head to head · open source
Kimai vs Hackatime
Kimai has 5,129 GitHub stars, 878 forks, 350 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Hackatime has 216 stars, 181 forks, 114 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Kimai leads on adoption by 2,275% (5,129 vs 216 stars). Kimai is written in PHP under AGPL-3.0; Hackatime is written in Ruby under MIT. Kimai has attracted 17% as many forks as stars, Hackatime 84%. Hackatime was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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
| Kimai | Hackatime | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 5.1K | ★ 216 |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | PHP | Ruby |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 878 | ⑂ 181 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Kimai if
- You weight community size — 5.1K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Hackatime if
- You want the Hackatime feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Ruby
- You evaluated both and Hackatime fits your workflow better
About Kimai
Kimai 1 Open Source Time Tracker Kimai is a professional grade time tracking application, free and open source. It handles use cases of freelancers as well as companies with dozens or hundreds of users. Kimai was build to track your project times and ships with many advanced features, including but not limited to: JSON API, invoicing, data exports, multi timer and punch in punch out mode, tagging, multi user multi timezones multi language (over 30 translations existing!), authentication via SAML/LDAP/Database, two factor authentication (2FA) with TOTP, customizable role and team permissions, responsive design…
read the full Kimai overview →
About Hackatime
Documentation The free, open source, WakaTime compatible coding time tracker from Hack Club. Local development Please read DEVELOPMENT.md for instructions on setting up and running the project locally. Installer repo Looking for the installer code? It's over at hackclub/hackatime setup. License Hackatime is licensed under the MIT License. Go wild!
read the full Hackatime overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Kimai or Hackatime more popular?
Kimai has 5,129 GitHub stars and Hackatime has 216. Kimai has the larger community by that measure.
Are Kimai and Hackatime free?
Both are open source. Kimai is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Hackatime under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Kimai and Hackatime?
Kimai is written in PHP and Hackatime in Ruby. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Kimai or Hackatime?
Choose Kimai if you want the larger community (5,129 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Hackatime if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.