and Krister Haav founded Toggl as a simple time tracking platform designed to help teams better understand where their time is spent. Today, it’s evolved into a full suite of productivity tools, including Toggl Track, Toggl Plan, and Toggl Hire, built to help teams stay focused and do their best work.

Toggl Track keeps time tracking effortless with features like auto-tracking and intelligent reminders that make timesheets a cinch. But where it truly stands out is in its Analytics and Insights — powerful tools that reveal how time is spent across teams, projects, and clients to drive smarter decisions and better outcomes.

With 100+ integrations and a commitment to privacy-first time tracking (no screenshots, no surveillance), Toggl Track fits seamlessly into modern digital workflows — without compromising trust.

It’s a strong fit for growing teams and enterprises that want meaningful data to boost productivity and profitability while fostering a culture built on autonomy, transparency, and impact.

Time Tracking: Toggl Track is the best Hubstaff alternative without employee monitoring

Toggl Track makes time tracking effortless across devices, with a web app, desktop app, or mobile app that stay perfectly in sync in real time. No matter where you’re working, your time data stays up to date.

The desktop app comes with two powerful and automatic time tracking features that simplify timesheet entry:

• Autotracker, which records your time based on preset conditions
• Timeline, which tracks your computer activity so you can embed the details directly into your timesheet

Unlike Hubstaff, Toggl Track doesn’t rely on any invasive tools like screenshots or real-time activity recording. Instead, it promotes smarter time habits with Reminders, Idle Time Detection, and Pomodoro-style focus sessions.

And with in-depth reports built in, it helps teams understand where time is going and where profitability can improve — which we’ll explore next.

Analytics: Toggl Track is the best Hubstaff alternative for insights into your business profitability

Toggl Track has three built-in analytics dashboards: Reports, Analytics, and Profitability — each designed to help you understand how your team’s time translates into business outcomes.

Hubstaff has three similar dashboards focused on monitoring individual performance, not exploring business-wide trends. Here’s how they compare:

Toggl Track’s Reports give you a quick overview of ‌time spent and earnings. You can visualize the data in different detailed report formats like a bar chart, list, or donut chart. It also has basic filters so you can analyze what team members are working on.

Hubstaff offers a wide array of predefined reports around time and activity, work sessions, budgets, etc. Though quite detailed, it doesn’t offer any real way to compare the time data like Toggl Track. It’s more helpful in creating productivity reports for employee performance reviews.

Toggl Track’s Analytics is a completely customizable reporting feature for creating custom dashboards with multiple visualization options like tables, pivots, and donut charts. It’s a great tool to slice and dice your time data for deeper insights into how employee productivity impacts your business.

Hubstaff doesn’t have a customizable reporting feature like Toggl Track. It displays employee monitoring data in the Activity tab (shown below). Screenshots are taken in 10-minute intervals and are color-coded to highlight employee work during that interval.

Finally, you have the Profitability feature in Toggl. It uses time data to show workforce trends by project, team, client, tags, groups, members, and more. You can make data-driven business decisions by comparing profitability across projects, employees, and date ranges.

Hubstaff has a basic Insights feature that focuses more on employee productivity. As you can see in the screenshot below, it lets you know if employees are meeting productivity KPIs and where they’re spending most of their time. 

While productivity is important, we believe measuring the value of your employee’s output matters more than the actual work hours. That’s why Toggl chooses to focus on measuring employee profitability over productivity. 

Ease of Use: Toggl Track is the best Hubstaff alternative for simpler workflows

Toggl Track’s web app has a clean layout with a time clock at the top, followed by your time data below. You can visualize the data in a list, week, or calendar view.

Anything that isn’t time tracking related is only available on the web app. This includes reports, employee tasks, billable hours, and team activity. Its decentralized approach means employees can focus on their work while managers can monitor everything from the web app. 

Meanwhile, Hubstaff uses widgets detailing your earnings, time data, employee activity, and so on. You can add, remove, and rearrange them to your specifications. 

Though this offers a lot of flexibility, setting it up takes time. Moreover, the timer is relegated to a small space at the top left corner, making it difficult to find (it took us 20 minutes and a Google search).

Toggl Track Pricing

Toggl’s pricing starts at $10/user/mo ($9 if you pay annually) with access to task tracking, project templates, and calendar sync. Hubstaff’s Starter package is cheaper at $4.99/seat/mo (when billed annually), but it gets more expensive as you scale. For example, you get access to all Toggl Track’s features in its Premium plan at $18/user/mo while upgrading to the Enterprise plan at $25/seat/mo to get similar features on Hubstaff.

Use Toggl Track if:

• You’re looking for software that prioritizes time tracking.
• You want valuable insights to help improve your business. 
• You want to create a work culture that values privacy and trust.

Toggl Tip: Want even deeper insights on how Toggl Track and Hubstaff compare? Check out our Hubstaff vs Toggl Track article.

2. Paymo – Best Hubstaff alternative for project time tracking

Like Hubstaff, Paymo lets you automatically track time for individual tasks using the web, mobile, or desktop app. 

