head to head · open source
Kimai vs Ueli
Kimai has 5,005 GitHub stars, 844 forks, 350 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Ueli has 4,598 stars, 274 forks, 73 open issues and last shipped 6 days ago. Kimai leads on adoption by 9% (5,005 vs 4,598 stars). Kimai is written in PHP under AGPL-3.0; Ueli is written in TypeScript under MIT. Kimai has attracted 17% as many forks as stars, Ueli 6%. Kimai 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 | Ueli | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 5.0K | ★ 4.6K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | PHP | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-12 |
| Forks | ⑂ 844 | ⑂ 274 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Kimai if
- You weight community size — 5.0K 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 Ueli if
- You want the Ueli feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and Ueli fits your workflow better
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 →
About Ueli
Ueli is a cross platform keystroke launcher that gives quick access to apps and files from a single search bar triggered by a keyboard shortcut. It is built with Electron, React, TypeScript, and Fluent UI, and it runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux. The project is released under the MIT license, lives at ueli.app, and is distributed through the Microsoft Store, winget, and direct release downloads from the GitHub repository.
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Frequently asked questions
Is Kimai or Ueli more popular?
Kimai has 5,005 GitHub stars and Ueli has 4,598. Kimai has the larger community by that measure.
Are Kimai and Ueli free?
Both are open source. Kimai is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Ueli under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Kimai and Ueli?
Kimai is written in PHP and Ueli in TypeScript. 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 Ueli?
Choose Kimai if you want the larger community (5,005 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Ueli if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.