10 outstanding time tracking software for developers (2026)

Software development agencies and developers can gain a lot by using time tracking software.

It’ll help you improve your development team’s productivity and bill clients accurately. However, to maximize the benefits, you must invest in the right time tracking software.

In this article, we’ll check out the 10 best time tracking software for developers and why you should use one.

Top 10 time tracking software for developers
3 reasons developers should use time tracking software

Let’s get started.

Top 10 time tracking software for developers

Let’s look at 10 time tracking apps that developers can use to boost their productivity.

1. Time Doctor

Time Doctor is a workforce analytics platform that empowers managers with the visibility to lead with trust, not control. Mid-market companies and growing SMBs use it to gain real-time visibility into work, support employee well-being, and continuously improve productivity across remote, hybrid, and in-office teams.

It supports major platforms like Windows, macOS, Linux, and Android. Time Doctor also offers a Chrome extension for integration with third-party software.

Key features

Let’s check out some of Time Doctor’s key features that make it a valuable tool for software developers and programmers:

A. Time tracking

Time Doctor is a workforce analytics platform that gives you flexible time tracking so employees can record their hours in a way that fits how they work. The platform captures work activity in real time and transforms it into clear visibility for teams, helping leaders understand how work happens while keeping the experience simple for employees.

In manual/interactive mode, employees simply open the app, select their current task, and start the timer. Time Doctor runs in the background and tracks the apps and websites used during work. When they’re finished or want to take a break, they can stop the timer with a single click.

In automatic mode, Time Doctor can start tracking time when employees turn on or log into their work devices. This mode helps improve accuracy and reduces the need for manual edits or forgotten time entries.

Both modes are designed to provide clear visibility for managers and employees while minimizing disruption to the workday.

B. Idle time tracking

Time Doctor measures idle time (periods without keyboard or mouse activity) to help teams understand focus patterns and potential productivity blockers.

Idle time is measured in idle seconds and idle minutes
You can configure when idle time should start counting and set limits that make sense for different roles

Instead of silently recording behavior, Time Doctor can display a gentle idle time pop-up when someone has been inactive for too long—nudging them to either refocus or take a break. This helps reduce unintentional time drift and supports more accurate timesheets.

This design helps organizations balance accountability with privacy and trust.Moreover, you can set how long the timer can run without any activity. Once it reaches the limit, the tracker automatically stops tracking time and displays an idle time pop-up. This pop-up alerts employees to focus on their tasks.

Note: Time Doctor isn’t a keystroke logger. This time tracking software only checks if a user pressed any keys or mouse buttons to determine idle time.

C. Screencasts (Optional)

Time Doctor’s screencasts feature helps you check whether employees in your development team are working on a specific task or not.

Additionally, since your developers are aware that their screen activities are being monitored, they would avoid taking part in distracting activities.

Note: Screenshots are only taken when a team member indicates they’re working and can be deleted or blurred to maintain privacy. This feature is optional and can be enabled or disabled for each user.

D. Productivity ratings

With this feature, managers can see if their employees are working productively.

The app allows you to set different productivity ratings for different sites, depending on the nature of your work.

The different productivity ratings are:

Productive.
Unproductive.
Neutral.
Unrated.

For example, if your developers regularly visit Stack Overflow to find coding-related solutions, you can rate the website as productive.

E. Extensive productivity reports

C. Productivity reports

Time Doctor tracks several data points related to employees activity. You can access a wide range of reports generated in real-time.

Here’s a quick look at these reports :

Activity summary report: See active seconds, minutes, unproductive, manual, and mobile time for each employee over a selected time period.
Attendance report: See if an employee is present, absent, partially absent, or late in real-time.
Hours tracked report: View the total number of hours tracked by employees for any date range.
Projects & tasks report: See the time spent on projects as well as individual tasks.
Timeline report: Look at the time spent on tasks and breaks in a day or the whole week.
Custom export report: Customize the fields you’d like to include in one single report.
Web and app usage report: View the time spent by an employee on each app and website during work hours.

F. Payroll management

Time Doctor provides powerful payroll management features along with time tracking.

It allows you to charge your clients’ billable hours without using any manual timesheet if you’re a freelance software developer. And to avoid any miscalculation, you can set hourly bill rates for your work hours and add up the total hours worked.

On top of that, you can integrate Time Doctor with a payment gateway like Gusto, Paypal, ADP, or Wise.

You can also customize payroll details, such as the following:

Pay period.
Payment currency.
Payment method.

E. Chrome extension and integrations

Time Doctor’s powerful Chrome Extension integrates with 60+ tools that include project management, helpdesk, accounting software, and more.

For example, Time Doctor integrates easily with tools like Asana and Jira.

You can even add time tracking to tasks you’ve created on tools like ClickUp. As a result, you can help your team avoid wasting time and work more efficiently.

Pricing

Time Doctor offers a 14-day free trial (no credit card info required). Its paid plan starts at $6.70/user per month.

Customer ratings

G2: 4.4/5 (420+ reviews)
Capterra: 4.5/5 (540+ reviews)

Explore Time Doctor’s features page for more details.

2. Tempo Timesheets

Tempo Timesheets is an automated time tracking solution for developers using Jira. It gives businesses the insights they need to stay on top of project estimates and deadlines.