But what makes Paymo a great Hubstaff alternative is that it combines time tracking with project management tools like project templates, Kanban boards, and expense tracking. Plus, you can use the time data to create and send accurate invoices — while tracking any payments directly on the platform.

Paymo Pricing 

Paymo’s free version is better than Hubstaff since it offers more features. For example, you can add up to five clients and unlimited tasks on Paymo, while Hubstaff only allows three clients and 100 tasks in total.

There isn’t much separating the two when it comes to paid plans. Paymo’s pricing starts at $9.90/user/mo (though the first three are priced at $5.90), while Hubstaff starts at a flat $4.99/seat/mo. However, growing businesses will likely find more value in using Paymo than Hubstaff.

Use Paymo if:

• Your development team needs a project planning tool with time tracking features
• You’re looking for a time tracking app to scale with your business
• You’re looking for feature-rich software with an affordable pricing plan

3. Harvest – Best Hubstaff alternative for tracking contractor time

Harvest offers a neater user interface than Hubstaff. The time tracker is conveniently located in the main dashboard, along with the timesheet and edit options. It isn’t crowded with reports and insights either, like Hubstaff’s dashboard. Instead, it focuses on what’s important: tracking time.

Additionally, its invoicing feature lets you create detailed invoices showing expenses at a task, employee, and project level — useful for clients asking for a detailed invoice. The minimalistic interface and invoicing make it an ideal time tracking tool for billing contractors.

Harvest Pricing 

Harvest’s free plan is perfect for freelancers just starting out because you get access to all its features — including reports, invoicing, and payments. However, you’re limited to only two projects.

As you add more clients, you can upgrade to the paid Pro plan at $13.75/user/mo ($11 if you pay annually). It’s more expensive than Hubstaff’s Starter plan ($4.99/seat/mo) but offers plenty of value for freelancers and contractors.

Use Harvest if:

• You want to send detailed invoices to your clients
• You’re a freelancer or contractor looking for a simple time tracker
• You’re looking for a time tracking software with a comprehensive free version

Need more info? We’ve written an in-depth comparison of Harvest vs Toggl, where we look closely at how Harvest’s features compare to Toggl Track. Check it out!

4. Timely – Best Hubstaff alternative with AI-powered time tracking

Hubstaff can track time based on your location, but it doesn’t capture the specific apps or tasks you’re working on.

Timely, on the other hand, uses AI to automatically capture your activity and update your timesheet with surprising accuracy. It learns from your previous time entries to match specific actions with the right projects and tasks — ideal for anyone who forgets to start the timer. And if something looks off, you can always jump in and edit entries. 

Timely Pricing

Timely doesn’t have a free version, only free trials. Its paid plans are slightly costlier than those of Hubstaff, starting at $11/user/mo ($9 if you pay yearly). You can only track up to 20 projects and a max of five users. But to manage your projects, you’ll need to purchase Tasks as a paid add-on — which costs an additional $5/user/mo.

Meanwhile, Hubstaff includes task management and other features in its Starter plan for $4.99/seat/mo. Hubstaff is cheaper, but Timely offers more functions at its price, so it’s worth taking the time (no pun intended!) to see if Timely meets your requirements before deciding.

Use Timely if:

• You’re looking for powerful AI features to automate time entries
• You want to simplify time tracking while retaining employee privacy
• You want a detailed reporting feature to analyze employee work habits

Want to know more about Timely? We’ve written an in-depth comparison of Timely vs Toggl, where we dive deeper into Timely’s features and how they compare to Toggl Track. Check it out!

5. TimeCamp – Best Hubstaff alternative for budget-friendly teams

TimeCamp is a great, cost-effective time tracking platform with enough team management features to optimize your team’s performance. It tracks time automatically and can generate comprehensive reports detailing your team’s time usage and time spent on various applications and sites.

Unlike Hubstaff, which restricts productivity tracking to higher-tier plans, TimeCamp includes this feature in its second-tier plan — making it more accessible for growing teams.

TimeCamp also integrates with tools like Trello for project budgeting and includes options for employee monitoring, such as screenshots captured at 10-minute intervals. The intuitive dashboard makes it easy to manage schedules and productivity in one place.

Keep in mind, some Capterra users mention the timer doesn’t always end when they hit stop, and it’s also difficult to make a manual time change.

TimeCamp pricing

When compared to Hubstaff, TimeCamp’s pricing is pretty unbeatable. TimeCamp offers a forever free plan for unlimited users and unlimited projects. Those requiring more advanced features can start a paid plan at just $2.99/user/mo — a better deal than Hubstaff’s cheapest $4.99/seat/mo plan.

• Use TimeCamp if:
  You’re seeking more features with a more conservative budget
• You want to create advanced, custom reports and dashboards
• You want a time tracking tool with project budgeting features

Hubstaff alternatives with employee monitoring

Toggl stands firmly against employee surveillance and micromanagement. We believe in a trust-based culture empowering employee freedom and privacy, evident in both our culture and our time tracking software.

But if you’ve made it this far and still haven’t found a time tracking app, employee surveillance is probably high on your list of needs.

