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Best open source
OpenProject alternative

Kimai is the #1 open-source time-tracking alternative for OpenProject. Learn how Kimai measures up to OpenProject, so you can choose the right solution for your business.

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Kimai

Kimai vs OpenProject: Which time tracking software fits your team best in 2026?

Kimai is the #1 open-source time-tracking solution designed for teams and businesses seeking flexibility and control over their time tracking infrastructure. Discover why more than 5000 companies worldwide trust Kimai for their time tracking needs and find out how it compares to OpenProject’s offerings. Whether you’re evaluating a new time tracking app, analyzing OpenProject pricing options, or planning a OpenProject migration, Kimai provides a compelling alternative with superior features and cost savings.

Choosing the right time tracking software can make a huge difference in productivity, transparency, and billing accuracy of a freelancer, an agency, or a business owner managing a big team.

Reporting feature

When selecting a time tracking tool, most users consider:

  • Features: Does it cover everything from tracking and reporting to invoicing and project management?
  • Price: Is it affordable (or even free) for the size of your team?
  • Flexibility: Can it adapt to your current workflow, integrations, and tech stack?
  • Accessibility: Does it support both desktop and mobile platforms, and can it be self-hosted or cloud-based?
  • Scalability: Will it still fit your needs as your business grows?

The year 2026 also brings focus on data privacy, automation, and team transparency in time management tools. At the same time the market offers a range of solutions for every use case, from solopreneurs to large enterprise teams, and you can always find the solution that best fits your needs.

Let’s explore the best time tracking tools for 2026 and see how Kimai compares with Toggl Track — two popular choices among professionals and successful teams worldwide.

Kimai features most used

Not all time tracking tools are created equal. The best solutions for agencies offer a specialized set of features to streamline your workflows.

Features

JSON API

Featuring an extensive JSON API for reading and writing data, so external apps and custom tools can communicate with Kimai.

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Customer Portal

Share client and project statistics and timesheets with anyone using a secret URL, optionally password protected.

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Teams

Teams connects users into logical groups, like departments. Limit access to data by assigning customers and projects to your teams.

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SAML

Log in and register users with SAML via your existing SSO identity provider, like Google Workspace, Authentik or Azure Active Directory.

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Invoicing

Configurable invoice templates, options for entry grouping, configurable invoice numbers, and multiple formats like PDF and DOCX.

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Reports and analyses

Analysis of recorded times by users, customers, projects, activities, tags, time periods and more.

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OpenProject: open source project management

OpenProject is an open source project management software for optimizing the collaboration of separated teams. It takes into account the entire project lifecycle. Features include project portfolio management and project and release planning. OpenProject offers a free Community Edition as well as an Enterprise Version, between €5.95 and €15.95 per user & month.

While OpenProject is a software with an extensive project-management feature set, it is not a time-tracking software. It can track time, but this is not it’s main purpose and many advanced time-tracking features are missing. Are you looking for an explicit time-tracker? Then Kimai might be the right choice for you.

Kimai is the best open source time-tracker alternative to OpenProject.

What users say about Kimai

At Kimai, we've designed our time tracking platform to meet the needs of agencies, teams, and freelancers. Our intuitive interface and powerful features help companies like yours work smarter and more profitably. You can now “listen” to the reviews of the real users.

I have been using Kimai cloud for more than 1 year, and I am very satisfied about it ! It became easier for me to send monthly reports to my clients and to track my time spent on the projects I’m working on. Thank you very much !

Kevin
IT

We are an IT service provider and need to record our times for documentation and billing purposes.

We have already ‘struggled’ with various systems for recording and creating service reports / billing.

We finally found a good solution 3 years ago with Kimai. The highlights for us:

  • Speed When recording, searching, invoicing

  • Flexibility We can customise Kimai, the data can be exported. Our own invoice layout etc. is easily possible.

  • Cost Unbeatable value for money compared to other solutions.

We are so convinced by the product that we also use it with customers to replace Excel nonsense etc.

Kimai is a software solution that is fun to use.

Josef Wagner
Geschäftsführer

We have been enthusiastic users of Kimai for many years. Initially only for our own documentation purposes, but now also for recording working hours in the company. Instead of using expensive service providers, we were able to use Kimai, the Kiosk plugin and the plugin for working hours to create our own low-cost version, which now works reliably. Many thanks to Kevin, the creative mind in the background, who always provides the right solutions. We are completely satisfied with Kimai.

