Clockify vs. Toggl Track: Which is the Better Time Tracking App?

Looking for your next time tracking app?

At first glance, Clockify and Toggl Track seem similar, but once you get to know them, you’ll realize they’re built for completely different types of users. While Clockify is great for agencies, freelancers, and companies that want control over their employees’ time, Toggl Track is perfect for mid-sized and large teams with trust at the heart of their operations. 

But it’s not as simple as that, and we’re only just getting warmed up. Choosing a time tracking tool requires careful consideration because there’s a heck of a lot of nuance involved. Luckily, we’ve tried both tools to tell you once and for all which is better: Clockify or Toggl Track?

In this detailed comparison, you’ll learn how Clockify and Toggl Track compare in terms of pricing, user experience, analytics and reports, employee privacy, and integrations. By the end of this guide, you’ll know which is the right fit for you. 

Comparison summary: Clockify vs. Toggl

The story behind Toggl Track

Alari Aho and Krister Haav created Toggl in 2006 to accurately bill their software agency’s clients. 17 years later, Toggl’s purpose has evolved beyond timekeeping. We’ve added three more products to the roster (Toggl Plan, Toggl Hire, and Toggl Work) and renamed the initial app Toggl Track. 

Toggl Track is built on a simple idea: time tracking should inspire self-reflection. It also gives companies the data they need to streamline their operations and become more productive. The result? Better time management, increased profitability, and more free time. 

Today, Toggl Track’s playful and intuitive design ensures time tracking becomes second nature. Users enjoy learning how they spend their time — it’s like peeling back the layers of their day to find surprising insights and hidden patterns. 

And then there are Toggl Track’s Reports and Analytics. Expansive and insightful, these features offer a way to slice and dice your time data, visualize it in many ways, and uncover productivity hiccups. 

This becomes the foundation for constructive conversations, mentorship, and support, all based on Toggl’s core values: trust, transparent communication, and respect for privacy.

Toggl Track is the ideal time tracking tool for companies that want to foster a culture of growth, performance, and trust while empowering decision-makers with tools to spot inefficiencies using Insights and Analytics.

The story behind Clockify

Nenad Milanovic and Lazar Vujanic founded CAKE, a suite of productivity tools, in 2009. It wasn’t until 2016 that they started working on their flagship product — Clockify. They realized the industry needed a “simple and affordable” time tracking app and that “more people should have access to useful yet free apps.”

Today, Clockify is a timekeeping, reporting, and project management platform that helps professionals and agencies quickly start their time tracking journey. Its project management tools are handy for those who primarily work on short and straightforward projects instead of long and complex ones. 

Meanwhile, its lightweight reports are designed to gauge billable hours, automatically calculate wages for a set period, and auto-generate client invoices with just one click. 

Now for something controversial — or not, depending on how you roll. Clockify’s surveillance features include a GPS Tracker, Automated Screenshots, and Force Timers that can’t be stopped or manually edited.

This feature set makes Clockify the perfect time tracking tool for companies that expect industrial efficiency from their workforce. But it also fosters distrust between employers and employees. In fact, 63% of people feel so strongly about the use of tracking software that they would consider it a reason to leave the company. 

Clockify vs. Toggl: User experience

Toggl Track’s toolset is easier to use, more customizable, and more functional than Clockify’s.

Toggl Track’s Manual Time Tracker is easier to use

On Toggl Track’s Desktop App, you can set up the Autotracker, which automatically starts timers based on the time of day or active windows. 

Also, the desktop app automatically logs time if you forget to start a timer (2). It lets you set reminders when you forget to start or stop timers. And finally, it also has an integrated Pomodoro Timer. Clockify doesn’t offer these key features.

Clockify only has a list view for visualizing time entries. Toggl Track lets you switch between the List View and a daily or weekly Timeline View.

Toggl Track allows you to start and stop the timer for each project, so no one wastes time switching to the Timers tab when working on tasks. Clockify forces you to switch to the Timer Menu before starting or stopping the task timer. 

