While Hubstaff is a good employee time tracking app, it isn’t perfect. Without advanced distraction management and reporting, you’ll have a tough time managing your team’s productivity.
That’s why we’ve rounded up seven of the best Hubstaff alternatives to help you track time and manage employee performance more efficiently.
Here’s what this article contains:
(You can use the links below to jump to a specific section)
Here’s a closer look at why you need a Hubstaff alternative:
1. Limited Distraction Management
You’re going to face tons of distractions when working online.
Whether it’s a YouTube video, a Facebook update, or an Amazon deal – there are tons of ways to get distracted!
Ideally, your time tracker should help you avoid these distractions. Some tools do this by giving you subtle hints that you’re unproductive every time you access an unproductive site. These nudges are usually enough to get you back to work and boost your productivity.
Unfortunately, Hubstaff can’t do this. So while it can track the time you spent, it can’t manage your distractions to boost productivity.
2. Tricky Onboarding
The goal of any performance monitoring tool is to minimize wasted time and boost productivity.
However, when your time tracker is difficult to use, you’ll be wasting time figuring out how to use it!
While Hubstaff is one of the most comprehensive trackers on the market, it can be overwhelming – especially for novices. Getting to grips with it can take some time – limiting how quickly it can start boosting your productivity.
The 7 Best Hubstaff Alternatives
Here are 7 best Hubstaff alternatives to help you track time and boost productivity immediately:
Time Doctor is a powerful time tracking and performance monitoring tool that’ll help you boost your productivity in no time. Used by companies like Apple, PwC, and Verizon, Time Doctor has everything you need from a time tracker.
It helps you to:
Automatically track the time spent by your employees on different tasks.
Monitor the sites and apps they visit during work hours.
Track billable and non billable hours.
Identify unproductive employees and dramatically reduce wasted time.
Bill clients or pay employees based on tracked time.
Reduce time spent on distractions.
Here’s a closer look at some of Time Doctor’s key features:
A) User-Friendly Time Tracking system
Unlike Hubstaff, Time Doctor is super easy to use.
Here’s how to track time using Time Doctor:
Open the app.
Type in the task you’ll be working on.
Start the timer (the app now runs quietly in the background).
Pause the timer when you’re done.
It’s that simple!
That’s why anyone – even novices – can get started with Time Doctor immediately!
Worried That Your Employees Can Control When They’re Tracked?
Don’t be!
This doesn’t mean that employees or remote teams can game the system. It actually lets you monitor their activity levels more accurately.
Here’s how:
Their web and app activity also gets monitored when the timer starts. This discourages them from browsing personal or non-productive sites while working.
As tracking is task-based, you can view how long each task took and what they were doing during working hours.
Also, to respect their privacy, only web and app activity during work hours are tracked.
B) State-of-the-art Distraction Management
You can’t afford to have your employees watching cat videos during work hours, right?
To help prevent that happening, Time Doctor has built-in distraction management features. Whenever an employee accesses an unproductive site like Facebook or YouTube, Time Doctor displays a pop-up, asking them if they’re still working.
This nudge is usually good enough to get them off the unproductive site and back to work!
For added customizability, you have complete control over what sites and apps are classified as unproductive. Additionally, Time Doctor has a dedicated “Poor Time Usage” that highlights when each employee accessed an unproductive website and how long they spent there.
C) Powerful Reporting
Time Doctor has tons of different reports that help you monitor your employees more effectively. Here’s a quick look at some of them:
Timesheet Report: The total hours worked by your staff over a given duration.
Time Use Report: The time spent on all tasks by a single employee over a given period.
Projects Report: Shows you who worked on what projects and for how long.
Web And App Usage Report: Highlights each app and site accessed by an employee during work hours. It also includes the time they spent on each site/app.
Timeline Daily Report: Chronological breakdown of time spent on work by an employee in a day.
Poor-time use: Time spent on non-productive sites and apps by an employee.
D) Inactivity Monitoring
Time Doctor has built-in inactivity monitoring features to ensure that your team is actively working during work hours.
How does it ensure this?
