WakaTime is an open-source plugin framework for developers that automatically tracks the time you spend coding. Instead of manual timesheets or timers, the many WakaTime IDE plugins quietly measure your programming activity — which editors you use, which languages you write, and on what projects — and feed that data to a metrics dashboard. It is one of the most widely-adopted automatic coding-time trackers, with plugins for VS Code, JetBrains IDEs, Vim/Neovim, Emacs, Sublime Text and many more.

Key Features

• Automatic time tracking — Track coding time passively while you work, with no start/stop timers to manage.
• 40+ editor & plugin integrations — Plugins for VS Code, JetBrains, Vim, Neovim, Emacs, Sublime, Atom, Xcode, Eclipse and many others.
• Language & project breakdown — See time spent per language, project, file, branch and editor.
• Coding activity metrics — Daily dashboard, leaderboards, project insights and weekly summaries.
• Local CLI support — Track even outside editors with the wakatime-cli, including terminal and browser extensions.
• Open-source plugins — Each IDE plugin is released on GitHub under the BSD 3-Clause licence.

Why Use WakaTime?

WakaTime suits developers (solo or in teams) who want objective, automatic data about how they spend their coding time without interrupting their flow. Because the plugins are open source and wide-ranging, it works whether you live in an IDE, a terminal, or both. For readers who prefer to keep all tracking data fully self-hosted and off a third-party service, ActivityWatch is a solid open-source alternative that stores everything locally.

Use Cases

• Developers quantifying how much time they spend on personal vs work projects
• Engineering leads and freelancers producing automatic, evidence-based time reporting
• Habit and productivity analysis around which languages and tools absorb attention

Platform

Desktop/IDE integrations · CLI for Windows, Linux, macOS · web dashboard (hosted)

Licence

Mixed model — open-source plugins, proprietary hosted dashboard. The IDE plugins and CLI are open source under the BSD 3-Clause licence. The wakatime.com metrics dashboard is a proprietary freemium hosted service — free tier for personal use, paid Premium plans for advanced analytics and larger teams. Your coding data is stored on WakaTime’s servers.

Open-Source Alternatives

• ActivityWatch — fully self-hosted, open-source automatic time tracking that stores data locally

Website

wakatime.com · github.com/wakatime