Jörg
Technische Leitung

Wir setzen KIMAI seit vielen Jahren ein, früher selbst-gehosted bei einem Internet-Provider, seit einiger Zeit in der Cloud. Das Daten-Modell passt hervorragend zu unserem Geschäftsfeld, in dem wir bestimmte Projekte nach Aufwand berechnen, andere zum Festpreis (budgetiert). Beide Abrechnungsmodelle werden von KIMAI unterstützt. Bei budgetierten Projekten behalten wir die Übersicht über den jeweiligen Verbrauch an Zeit und Kosten in Relation zum Budget (Burndown). Bei Projekten nach Aufwand exportieren wir monatlich oder quartalsweise alle abrechenbaren Zeiten mit den hinterlegten Stundensätzen als Grundlage für die Rechnungen, die wir mit einer anderen Faktura-/Buchhaltungs-Software erstellen.

Neben dem aus meiner Sicht sehr praxisgerecht

...
J. Setzer

When I started to identify a time reporting software for our medium size enterprise (~30 people distributed all over United States and Canada) in the software service industry for onsite and remote services, I had several programs in my mind. In my specification I had the following things to be covered

  • Customer related time reporting
  • Project related time reporting
  • Time approval
  • Various hierarchies in user and access levels
  • Open data interface for potential interfaces to other software packages (such as various payroll software packages for Canada and US, ERP for invoicing)
  • Time budget for hourly packages
  • Time reporting to customers with time budget
  • The data is mine and I always want to have access to it
  • I would like to cr
...
Frank
Frank
Service

Kimai is an excellent time-tracking software that offers great flexibility and a lightweight, intuitive interface. It’s easy to use and has been a valuable tool for tracking work hours across our projects. We especially appreciate the variety of plug-ins available, which allow us to extend the software’s capabilities. Highly recommended for firms looking for a robust yet user-friendly solution.

Alexander Kostadinov
Architect / BIM Specialist

We have been using Kimai for many years, initially as a standalone solution on our own server, but for the past three years now in the kimai.cloud. With its structured layout, Kimai meets the time tracking requirements we have as an architecture firm and can flexibly map all of our processes, which is not possible with many time tracking systems. We remain impressed by its reliability, constant maintenance and improvement, and direct, personal service, combined with absolutely fair pricing. We can (and already have) highly recommend kimai.cloud!

Bela Schwier
Bela Schwier
Geschäftsführer

I needed to find a good time tracker on short notice, and wanted it to be EU hosted and open source. Luckily, I found Kimai and have been very happy with it ever since, especially because it is very straightforward and intuitive to use. After using it for my initial project, the Kimai team helped me migrate my data for company use, now allowing us to roll it out for the entire team without losing the original data. Keep up the good work!

Brian Osborn
Brian Osborn
Executive Director

We use Kimai at allroundDigital and are delighted with it. It’s really reliable, works without a lot of explanation and does everything I’d want it to do without being overloaded. Wonderful tool – would definitely recommend.

Niklas Schrötler
Niklas Schrötler
Owner & CEO

I’ve always preferred self-hosting services, but when I discovered Kimai, I saw the value in their free cloud plan. Wanting to support the developers (being a developer myself), I upgraded to the paid version, and it’s been worth every penny.

Recently, I made a mistake that almost wiped out all my data. Despite my plan not officially including support, Kimai’s team was there for me. They responded quickly and had my issue resolved within half an hour, saving me from a potential disaster.

As a freelancer, Kimai has become an essential tool for managing clients, projects, and tasks. It lets me track time accurately and create professional invoices effortlessly. For anyone looking to stay organized and efficient, I highly recomm

...
Panagiotis Ntinis
Panagiotis Ntinis
Backend Developer

All your time-tracking needs in one platform

Time is money, and tracking it effectively has become a necessity for project-based teams. Kimai is a powerful time-tracker that's been the favorite of many businesses worldwide. But how does it stack up against OpenProject? Dive into this comprehensive comparison to find out why businesses are choosing Kimai over OpenProject

See the difference

Compare Kimai vs. OpenProject: choose the options that make the most sense for your business.

