Freelancing and online work has seen a surge in the past few years. Especially in the times of Covid-19, we see that the demand for freelancers has witnessed drastic growth. Businesses that could not imagine remote workers are today functioning and growing without any physical office or employees. With remote workers, one thing that becomes most important is tracking employees’ working hours. Many firms hire remote workers over hourly wages, thereby making the need of tracking employees’ activity hours all too necessary to run the business smoothly. Similarly, firms pay their employees based on the hours they have entered in their timesheets. To see whether the entered hours are actually correct, time tracking software comes to the aid. The time tracking software help assesses employers that on what particular task have their employees spent most of their time on which helps ease the process of billing and calculating employees’ salaries. Therefore, in this article, we provide and discuss the list of the top five best time tracking software for the Linux platform. Linux users are though less in number than the other platforms, still holds a significant market, and most of the servers, mainframe computers, and supercomputers are based on Linux. Hence the list here mainly discusses the time tracking software that is best for Linux users.
Project Hamster
Project Hamster is one of the most popular Linux-based time tracking tools. With Project Hamster, a user is able to track time expenses in Hamster by simply changing activity in the program while switching between different tasks. The Gnome-supported time tracking software has an active community of more than 100 contributors that are always adding to the functionalities of the tool. The tool offers a most simple and intuitive layout with the ability to track all the data into an HTML report along with providing features for easier sorting, editing, etc. The platform offers many features such as calculating and tracking tasks, providing statistics reports of time spent on different tasks, etc. The tool also offers ways to simplify search by allowing users to categorize and tag the historical data and time tracking results. These tags are then shown in the statistics and reports and also user can identify and seamlessly keep track of tasks on which most of the time is spent. This makes the overall tracking process very easy and simple.
Get it now from https://projecthamster.wordpress.com/building-and-running/
actiTime
Another intuitive and Linux-based time tracking tool, actiTime offers a work management system that can be deployed locally in any company’s server or as a web application hosted on the cloud. The tool is also compatible with Windows and offers a seamless user experience on both Linux and Windows. The tool is most suited for individuals working as freelancers, or for different teams. The optimal time tracking tool offers different features such as tracking time spent on different tasks, managing different user accounts, compiling and sorting reports, efficient client and employee billing mechanism, email reminders of important events and notification, absent users tracking, allowing users to start a timer in a mobile app without using Excel and other paper timesheets, etc. The tool is considered most efficient for managing, tracking, and streamlining different human resource and accounting operations or processes.
Start a free trial now from https://www.actitime.com/free-online-trial
TimeCamp
TimeCamp is a cross-platform compatible time tracking application that was launched by Kamil Rudnicki in 2009. Kamil Rudnicki is the founder of Time Solutions and laid the foundation of the efficient time tracking tool that is aimed at both freelancers and teams both. The time tracking software helps invoice the employees or clients based on the time (specifically hours) they have spent on a task and then calculates their bills according to their set hourly rate. The tool helps enhance and improve both system effectiveness and project management. The tool comes equipped with multiple features such as manual timesheets, productivity analysis, detailed history about employee’s day, professional appearance invoices, integrated payment gateway, automatic computer usage tracking, GPS tracking, tracking holidays, days off, automatic invoicing based on hours, allowing employers to view a list and a report on the most time-consuming applications, software or websites that employees spent their time on, tracking billable and non-billable time, etc.
Get registered now from https://app.timecamp.com/auth/register
Hubstaff
Hubstaff time tracking tool offers time tracking solutions for all the platforms, i.e., Windows, macOS, and Linux. The tool is considered a workforce management system that is capable to provide time tracking, proof of work, and payroll management. Hubstaff also offers a unique feature for a time tracking tool that enables users to hire remote workers and freelancers via accessing the Hubstaff feature called “remote talent finder”. Similarly, Hubstaff also offers project management software that enables streamlining different project management tasks. Hubstaff time tracking tool offers many features such as allowing employers to track time spent on using different applications for Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, and iOS, provide detailed reports indicating rises and drops in the amount of time spent by every user, taking screenshots of user’s desktop and sharing with the employer to make sure that user is working and not wasting time, and much other time tracking features.
Get a free trial now from https://hubstaff.com/signup
Kimai
Kimai is a web-based time tracking software that offers seamless time tracking for most platforms including Linux. The software can track and classify time spent on a specific task or activity. Kimai allows users to enter and track their daily hours in the timesheets along with the ability to take a printout from daily ones to yearly, sorted by customer, task, project, and action. It can run cross-platform and cross-network thanks to the web browser-based interface, the tool can be installed as a web service and use in any place with a network connection. Kimai offers different functions for multiple users – a customer, a worker, and an admin. Besides, everyone has an access to customizable invoices and extensions that add additional functionalities. For a free open-source time tracker, Kimai is actually quite advanced and definitely worth recommending.
Closing Remarks
The article summarizes the top and best functioning time tracking tools capable of tracking, managing, and providing insights such as reporting, on different tasks the users or employees have spent their time on. Project Hamster, actiTime, TimeCamp, Hubstaff, and Kimai, all are the most acclaimed time tracking software by many reviewers and Linux users across the globe. Each of the discussed tools offers seamless time tracking and reporting functionalities that enable companies or freelancers to manage their time, budgets, and accounting processes and operations. The discussed tools are most recommended and proven best for improving the efficiency of employees, employers, and freelancers along with ensuring sustainability and productivity of the projects or tasks overall.
Karim Buzdar holds a degree in telecommunication engineering and holds several sysadmin certifications including CCNA RS, SCP, and ACE. As an IT engineer and technical author, he writes for various websites.