Clockify only allows project-based time tracking

With Clockify, you must select an existing project or create a new one before saving a time entry. This means you can’t use it as a stopwatch for everyday tasks. If you do, your workspace will become littered with placeholder projects.

In comparison, Toggl Track saves time entries even if they aren’t associated with a project. And, if you need to associate an entry with a project someday later, you can. As a result, everyone from project teams, account teams, and HR teams can use Toggl Track as a time tracker. 

Toggl offers a better team management workflow

Clockify lets you invite new members to your projects using their email addresses and assign them to groups. You can also set different billable rates for each person on the project.

The Dashboard shows all team activities, helping you identify what each member is working on and for how long. It also provides filters to sort through the information to find specific metrics.

The Calendar and Scheduling features visualize team activity, showing which members are available or overbooked. This lets you re-distribute workload as needed.

Toggl Track offers similar Team Management features to Clockify. But unlike Clockify, Toggl Track lets you create multiple organizations under the same account, invite members to them, and set their permissions. This is useful if you manage multiple teams or departments with multiple managers.

It also lets you manage access for individual projects with six different user roles. 

With Toggl Track, you can disable members without removing them entirely. In contrast, with Clockify, you can only delete members. which feels a bit drastic. And if someone returns to the team or comes back from leave, you’ll need to send another invitation if you want to tag them back in. 

Toggl Track lets you set Reminders that notify employees when they forget to track their work or when they track less than a preset duration.

It also reminds users to turn off the Timer if it’s been active for too long. The Reminder feature is handy for managers who don’t want to keep reminding their team to track time.

Toggl Track lets you set the required fields for a time entry, which improves the quality of your time data and helps with accurate time billing.

You can also lock existing time entries and prevent new entries until a set date. Clockify offers a similar feature that makes the Project Field mandatory.

Toggl Track’s UI is more intuitive

Toggl Track’s UI has vibrant colors, intuitive controls, animations, and dynamic transitions — it feels warm, cozy, and inviting. 

In contrast, Clockify’s UI elements feel a bit corporate-like and dated. As a result, its blue-toned interface may feel cold and distant. 

Toggl has another nifty feature: keyboard shortcut tooltips as you hover over elements, which let you quickly streamline time logging. With Clockify, you have to Google the keyboard shortcuts.

Some users mention that the user interface can feel busy. Varun R., a full-stack developer, says, “The interface, while functional, can feel a bit cluttered when you’re juggling multiple projects or tasks. It sometimes takes some more time than expected for clicks to get to what you need.”

Toggl Track has another nifty feature: keyboard shortcut tooltips, which let you quickly streamline time logging as you hover over elements. With Clockify, you have to google the keyboard shortcuts.

Clockify vs. Toggl: Analytics and Reports

Clockify and Toggl Track provide daily, weekly, and lifetime Reports

When it comes to reports, Clockify and Toggl Track match each other in terms of functionality. Both provide reports about projects, tasks, and time entries. They also support a “Summary” report that shows the organization’s total tracked time that can be filtered by:

• Task
• Team
• Client
• Project
• Entry tags
• Billable time
• Description

This lets managers get a quick overview of employees’ work patterns, the total time tracked, and the estimated revenue for any set period.

Note that users like Erica L., a marketing consultant, would prefer Clockify to offer better reporting functionality. She said, “I think there are some restrictions on how flexible the reports that are created can be. More possibilities to filter and personalize the reports to my own requirements would be nice.”

Both platforms offer the “Detailed” report, which shows each team member’s time entries and allows you to edit them. Meanwhile, the “Weekly” report delivers a summary for each selected week.

Both platforms let you export reports as PDF, Excel, and CSV, but Toggl Track enables you to schedule periodic reports to be delivered to your email. This way, you or your stakeholders can stay updated on your projects without constantly logging into the platform.

