Best Clockify Alternatives in 2026 (Free and Paid)

In April 2026, Clockify’s owner CAKE.com made significant changes to the platform’s free plan. The free tier was capped at five users, down from the previously unlimited user count. Kiosk mode, billable hours tracking, and shared reports were all moved to paid tiers. Report date ranges on the free plan were limited to the most recent month only. These changes pushed a large segment of Clockify’s free user base to look for alternatives.

If you are evaluating alternatives, the right replacement depends on what Clockify’s limitations were costing you. Some tools win on generous free plans. Others win on billing and invoicing depth. Some are built specifically for professional services teams that need to bill clients accurately. And one – TimeLive – is the only tool in this list that offers on-premise deployment, client-facing timesheet approval, and four billing rate types configurable at the project level.

This guide covers seven alternatives in detail: what each tool does better than Clockify, where it falls short, and who it is actually built for.

What Changed in Clockify’s Free Plan (April 2026)

The changes CAKE.com announced in April 2026 affected the following:

• User cap: Free workspaces now support a maximum of 5 users, down from unlimited.
• Kiosk: Clock-in kiosk moved from free to paid tiers.
• Billable hours: Tracking billable vs non-billable hours moved to paid tiers.
• Shared reports: Sharing reports with clients or external stakeholders moved to paid.
• Report date range: Free plan reports limited to a one-month date range only.
• API limits: Webhooks capped at three per workspace; API requests limited to 30 per hour.

For teams of five or fewer who only need basic manual time tracking and do not bill clients, Clockify’s free plan still works. For anyone beyond that threshold – especially teams that need billable hour tracking, kiosk clock-in, or client-facing reports. The free plan no longer covers the core job.

Best Clockify Alternatives at a Glance

The 7 Best Clockify Alternatives in 2026

Each tool below is reviewed on what it does better than Clockify, where Clockify still wins, free plan details, and who it is actually built for.

1. TimeLive – Best for Professional Services Teams That Bill Clients

TimeLive is a web-based time, expense, and project management platform built for teams that need to track hours accurately and bill clients from the same system. It is available as a cloud-hosted service or as a fully installed on-premise application. The only tool in this list that offers on-premise deployment. It is built for professional services teams: consulting firms, architecture practices, agencies, and government contractors who need a defensible audit trail, multi-level billing rates, and invoicing built into the same system as time tracking.

What TimeLive Does Better Than Clockify

• Four billing rate types at the project level: Employee own rate, project role rate, project employee rate, and project task rate. Each supports date-range history, so rates update automatically when contracts change. Clockify has basic billing rates but not this level of per-project, per-role, and per-task configuration. See Timelive time billing feature.
• Work-type billing: Standard, overtime, travel, and other work types each carry separate billing rates. Employees select the work type during time entry and the correct rate applies automatically.
• Expense and time on the same invoice: Expense entries log against the same client and project as timesheet hours. Both pull into the same invoice at generation time. No manual reconciliation between separate systems. See Timelive expense tracking feature.
• Client-facing timesheet and expense approval: External users (clients) can log into TimeLive directly to review and approve the timesheets and expense entries that employees have submitted for their projects. No other tool in this list supports client-facing approval natively.
• Timesheet audit trail: Every submission, approval, rejection, and edit is timestamped with the name of the person who performed the action. This creates a complete, auditable history for every timesheet period which is essential for government contractors and professional services firms.
• On-premise deployment: TimeLive installs on a local Windows Server with IIS and SQL Server. For organizations with data security requirements, regulated-industry clients, or government contracts that prohibit third-party cloud storage of project data, this is a hard requirement no cloud-only tool can meet.
• Active Directory, LDAP, Azure AD, and SAML/ADFS SSO: All confirmed supported. Enterprise teams using corporate identity management can authenticate TimeLive through their existing directory infrastructure without maintaining separate credentials.
• QR code and PIN clock-in via Time Clock mobile app: Employees can clock in and out using a QR code scan or a PIN through the dedicated Time Clock app. The app captures location and photo on each punch if admin enables it.
• Recurring timesheet templates: Users working on the same projects week after week can save a timesheet template that auto-fills client, project, and task for any new period.
• CSV bulk import: Clients, employees, departments, projects, time entries, expense entries, project tasks, and project roles can all be imported via CSV. This matters for teams migrating from Clockify or another tool with existing data.
• Full REST API: All major entities (timesheets, projects, clients, employees, billing rates, expenses, invoices, time off) are accessible via API. Clockify also has an API, but TimeLive’s covers billing rate management and invoice generation, areas Clockify’s API does not fully support.

