head to head · open source
ActivityWatch vs Wakapi
ActivityWatch has 18,919 GitHub stars, 1,012 forks, 186 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Wakapi has 4,433 stars, 300 forks, 39 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. ActivityWatch leads on adoption by 327% (18,919 vs 4,433 stars). ActivityWatch is written in Python under MPL-2.0; Wakapi is written in Go under MIT. ActivityWatch has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, Wakapi 7%. ActivityWatch was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (productivity, time-tracker), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| ActivityWatch | Wakapi | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 19K | ★ 4.4K |
| License | MPL-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Python | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-14 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.0K | ⑂ 300 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick ActivityWatch if
- You weight community size — 19K stars and counting
- You want the MPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Wakapi if
- You want the Wakapi feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and Wakapi fits your workflow better
About ActivityWatch
ActivityWatch is the free and open source automated time tracker in the productivity and time tracking ecosystem. It is written in Python and uses the MPL 2.0 license. The project records what a user does so the user can know how time has been spent, while keeping the data under the user's control.
read the full ActivityWatch overview →
About Wakapi
Wakapi is a minimalist, self hosted backend for coding statistics that speaks the WakaTime API. It is written in Go and released under the MIT license, and it lives in the developer tools and productivity ecosystem alongside the WakaTime client tooling it is designed to work with. The project presents itself as a free and open source alternative built by developers for developers, and it ships as a single service that collects, stores and visualizes time tracking data sent from editors and IDEs.
read the full Wakapi overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is ActivityWatch or Wakapi more popular?
ActivityWatch has 18,919 GitHub stars and Wakapi has 4,433. ActivityWatch has the larger community by that measure.
Are ActivityWatch and Wakapi free?
Both are open source. ActivityWatch is licensed under MPL-2.0 and Wakapi under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between ActivityWatch and Wakapi?
ActivityWatch is written in Python and Wakapi in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, ActivityWatch or Wakapi?
Choose ActivityWatch if you want the larger community (18,919 stars) or its MPL-2.0 licence terms. Choose Wakapi if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.