Toggl Track has a dedicated data and profitability Insights dashboard

Clockify provides an analytics dashboard showing the total billable hours the project tracks. It uses pie charts and bar graphs that show the time distribution across projects and working days.

Toggl Track’s Insights dashboard provides a lot more helpful information. For example, the “Data trends” dashboard shows the total and daily average of work hours spent on each project:

This way, managers can compare the time allocation between multiple projects so they know where to add more resources or make trade-offs.

Toggl Track helps you assess the profitability of all your projects by plotting a timeline of your earnings and labor costs based on the team’s billable hours. It also shows the profit/loss margins for each project and client in your workspace:

But that’s not all. The Insights dashboard also tells you how much each employee costs and how much revenue they generate for your business, which lets you easily spot unprofitable projects or under-utilized employees:

Finally, Toggl Track lets you compare the hours logged between any two weeks. It draws a head-to-head graph that shows the hours for each day of the week.

This feature helps managers assess productivity over a given duration. It also shows which days of the week have the highest and lowest productivity across the organization, individual projects, or individual employees.

Toggl Track’s new Analytics feature lets you create customizable charts and dashboards

Toggl Track’s new Analytics feature provides a flexible and customizable method of visualizing time-tracking data. Besides billing clients and processing payroll, it also helps managers to:

• Improve project profitability and efficiency,
• Manage resource demand better,
• Boost your team’s efficiency.

That’s because, unlike Clockify, which has ready-made, rigid, and non-interactive reports, Toggl Track lets you customize charts and Analytics dashboards. This flexibility allows managers to analyze and visualize the data they need using charts they can easily understand.

Charts are your dashboards’ building blocks — you can add different types within a single view. Analytics helps you visualize time tracking data using:

• Tables
• Bar charts
• Donut charts
• Line graphs
• Pivot tables

Toggl Track also lets you build custom dashboards and choose the charts you want to display.

You can reorder the positions of the charts or resize or remove them at any time. Dashboards also have a built-in “Totals” widget summarizing all tracked time data.

Clockify vs. Toggl Track: Employee Privacy

Clockify offers GPS-based location tracking

With the Pro plan, Clockify tracks an employee’s location whenever the timer is started or stopped on the app. This time tracking solution also registers any significant location change while the timer is running, which is great for teams that want to set up a time kiosk.

Note: Clockify requires employee permission before it can track their location. This permission is typically granted once, immediately after the app installation. To disable location tracking, users must explicitly deny permission in their device settings. 

Employees can view and delete their location data, but not for other employees. Admins can delete all employee location data.

Clockify records screenshots of employees’ devices

Alongside Location Tracking, Clockify also offers screenshotting in the Pro plan. It takes screenshots when the timer is running and notifies all users when screenshotting is enabled.

To protect user privacy, screenshots are low resolution and blurred by default. Admins and employers can view them in full resolution.  

Not only does Clockify record the screen, but it also logs which apps and websites users visit while using the app. And if there are no keystrokes or mouse movements for a set duration, it’ll detect and log this inactivity, too. 

Toggl Track doesn’t offer location-tracking or screen monitoring

Toggl Track doesn’t offer any type of employee surveillance – zero location monitoring, screen or keystroke logging, or employee webcams. We don’t (and never will) tolerate snooping — there are soooo many more empowering ways to boost worker productivity and company profitability. 

Employee surveillance might generate a lot of data, but it also generates a lot of noise, which dilutes the data’s value. The bottom line: people will find ways around anything they don’t like doing.

Toggl Track is built on trust and a sense of ownership over work. This way, employees don’t feel like managers are breathing down their neck. After all, employee performance is evaluated by work output, not input.

Clockify vs Toggl: Integrations

Toggl Track provides integrations with 100+ apps and services

Toggl Track designs, builds, and maintains integrations with:

• Calendars
• Email services
• Accounting apps
• Project management tools
• Customer support services
• Web development tools

You can also use the Browser Extension or track time inside third-party apps. For example, enabling specific permissions embeds a timer in the interface for these apps. And, in case you also need project management, it integrates with Toggl Plan, which is built for precisely that purpose.

