Toggl vs Clockify – Which is the right time tracking software for you?
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Toggl vs Clockify. A feature by feature comparison of two freemium time tracking software loved by freelancers.
If you’re looking for a time tracking software for your remote team, then you’ve probably heard of Toggl and Clockify. These are two of the biggest players that have brought time tracking to many freelancers and remote teams.
In the past, most businesses tracked time manually using pen and paper or a spreadsheet. Even at businesses that used a time and expense software, employees filled out weekly timesheet reports manually.
But manual time tracking is not accurate. It takes time to fill out the timesheets, taking time away from productive work.
That’s why businesses of all sizes now prefer automatic time tracking software like Toggl and Clockify.
How should you choose between the two?
Let’s compare Toggl and Clockify with HiveDesk – an easy-to-use time tracking software that compares favorably with both Toggl and Clockify.
Toggl vs. Clockify vs. HiveDesk
A time tracking tool should make your life simple at an affordable cost.
Features list:
| Features | Toggl | Clockify | HiveDesk |
|---|---|---|---|
| 14-day free trial | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Time tracking | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Screenshots | No | Yes (Enterprise plan only) | Yes |
| Change screenshot frequency | No | No | Yes |
| Task tracking | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Automatic timesheets | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Activity tracking | Yes | No | Yes |
| Data stored on secured servers | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Reporting | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| User level management | Yes | Yes (Enterprise plan only) | Yes – 3 user levels for easy control |
| Cost tracking | Yes | Yes (Enterprise plan only) | Yes |
| User interface | Clean | Complex | Simple and easy to use |
| Works on Windows, Mac and Linux | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Cost per month | $10/user | $10/user (Enterprise plan) | $5/user |
Time tracking software should be easy and affordable
Why make time tracking complicated by adding unnecessary features?
Most time tracking software have become bloated with features you don’t need. You have to pay extra for these features whether you need them or not. That’s not fair. In fact, you can get many of these features for free with project management tools like Asana. Extra features make the software clunky, confusing and difficult to use. HiveDesk focuses on giving just what you need to track time and manage your remote team.
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Toggl vs. Clockify vs. HiveDesk
Toggl Track is a time tracking tool used by a large number of freelancers and businesses. It’s a time and task tracking software suitable for large teams. The free version is used by thousands of freelancers.
In addition to tracking time, Toggl can also track which apps employees use and for how long. It’s a useful feature if your employees use a specific app for work when doing data entry. But in most cases, its utility is limited as employees will need to use multiple apps to do their job.
Toggl is one of the most expensive time tracking software with prices starting at $10/user/month. If you need a project dashboard and advanced reporting, you will need to pay $20 per month.
Toggl started as a time tracking tool. It grew rapidly off the back of the free version for freelancers. Freelancers introduced the tool to their clients and wrote hundreds of reviews on sites such as Capterra.
The freelancers generated word of mouth and buzz for Toggl Track that attracted paid users.
The company has now added two new products – Toggl Plan and Toggl Hire. Toggl Plan is a project management tool. Toggl Hire is a screening tool for hiring new employees.
Toggl wants you to buy a Plan as an add-on instead of adding project management features to Toggl Track. That makes it more expensive if you want a solution to track your team’s time and project.
Toggl Track is best suited for freelancers who want a free tool and for mid-sized businesses who use many different tools like Asana (paid plans) JIRA and GitHub.
You can create a roster for your employees in Toggl Track. This is super useful if your team works in shifts and you want to ensure optimal staffing level for all shifts.
Benefits of Toggl
- Reliable time tracking for individuals and teams
- Scheduling for teams that work in shifts
- Integrations with multiple apps used by bigger teams
Toggl is suitable for freelancers who need a free time tracking tool. It’s also suitable for bigger teams that use multiple tools to track work.
The Toggl user interface is clean The web portal is easy to use as it’s s not overflowing with features. The desktop application is easy to use but it crashes sometimes.
One of the key attractions of Toggl is the Pomodoro timer. The Pomodoro Technique breaks down work into 25-minute intervals, separated by short breaks. The time interval is called a pomodoro, Italian for tomato.
Main features of Toggl:
- Time tracking
- Task management
- Team member utilization
- Email reminders to team members
- Project estimation and tracking
- Revenue and cost tracking
- Reporting
- Calendar integration
- Integration with 100+ tools
The free plan has time tracking and the Pomodoro timer, good enough for freelancers. The starter plan, $10/month, includes reports and tasks. If you want to track projects, you need the $20/month plan. HiveDesk offers time tracking, task monitoring, and project tracking for only $5/month.
Cons of Toggl
- Expensive compared to HiveDesk
- Project tracking is available with $20/month and higher plans
Do you really want to pay $20/month to get access to your project dashboard? If not, Toggl Track is not for you.
While it’s a visually pleasing tool, the features don’t really add up to the cost. Calendar integration is good, but how many of the employees truly need it? An email reminder to attend to team members to log their time is nice to have, but do you really want to pay extra for it?
