The verdict
Time trackers
We’re choosing TimeCamp, a freemium solution that isn’t open source, as the overall winner. The facilities on the free tier are decent, and the free package could be everything that a single user would ever need. It can be used from any platform as it is accessible from the web. In addition, there is a mobile phone app. The native Linux application isn’t exactly brimming with features, but it’s usable, and it can automatically record your actions for precise, effortless activity recording. All of these options are tied together in the cloud, meaning that you can move seamlessly from one platform to another.
TimeSlotTracker is a good program overall, but we have a few misgivings about recommending it. It hasn’t been updated in quite a while (not since 2021). It has its users, but the official forum has a fairly low level of traffic. The user interface has a comprehensive multi-pane design with all of the facilities you’d expect from a desktop application, such as drag and drop and pop-up menus. It’s a comprehensive desktop Linux time-tracking application.
As it doesn’t have a GUI, Timewarrior doesn’t have the broad appeal of some of the other offerings, but some people will prefer starting and stopping tasks from the command line. There are many system administration scenarios where this could be useful. It is, of course, fully scriptable. If you’re prepared to work in a terminal, it can carry out most of the tasks that the other options can, including report and chart generation. There’s some opportunity for expansion of what it can do, if you’re willing to get your hands dirty with configuration and extensions.
Arbtt scratches a different time-tracking itch compared to others because it’s a command-line utility that is solely for automatic time tracking. It has quite a lot of scope for customisation in terms of precisely what is being recorded, opening some niche activity monitoring scenarios. However, some of the other options can also do automatic activity recording, and Arbtt would struggle to be used as a generalpurpose time tracker like the others.
Hamster is a simple native Linux utility that carries out basic time-tracking tasks, and it can produce reports. The interface seems positively stripped-down compared to
TimeSlotTracker. Take a look at it – it might be able to do everything you need if your requirements are simple.