Where Clockify Still Wins

• Clockify has a larger consumer app integration library and more name recognition in the general time tracking market.
• For simple manual time tracking with no billing requirements, Clockify’s interface is marginally simpler to onboard.

Pricing

TimeLive uses a module-based pricing model. Each of the five modules – Timesheet, Expense Tracking, Time Off, Attendance, and Advanced Project Management is $3/user/month on annual billing or $4/user/month on monthly billing. Teams select only the modules they need. A team using just Timesheet and Expense Tracking pays $6/user/month annually. A team using all five modules pays $15/user/month annually. The free plan supports 3 users and 3 projects with no time limit. A 30-day free trial is available on the annual Standard plan. Enterprise pricing covers 200+ users – contact sales.

2. Toggl Track – Best for Teams That Want Clean Reporting Without Surveillance

Toggl Track has been in the time tracking market since 2006 and built its reputation on two things: a genuinely clean, fast interface and strong project profitability reporting. It takes a principled stance against employee surveillance so no screenshots, no keystroke logging, no activity monitoring. For teams that tried Clockify and found the interface too dense or were uncomfortable with its surveillance features, Toggl Track is the natural alternative.

What Toggl Track Does Better Than Clockify

• Cleaner, faster interface – consistently cited as easier to adopt across teams.
• Stronger project profitability and analytics reporting, with customizable dashboards.
• Automatic time tracking via desktop app (Timeline feature) – captures background activity privately without screenshots.
• Built-in Pomodoro timer.
• No employee surveillance features of any kind.

Where Clockify Still Wins

• Clockify has more features at its paid price points, particularly for workforce management.
• Toggl Track’s free plan caps at 5 users, the same new limit as Clockify’s free plan, so it does not solve the user-cap problem.

Pricing

Free plan: up to 5 users. Starter: $10/user/month. Premium: $20/user/month. No on-premise option.

3. Harvest – Best for Freelancers Who Need Invoicing and Online Payment Collection

Harvest has focused on the time-plus-invoicing use case since 2006. It converts timesheets into invoices in a few clicks, tracks expenses alongside time, and accepts payment directly via Stripe and PayPal integrations. For freelancers and lean agencies whose primary need is tracking billable hours and getting paid from the same system, Harvest is well designed for that specific job.

What Harvest Does Better Than Clockify

• Invoice generation directly from approved timesheets so no re-entry.
• Online payment collection via Stripe and PayPal integrated directly into invoices.
• Expense capture alongside time, with budget alerts per project.
• Visual workload capacity tracker.

Where Clockify Still Wins

• Clockify has more project management and workforce features.
• Harvest’s 2025 acquisition by Bending Spoons brought usage-based fee changes and price increases that drew significant user complaints – worth factoring into a long-term evaluation.

Pricing

Free plan: 1 user, 2 projects. Pro: $12/user/month. Premium: $17.50/user/month. No on-premise option.

4. MyHours – Best for Small Teams Needing Affordable Project Billing

MyHours launched in 2002 and has stayed focused on a narrow, well-executed use case: tracking time to projects and tasks, setting billable rates, and generating client reports and invoices. Its free plan is one of the most generous in this category. It includes billable rates, which Clockify moved to paid tiers in April 2026. For small teams with a budget constraint who still need to bill clients accurately, MyHours offers more billing functionality on the free plan than Clockify currently does.

