Comparison
Tracker vs Toggl Track
Written by the developer of Tracker · every claim about Toggl Track comes from the linked article
Toggl Track is a timer: you start an entry, you stop it, and the report becomes an invoice. Tracker is the other model — it samples the front window and files the time under a client without asking you to press anything. The table below is the short version of a longer article, and the choice between them is mostly a choice between a team-ready cloud account and a solo Mac that keeps its data.
Side by side
| Criterion | Tracker | Toggl Track |
|---|---|---|
| Tracking method | Samples the frontmost window, and the URL when that window is a browser, every few seconds. Nothing to start or stop. | Timer-based. You start and stop entries, and add or correct them by hand when you forgot. |
| How work becomes a client | One or two patterns per client, written once. Anything matching no rule stays unassigned rather than guessed at. | You tag each entry with a project and a client as you record it. |
| Time you forget about | Idle gaps are cut out of the day, so what you export is time you were at the keyboard. | An entry you forget to stop keeps counting through lunch, a call or the commute home. |
| Where the data lives | A SQLite file on your Mac. No server holds a copy. | A Toggl account, synced between the web app, the desktop apps and the phone. |
| Account required | None. There is nothing to sign in to. | Yes — the design is account-first and cloud-first. |
| Devices | One Mac. There is no sync, so no second device picks up where the first left off. | Web, desktop and phone, kept in sync by the account. |
| Teams | A solo tool: no shared workspaces, no per-member reports, no approvals. | Built for teams as much as for individuals, with shared team reports. |
| Work away from the screen | Not captured. A phone call at the whiteboard never reaches a window title, and Tracker does not pretend otherwise. | Entries can be added or corrected by hand, so off-screen work can still be logged. |
| Pricing model | Free during early access, a one-time license after launch. | The paid tiers are subscriptions. |
Which one to choose
Stay with Toggl Track if you track time for a team, if you need the same entries on your laptop and your phone, or if you regularly bill work that never touches a screen. It is also the mature product — a decade of edges sanded off — while Tracker is still in early access and has not shipped.
Look at Tracker if you work alone on one Mac, if your day is fragmented across several clients, and if the reason you are reading a comparison is that your last three invoices were built from memory rather than from data. The trade you are making is sync, teams and maturity for a record that gets written while the work happens and never leaves your machine.
The reasoning behind every row above is written out at length in Toggl alternative for Mac: automatic time tracking without timers. The local-only design that decides most of these trade-offs is explained on the about page.