Kimai
On-Premise

  • Open source software : 
  • Available on-premises : 
  • Available in the cloud : 
  • Server location :  Your choice
  • Max. customers :  Unlimited
  • Max. projects :  Unlimited
  • Max. activities :  Unlimited
  • JSON API : 
  • Invoicing : 
  • Data export : 
  • SAML : 
  • Support :  Forum (GitHub)
  • Backups : 
  • TLS Certificate :  Additional costs
  • Custom domain :  Additional costs
  • Automatic upgrades : 
  • Server maintenance : 
  • IP access restriction : 
  • Custom content :  Paid plugin
  • Audit trail logs :  Paid plugin
  • Custom fields :  Paid plugin
  • Expense management :  Paid plugin
  • Task planning :  Paid plugin
  • Translations :  Paid plugin
  • Working hours, vacation, sickness, public holidays :  Paid plugin
Install

Kimai
Cloud

  • Open source software : 
  • Available on-premises : 
  • Available in the cloud : 
  • Server location :  Hetzner Cloud
    Germany (Falkenstein)
  • Max. customers :  Unlimited
  • Max. projects :  Unlimited
  • Max. activities :  Unlimited
  • JSON API : 
  • Invoicing : 
  • Data export : 
  • SAML : 
  • Support :  Email, Forum
  • Backups :  Daily
  • TLS Certificate : 
  • Custom domain : 
  • Automatic upgrades : 
  • Server maintenance : 
  • IP access restriction : 
  • Custom content : 
  • Audit trail logs : 
  • Custom fields : 
  • Expense management : 
  • Task planning : 
  • Translations : 
  • Working hours, vacation, sickness, public holidays : 
Get started

OpenProject
Professional

  • Open source software : 
  • Available on-premises : 
  • Available in the cloud : 
  • Server location : 
  • Max. customers :  Unlimited
  • Max. projects :  Unlimited
  • Max. activities :  Unlimited
  • JSON API : 
  • Invoicing : 
  • Data export : 
  • SAML : 
  • Support :  Email, Forum, Phone (Germany)
  • Backups :  Manually
  • TLS Certificate : 
  • Custom domain : 
  • Automatic upgrades : 
  • Server maintenance : 
  • IP access restriction : 
  • Custom content : 
  • Audit trail logs : 
  • Custom fields : 
  • Expense management :  Partially
  • Task planning : 
  • Translations : 
  • Working hours, vacation, sickness, public holidays : 
Open source software
Available on-premises
Available in the cloud
Server location
Your choice
Hetzner Cloud
Germany (Falkenstein)
Max. customers
Unlimited
Unlimited
Unlimited
Max. projects
Unlimited
Unlimited
Unlimited
Max. activities
Unlimited
Unlimited
Unlimited
JSON API
Invoicing
Data export
SAML
Support
Forum (GitHub)
Email, Forum
Email, Forum, Phone (Germany)
Backups
Daily
Manually
TLS Certificate
Additional costs
Custom domain
Additional costs
Automatic upgrades
Server maintenance
IP access restriction
Custom content
Paid plugin
Audit trail logs
Paid plugin
Custom fields
Paid plugin
Expense management
Paid plugin
Partially
Task planning
Paid plugin
Translations
Paid plugin
Working hours, vacation, sickness, public holidays
Paid plugin

Please note that the above information were manually compiled on 2024-11-19 from the OpenProject website. For the comparison, the best matching plans were chosen. Prices are subject to change. For the most current pricing, please visit the respective websites.

Kimai is open source

Kimai is #1 open-source time-tracking software, providing unparalleled transparency and flexibility. By choosing Kimai, you’re investing in a secure, cost-efficient solution with complete control over your data and the ability to customize it exactly as your team needs.

Self-host with complete control

Kimai offers a self-hosted edition that puts data privacy to the front. With on-premises deployment, you maintain complete control over your sensitive business information, ensure compliance with stringent data protection regulations, and achieve a level of security that's often challenging with cloud-only solutions. Plus, Kimai's API allows seamless integration with your existing tools and workflows.

EU-based data protection

If you decide to go with the cloud edition, you can be sure that your data is safe. With the headquarters located in Austria (EU), it is GDPR-compliant by default and all data is stored in Germany (Hetzner Cloud, Falkenstein). Learn more about our privacy-first approach

Conclusion

In today's digital age, data security is paramount. Kimai promises secure data protection and state-of-the-art encryption, ensuring that your business's sensitive information remains confidential.

Kimai offers a well-rounded solution that caters to a variety of workflows and use-cases for most project-based teams and companies. Its ease of use, integration capabilities, and commitment to data security and privacy make it a top choice for businesses seeking an efficient time-tracking software.

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