head to head · open source
ActivityWatch vs Wakapi
ActivityWatch has 19,481 GitHub stars, 1,068 forks, 186 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Wakapi has 4,471 stars, 310 forks, 39 open issues and last shipped 10 days ago. ActivityWatch leads on adoption by 336% (19,481 vs 4,471 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 | ★ 4.5K |
| License | MPL-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Python | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-01 | 2026-10-24 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.1K | ⑂ 310 |
| 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
Records what you do so that you can know how you've spent your time . All in a secure way where you control the data . Website — Forum — Documentation — Releases Contributor stats — CI overview Do you want to receive email updates on major announcements? Signup for the newsletter! Table of Contents About Screenshots Is this yet another time tracker? Feature comparison Installation & Usage About this repository Server Watchers Libraries Contributing About The goal of ActivityWatch is simple: Enable the collection of as much valuable lifedata as possible without compromising user privacy. We've worked towards this…
read the full ActivityWatch overview →
About Wakapi
A minimalist, self hosted WakaTime compatible backend for coding statistics. Website Features How to use Issues Contact [!IMPORTANT] Due to limited time available on the maintainers' part, we temporarily do not accept pull requests. Please refrain from submitting contributions for the time being. 🚀 Features ✅ Free and open source ✅ Built by developers for developers ✅ Statistics for projects, languages, editors, hosts and operating systems ✅ Badges ✅ Weekly E Mail reports ✅ REST API ✅ Partially compatible with WakaTime ✅ WakaTime integration ✅ Support for Prometheus exports ✅ Lightning fast ✅ Self hosted ⌨️ How…
read the full Wakapi overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is ActivityWatch or Wakapi more popular?
ActivityWatch has 19,481 GitHub stars and Wakapi has 4,471. 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 (19,481 stars) or its MPL-2.0 licence terms. Choose Wakapi if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.