What MyHours Does Better Than Clockify

• Free plan includes billable rates – Clockify moved this to paid in April 2026.
• Multiple billing options: flat project fees, task-level rates, and user-level rates.
• Timesheet approvals included on paid plan.
• Fully featured iOS and Android apps, not stripped-down companions.
• No employee surveillance features.

Where Clockify Still Wins

• Clockify has a broader integration library and more workforce management features.
• MyHours has limited third-party integrations, which may be a constraint for teams with an established tech stack.

Pricing

Free plan: up to 5 users, unlimited projects and clients, billable rates included. Pro: $8/user/month.

5. TimeCamp – Best for Teams That Need Unlimited Free Users

TimeCamp is the closest replacement for what Clockify’s free plan used to be before April 2026: unlimited users at no cost. Beyond the free user count, it adds AI-powered automatic time tracking that captures work activity and fills timesheets without manual entry, plus attendance management features not available on Clockify’s free tier.

What TimeCamp Does Better Than Clockify

• Unlimited users on the free plan – the most important differentiator for teams over five people who want to stay free.
• Automatic time tracking via desktop app: keyword-based capture assigns hours to projects without manual timer management.
• AI-powered timesheet filling from detected activity.
• Attendance management including overtime tracking.

Where Clockify Still Wins

• TimeCamp’s interface is older and less polished than Clockify.
• TimeCamp’s mobile apps are weaker than Clockify’s.
• The optional screenshot features push it toward employee monitoring territory, which some teams want to avoid.

Pricing

Free plan: unlimited users (limited projects and one integration). Starter: $3.99/user/month. Premium: $6.99/user/month. Ultimate: $9.99/user/month.

6. Everhour – Best for Teams Already Using Project Management Tools

Everhour’s core value is that it embeds time tracking directly inside the project management tools teams already use: Asana, Trello, ClickUp, Monday.com, Notion, and Basecamp. Timers appear as buttons inside tasks in those tools. No separate tab, no context switch, no manual re-entry of task details. For teams already embedded in one of those PM platforms, Everhour is the lowest-friction way to add time tracking without changing workflows.

What Everhour Does Better Than Clockify

• Native in-tool timers inside Asana, Trello, ClickUp, Monday, Notion, and Basecamp.
• Visual project timeline and resource planning built in.
• Team timers for collaborative tasks.
• Customizable reporting.

Where Clockify Still Wins

• Everhour’s mobile apps are basic and limited to simple time tracking – not suitable for on-the-go teams.
• Everhour requires a minimum of 5 users on paid plans.
• No automatic time tracking.
• Managing multiple clients simultaneously is harder than in Clockify.

Pricing

Free plan: up to 5 users. Team: $10/user/month (minimum 5 users required). No on-premise option.

7. Timely – Best for AI-Drafted Timesheets

Timely takes a fundamentally different approach to time tracking: instead of asking employees to start and stop timers or fill in timesheets manually, it runs a private background tracker called Memory that records every app, document, website, and meeting the user works in throughout the day. An AI then drafts a complete timesheet from that activity log, which the user reviews and approves before any data is shared with the team. Nothing is visible to managers until the employee chooses to log it. For teams that lose significant time to manual timesheet entry or end-of-week reconstruction, Timely removes that friction entirely.

What Timely Does Better Than Clockify

• Fully automated time capture: The Memory tracker records activity privately without screenshots, keystrokes, or surveillance. Clockify requires manual timer management or offline entry.
• AI timesheet drafting: The AI reviews the Memory log, categorizes activity by project, and drafts a timesheet. The user approves or edits before logging. No reconstruction from memory at week’s end.
• Time planning tools: Timely includes workload planning and a real-time capacity manager that shows how planned hours compare to logged hours across the team.
• No employee surveillance: All Memory data is private to the individual until they choose to log it. Managers only see what employees publish.

