head to head · open source
SolidTime vs Kimai
SolidTime has 8,923 GitHub stars, 507 forks, 32 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Kimai has 5,005 stars, 844 forks, 350 open issues and last shipped yesterday. SolidTime leads on adoption by 78% (8,923 vs 5,005 stars). SolidTime is written in PHP under AGPL-3.0; Kimai is written in PHP under AGPL-3.0. SolidTime has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, Kimai 17%. SolidTime was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 4 topic tags (self-hosted, time-tracker, time-tracking, timetracker), 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
| SolidTime | Kimai | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 8.9K | ★ 5.0K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | PHP | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 507 | ⑂ 844 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick SolidTime if
- You weight community size — 8.9K 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 Kimai if
- You want the Kimai feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and Kimai fits your workflow better
About SolidTime
SolidTime is a modern open source time tracking application built for freelancers and agencies. It is written in PHP on the Laravel framework, with a Vue front end, and it lives in the Laravel and Vue ecosystems that its topic list names. The project is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 and is developed in the solidtime io/solidtime repository. It ships with 8,923 stars, 508 forks, and 32 open issues at the time of writing, and it presents itself as a self hosted alternative with an optional hosted service.
read the full SolidTime overview →
About Kimai
Kimai is a free and open source, web based time tracking application written in PHP on the Symfony framework, licensed under AGPL 3.0. It is built as a multi user, multi timezone and multi language system that handles the time tracking use cases of freelancers as well as companies with dozens or hundreds of users. The project lives in the PHP ecosystem, stores its data in MariaDB or MySQL through Doctrine, and renders its interface with Tabler. It is distributed both as a self hosted on premise application and as a hosted SaaS version at kimai.cloud.
read the full Kimai overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is SolidTime or Kimai more popular?
SolidTime has 8,923 GitHub stars and Kimai has 5,005. SolidTime has the larger community by that measure.
Are SolidTime and Kimai free?
Both are open source. SolidTime is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Kimai under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between SolidTime and Kimai?
SolidTime is written in PHP and Kimai in PHP. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, SolidTime or Kimai?
Choose SolidTime if you want the larger community (8,923 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Kimai if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.