Where it doesn’t provide native integrations for your third-party app, you can use Zapier, Integrately, and other automation services to create workflows with over 3,000 apps. 

In addition, the Toggl Track API lets you build your own integrations with just a few lines of code and supports multiple programming languages, including:

• Python
• JavaScript
• Ruby
• Rust

Clockify lets you add custom functionality to the app

Clockify integrates with 29 productivity and project management apps, such as:

• Asana
• Trello
• Jira
• QuickBooks
• Outlook
• and ClickUp

It’s also available as a Chrome, Firefox, and Edge browser extension.

Besides native integrations, Clockify lets you add custom functionality to the app using its open-source API. These add-ons enable you to connect your own tools and display data in unique ways. 

You can also customize their UI and choose where they appear on the interface. But note that some users have issues with accurate time tracking when using integrations such as Jira.

Clockify vs Toggl: Pricing

Both tools offer free plans, but Toggl Track limits the number of users

Clockify provides a free lifetime plan with basic time tracking and project management functionalities. With this plan, you can track unlimited projects and invite unlimited members to your team.

Toggl Track also offers a free plan for up to five team members, including Tracking, Projects, and Clients, making it an excellent plan for individuals and freelancers. This plan unlocks all integrations and is available on all major platforms. 

Clockify’s subscription plans are cheaper than Toggl Track’s plans

Clockify’s paid plans start with the Basic plan, which lets you submit time entries for other users, bulk edit metrics, edit user profiles, set required fields, and more. It also provides templates for creating new projects. Freelancers who need team management tools and the time tracker will find the most value in this plan.

The Standard plan unlocks timesheeting and billing. The attendance and overtime, invoicing, time off, and task reminders make it an excellent fit for small teams. Meanwhile, if you want access to surveillance tools, you’ll have to choose the Pro plan that unlocks:

• GPS tracking
• Screenshots,
• Labor cost and profits
• Assignment reports
• Custom user fields
• Project forecasting

The Enterprise plan lets you control team members’ accounts, audit time logs, and create a custom subdomain.

Toggl’s plans are more expensive, but they provide more value

Toggl Track’s pricing plans start with the Starter plan, designed for small teams needing a hassle-free solution to work quickly. It lets you create tasks for your projects, favorite time entries, and billable rates. You also get pre-populated project templates and project time estimates.

The Premium plan provides powerful tools for managers to keep their teams agile and synchronized. In addition to the Starter tools, it lets you create fixed fee projects, audit time logs, schedule reports via email, send time tracking reminders, and more.

Toggl Track’s Enterprise plan lets you create tailored solutions for your large or complex organization. It allows you to create multiple workspaces in your organization. You also get priority support and expert team assistance.

Clockify vs Toggl: Pros and Cons

Final Verdict: Clockify vs. Toggl Track 

Toggl Track is best for teams, while Clockify is best for freelancers or managers who want to monitor their teams’ work.

Toggl Track’s tools are more refined, easier to use, and more mature than Clockify’s. The platform appeals to managers looking to get their employees to use time tracking software. That’s because it doesn’t offer employee surveillance and provides a powerful toolset, which makes it the best option for creative teams.

Clockify appeals to a specific audience: freelancers who need an affordable time tracker with some project management features or micromanaging employers committed to using creepy surveillance tools.

So, use Clockify if:

• You’re a freelancer who needs an affordable time tracking tool
• You’re an employer who wants to monitor employee location and screen activities
• You want an all-in-one time tracking and project management platform

Use Toggl Track if:

• You need powerful analytics to help you improve team productivity
• You value privacy and a trust-based work culture
• You need a hassle-free automatic time tracker

Click here to get started with Toggl Track!