Toggl promotes a feature they call Time Audit. It shows you time entries that do not have an associated project or task. But some people think it’s a product design flaw in Toggl.
Most time tracking tools, like HiveDesk, do not allow team members to track time without selecting a project first. So you will not see any time entry without an associated project or task.
Toggl does not take screenshots, which is a great way to monitor remote employees and provide them feedback for improvement. If you want screenshots, HiveDesk is the better option.
Also, Toggl does not have project management features you would expect from a tool at this price point. You still need to buy Toggl Plan or something like Asana to manage projects.
Of course, you can integrate the two tools. But you still need to switch between the two to understand what’s happening in the project.
If you need an affordable and easy-to-use time tracking software with screenshot, task management and cost tracking, then HiveDesk is the best option for you.
What is Clockify?
Clockify is another freemium time tracking tool like Toggl Track. Clockify is used mainly by freelancers and large companies. It has everything you need in a good time tracking software including timesheets, task and project monitoring and cost tracking.
The free plan includes just time tracking and projects.
Clockify focuses on serving large enterprise customers even though it’s a freemium product. The company offers free and unlimited seats for a fixed fee to attract the larger companies.
Soon, these customers realize that they really need the enterprise plan ($10/month/user) if they want project cost tracking, screenshots and other useful features.
Since Clockify is built for large companies with thousands of users, it has features geared towards them. These features, like single sign-on and layers of control, make the user interface complex.
The setup is complex with dozens of options. Clockify does a poor job of hiding features that small and mid-sized teams don’t need making it challenging to use.
Clockify is popular with large companies and is constantly adding features to meet their needs. For example, you can host Clockify on your own servers to increase data security. Of course, it increases the cost per seat dramatically since companies
HiveDesk is a much better option for small businesses because of its simplicity and lower cost. You can get everything you need–time tracking, task and project monitoring, cost tracking, manager role and screenshots- for just $5/user/month.
Benefits of Clockify
- The enterprise version is more secure with SSO
- Can be hosted on a private server
- Track time, tasks and projects
- Track project profitability and create invoices in the Enterprise plan
Clockify is suitable for companies with hundreds, even thousands, of employees that need high-level security and control.
It’s also great for freelancers who need to keep track of their time for billing clients.
The Plus and Premium plans are, in reality, placeholder plans to attract companies looking for a cheap time tracking solution. Once they sign up, they realize these plans don’t really work and they need to upgrade to the Enterprise plan.
Main features of Clockify:
- Single sign-on option for enterprise plan
- Cost and profit tracking (enterprise plan)
- Add a manager role (enterprise plan)
- Custom subdomain (enterprise plan)
- Screenshots (enterprise plan)
- Time tracking
- Project and task monitoring
- Integration with other apps
- Client portal (enterprise plan)
- Invoicing (enterprise plan).
Cons of Clockify
- Complex – takes 3-4 days to learn how to use it
- Difficult to set up with dozens of options
- Requires training for the team and managers
- Expensive compared to HiveDesk
Let’s be honest: only large businesses need features like single sign on and private servers. Why should you pay for these features if you only want to track time, tasks, projects and a way to manage your team?
With Clockify, you need the Enterprise plan if you want to add a manager to your team or take screenshots. Same if you want to track hourly costs for team members.
You get all these features and more for just $5/month with HiveDesk.
Clockify is difficult to use by small teams as it’s designed for large businesses. It has very granular levels of control for IT, HR and Finance teams at large businesses. But that also makes Clockify a complex software for small and mid-sized businesses.
HiveDesk, once again, is a better option for small to mid-sized teams. It’s easy to use and you can get started without any training. Of course, you always have access to our world-class support any time you need it.
But you need to pay between $10-20/user for both Toggl and Clockify, much more than HiveDesk.
Why Choose HiveDesk over Toggl and Clockify?
HiveDesk is one of the fastest-growing Toggl alternative and Clockify alternative. We built it for people who want an easy to use and affordable software for managing remote teams.
Our platform’s core focus is on removing frustrations, inefficiencies, and disconnect caused by existing time tracking tools. You can manage timesheets, track task completion, monitor remote employees and project cost – all in one place!
You can customize how you use HiveDesk by turning screenshot off and on. You have the option to change the frequency of screenshots. By Assigning employees different roles, you can control what information they can see and what they can do in each project.
HiveDesk saves you money by tracking your employees’ time, activities and cost in real-time. You can make your team more productive by eliminating manual timesheets and providing constructive feedback with the help of screenshots.
If you need an affordable and easy to use time tracking software with screenshot, task management and cost tracking, then HiveDesk is the best option for you.
Simplified time tracking
HiveDesk is simpler and cheaper than either Time Doctor or Hubstaff.
Time tracking
Track time spent on each project
Task management
Create, assign and manage tasks
Project tracking
Track project status and progress
Automatic timesheets
Generate timesheets from time tracking
Multi-level access management
Assign manager role with different level access control
Project cost management
Track cost of each project and team member
Automatic screenshots
Capture periodic screenshots for feedback & monitoring
Activity monitoring
See when team members are actively working