So, here’s a list of our top picks for Hubstaff alternatives with employee monitoring!

6. Clockify – Best alternative for small teams

Clockify and Hubstaff offer similar time tracking features including a Pomodoro timer, idle time detector, geolocation, and gps tracking. But look closely, and you’ll see Clockify’s features are a bit less advanced than Hubstaff’s. 

For example, Clockify automatically tracks which apps and URLs your employees visit while the timer is running. But it doesn’t include this information in reports. So, tracking this information doesn’t offer managers (or employees) any real value.

This might not be a dealbreaker for you, especially if you’re a small business where constant micromanagement breeds a lack of trust. Plus, managers still receive access to screenshots to analyze employee scheduling.

Clockify Pricing 

Clockify offers a completely free version with unlimited time tracking, a time clock, and an auto tracker. Hubstaff only has a 14-day free trial, after which you’ll need to subscribe to a paid plan starting at $4.99/seat/mo. This makes Clockify a more pocket-friendly alternative, especially for small teams with a limited budget.

Use Clockify if:

• You’re a small team with a limited budget
• You’re looking for a free time tracking tool with unlimited users
• You’re only looking for simple employee tracking features like screenshots

Want to know more? We’ve written an in-depth comparison of Clockify vs Toggl, where we inspect how Clockify features compare to Toggl Track. Check it out!

7. Time Doctor – Best alternative for distraction management

Like Hubstaff, Time Doctor lets you classify certain sites as “unproductive” — think social platforms, Amazon, and Zillow. If you visit any unproductive sites during work hours, the software will highlight them in their reports. However, Time Doctor also helps remote teams focus during work with its built-in distraction management tool — something Hubstaff doesn’t offer.

Time Doctor sends notifications reminding employees to get back to work if they visit any site listed as unproductive. All this information is compiled in its “Poor Time Usage” report so you can assess employee productivity individually.

Time Doctor Pricing 

Time Doctor and Hubstaff have similar pricing plans. Both start with a 14-day free trial after which you can opt for a paid plan, starting at $4.99/seat/mo for Hubstaff and $6.70/user/mo for Time Doctor.

But Time Doctor provides excellent value for money with features like project planning and tasks included in the Basic plan.

Use Time Doctor if:

• You want to measure your team’s productivity
• Your team works remotely on time-sensitive tasks
• You’re looking for a platform that offers more value for money than Hubstaff

Note: Looking for more details on how Hubstaff and Time Doctor compare? Check out our in-depth comparison of Hubstaff vs Time Doctor vs Toggl!

8. DeskTime – Best Hubstaff alternative for personal use

DeskTime’s automatic time tracking feature lets you track time spent on various applications, including Google Docs, Word, Excel, Photoshop, and more. It’s a great Hubstaff alternative if you like analyzing and optimizing how your employees — or just yourself — spend their time.

Like Hubstaff, DeskTime also offers screenshots and a GPS tracking feature to monitor employee time and behavior. However, unlike Hubstaff, it supports screenshot blurring to (kinda) protect employee privacy. Employees can also enter “Private mode” to pause software monitoring for some time.

DeskTime Pricing 

DeskTime offers a free version for one user, which is great for personal time tracking. For more features like automatic time tracking, productivity calculation, and project tracking, you’ll need to subscribe to a paid plan starting at $6.42/user/mo with a free trial.

Though it’s similar in pricing and features to Hubstaff, it doesn’t limit URL tracking and reports like Hubstaff’s Starter plan. However, you’ll need to upgrade to the Premium plan for screenshots, while Hubstaff offers the same in all its plans. 

Use DeskTime if:

• You’re looking for employee monitoring tools to measure your productivity
• You want a time tracking software freelancers would be comfortable using
• You want in-depth reports on employee productivity

9. Everhour – Best Hubstaff alternative for a unified network

Hubstaff boasts employee monitoring and GPS tracking tools. Everhour doesn’t have these features but prides itself on detailed reports and extensive project management features.

Everhour lets you easily visualize who’s working, who has the day off, and what tasks are being completed — right from the dashboard. With Everhour, you gain better insights into business profitability rather than scrutinized employee productivity.

The platform also makes it easy to access documentation for your projects with the ability to upload important processes, guidelines, and project details.

Everhour pricing

Everhour makes it simple — they have one free and one paid plan. Their free subscription allows up to five seats, while their paid plan is priced at $8.50/user/mo (paid annually) with plenty of integrations and project management features.

Use Everhour if:

• You want to keep everything easily accessible in a central location
• You want your time tracking software to double as a project management platform
• You want an easy pricing structure, with no plans to upgrade

Swap out Hubstaff for Toggl Track

There are plenty of time tracking tools out there, but only a handful truly solve the problems Hubstaff can’t. Whether you prioritize privacy, profitability, or a better day-to-day experience, the nine tools we’ve listed here are worth exploring.

That said, if you want a platform that champions ethical time tracking, values team trust, and delivers deep business insights — Toggl Track stands out for a reason.

Try it for yourself and see how seamless (and surveillance-free) time tracking can be. Sign up for a free Toggl Track account today.