Updated August 2026
    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    19k

    ActivityWatch: Maintenance, Licence and Alternatives

    Automatically track how you spend time on your devices.

    TL;DR • ActivityWatch • as of August 2026

    ActivityWatch is an open-source time tracking project, with 19k GitHub stars and a health score of 71/100. It committed 83 times in the last twelve months across 8 of those months, and its status is actively maintained. Licence: MPL-2.0. It has real momentum, so treat it as a live competitor rather than a stale repository.

    19k
    GitHub stars
    71/100
    Health score
    83
    Commits (12 mo)
    8/12
    Active months

    Maintenance health

    Status Actively maintained — Committed within the last 45 days.
    Last commit 2026-08-06
    Days since last commit 11
    Commits, last 3 months 32
    Commits, last 12 months 83
    Months with activity 8 of 12
    Last release 2026-08-06
    Archived No
    Licence MPL-2.0
    Category Time Tracking

    Health score combines commit recency, twelve-month commit volume, months with activity, release recency and archive state. Metadata refreshed August 2026.

    What the licence lets you do

    MPL-2.0

    Copyleft (GPL, AGPL, MPL): derivative work must stay open. AGPL also covers software offered over a network, which blocks most closed SaaS wrappers.

    This matters most when you plan to sell a hosted version. A permissive licence means anyone — including a competitor with more capital — can do the same, so your defensibility has to come from distribution, support or data, not from the code.

    What ActivityWatch means for your idea

    ActivityWatch is shipping code consistently, so a buyer comparing your product will find a maintained free option. Price and position against the total cost of self-hosting it, not against the paid incumbent's list price.

    The clearest opening in the dataset. Low open-source competition usually means either a genuinely underserved need or a market too small to attract volunteers — validate demand before assuming the former.

    ActivityWatch: common questions

    Is ActivityWatch still maintained in 2026?

    Actively maintained. ActivityWatch recorded 83 commits over the last twelve months, with activity in 8 of those months and 32 commits in the last quarter. Last commit: 2026-08-06. Last release: 2026-08-06. Committed within the last 45 days.

    Can I use ActivityWatch commercially?

    ActivityWatch is published under MPL-2.0. Copyleft (GPL, AGPL, MPL): derivative work must stay open. AGPL also covers software offered over a network, which blocks most closed SaaS wrappers.

    How crowded is the Time Tracking category?

    10 open-source implementations, 6 of them actively maintained, led by ActivityWatch at 19k stars. Saturation score 35/100 — Open. Thin or poorly maintained open-source coverage.

    ActivityWatch alternatives in Time Tracking

    Kimai

    Alternative to Time Tracking

    4.9k

    Track work time and print out a summary of your activities on demand.

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    AGPL-3.0

    Ever Gauzy

    Time Tracking

    4.3k

    Open business management platform for collaborative, on-demand and sharing economies (ERP/CRM/HRM/ATS/PM).

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    AGPL-3.0

    Competing with free? Check the market first.

    IdeaProof scores your idea against live competitors, market size and 1,000+ documented startup failures in about two minutes.