If there’s been no keyboard or mouse activity for three minutes, Time Doctor automatically assumes the user is on a break and pauses the timer. This guards against employees marking idle time as hours worked.
Note – Time Doctor does NOT track what keys were pressed. It only verifies if there was any keyboard activity.
E) Client login
Want to keep your clients informed about how long their projects are taking?
No problem!
Time Doctor lets your clients access your tool to monitor how long their projects are taking. They can track reports, timesheets, and screenshots in real-time!
For added security, they can only monitor work progress on their projects. This guards against them viewing information about your other clients.
F) Payroll
Time Doctor has built-in payroll features to help you pay employees and freelancers. With integrations with PayPal, Payoneer, and TransferWise, you’ll have no trouble paying them the way you want to.
This feature is also fully customizable – letting you choose:
The payment method – use one of the default payment methods or use other methods.
The payroll period – select one of the preset default values or set a custom period.
The rate type – opt for a fixed payment rate or an hourly rate.
The rate per hour.
The currency – pick from a list of currencies.
G) Integrations
Time Doctor can integrate with tons of different apps to help you monitor your productivity across various apps and platforms. These include integrations with JIRA, Google Apps, Slack, Zapier, and more.
Click here for a comprehensive list of Time Doctor integrations.
Pros
Easy and accurate time tracking.
Built-in inactivity tracker to only track active hours worked.
Offline monitoring for employees who cannot access the internet.
Cross-platform availability with support for Windows, Mac, and Linux.
Optional screenshot monitoring.
Powerful, versatile reports that can be exported as PDF, CSV or MS Excel files.
Seamlessly integrates with applications ranging from project management software to CRMs.
Strict privacy controls to protect employees’ privacy.
Cross-platform availability with support for Windows, Mac, and Linux.
Powerful iOS and Android apps.
Cons
More suitable to companies than freelancers.
No free version.
Pricing
Starts at $7 / user per month (comes with a free 14-day trial, no credit card required).
ProofHub is an all-in-one project planning and team collaboration tool with time tracking functionalities. Like Timecamp and Tsheets, it’s easy to use, and anyone can get started immediately.
Key Features
Powerful timesheet management.
Tasks can be divided into workflow stages and assigned to employees.
Powerful reporting.
Discussion threads and direct messaging features.
Pros
Easy to use UI.
Built-in task management features for an added productivity boost.
Markup tools for proofing.
Cons
No desktop tool.
Cannot set recurring option for tasks.
Fewer integrations than most other time trackers.
Pricing
Essential: $45 /month for 40 projects, unlimited users, 15GB storage (No custom roles, white labeling, custom workflows, project management features).
Ultimate Control: $89 /month for unlimited projects and users, 100GB storage, with all features.
Staff.com is another effective time tracker with advanced time tracking features and dashboards.
Key Features
Simple time tracking with silent monitoring support.
Advanced activity tracking with screenshot monitoring.
GPS tracking available on the mobile app.
Tons of insightful reports.
Pros
User-friendly UI.
Powerful API.
Supports inactivity monitoring.
Cons
Aimed at businesses – not freelancers.
No free version.
Pricing
Growing teams: hosted in the cloud, starts at $10 per month, one user.
Larger teams: hosted in the cloud, price on request, for 50 to 10,000 users.
On-premise: hosted on your server, price on request, for unlimited users.
Conclusion
These Hubstaff alternatives have all you need to track time and boost team performance.
While each time tracker we listed here is good, Time Doctor has several advantages. Its simple interface, powerful reports and extensive distraction management features are all you need to improve your team’s productivity immediately!
Rob Rawson is a co-founder of Time Doctor which is software to improve work productivity and help keep track of what your team is working on, even when working remotely.
I have hired from HubStaff, but due to a change in branding, they no longer allow us to hire through them claiming that they don't know who we are. I am now looking for an alternative to HubStaff.
Great post. Such post makes the life of a designer easy! I'm using ProofHub and it indeed has increased my productivity. Thanks for the listing out these amazing tools!
Rick Shepherd360.ca
vaishali
Esterlita Payumo
Carlo Borja https://www.timedoctor.com
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