Where Clockify Still Wins

• Free plan: Timely has no free plan. Clockify’s free tier, despite the April 2026 changes, remains more accessible for budget-constrained teams.
• Integrations: Clockify has a broader integration library. Timely’s integrations are more limited.
• Mobile: Timely has no Apple Watch app and relies on a desktop background tracker, which means it works best for desk-based teams.

Pricing

Starter from $11/user/month. Premium from $20/user/month. No free plan. No on-premise option.

How to Choose the Right Clockify Alternative

Use the situation below that matches yours:

• “The 5-user free plan cap is the problem” → TimeCamp. Only tool with unlimited free users.
• “I need billable rates included on the free plan” → MyHours. Includes billable rates on free; Clockify moved this to paid.
• “I need to invoice clients and collect payment online” → Harvest. Stripe and PayPal built into invoices.
• “My team hates logging time and needs a cleaner interface” → Toggl Track. Best-in-class ease of use and no surveillance.
• “I already use Asana, Trello, ClickUp, or Monday” → Everhour. Time tracking embedded inside the tools you already use.
• “I work in consulting, architecture, or professional services” → TimeLive. Four billing rate types, client approval of timesheets, expense and time on the same invoice, full audit trail. See time tracking for consultants and time tracking for agencies.
• “I need on-premise deployment or Active Directory authentication” → TimeLive. The only tool in this list with confirmed on-premise installation, Active Directory, LDAP, Azure AD, and SAML/ADFS SSO.
• “My clients need to approve timesheets directly” → TimeLive. The only tool here where external client users can log in and approve timesheets and expenses.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best free Clockify alternative in 2026?

It depends on what the free plan needs to cover. For teams over five people who need to stay free, TimeCamp is the only option with unlimited free users. For teams of five or fewer who need billable rates on the free plan – which Clockify moved to paid in April 2026 – MyHours includes billable rates at no cost. For professional services teams that need billing, invoicing, and on-premise options, TimeLive’s free plan (3 users, 3 projects) gives a full evaluation before any purchase.

What exactly changed in Clockify’s free plan in April 2026?

Clockify’s owner CAKE.com capped free workspaces at 5 users, moved kiosk mode, billable hours tracking, and shared reports to paid tiers, limited free reports to a one-month date range, and restricted API requests to 30 per hour. The changes were announced via the CAKE.com blog.

Which Clockify alternative is best for freelancers?

For freelancers who need invoicing and online payment collection, Harvest is the strongest option – it converts timesheets to invoices and accepts Stripe and PayPal payments directly. For freelancers on a tight budget who still need billable rates, MyHours free plan covers the core needs. For freelancers in professional services who bill by project phase or role, TimeLive’s free plan supports 3 users and 3 projects with billing and invoicing included.

Is there a Clockify alternative with on-premise deployment?

Yes. TimeLive is the only tool in this list that offers a full on-premise installation. It installs on a Windows Server with IIS and SQL Server. Both the free version (3 users, 3 projects) and the full paid version are available as on-premise installations. This is relevant for teams in regulated industries, government contractors, or organizations with data sovereignty requirements. See TimeLive on-premise.

Final Verdict

Each tool in this list wins for a specific use case. TimeCamp is the replacement for Clockify’s old unlimited free plan. MyHours is the affordable option for small teams that need billable rates without paying for them. Harvest is the invoicing tool for freelancers who need to get paid. Toggl Track is the clean, analytics-focused alternative for teams that value trust over surveillance. Everhour is the embedded option for PM-tool-first teams.

TimeLive leads for professional services teams, consulting firms, architecture practices, agencies, and government contractors where time tracking needs to connect directly to billing rates, client invoices, and an auditable approval chain. It is the only tool here with on-premise deployment, client-facing timesheet approval, four billing rate types, and both QuickBooks and Xero native integrations.

See TimeLive pricing   |   Start free – 3 users, 3 projects   |   Request a demo

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