WakaTime vs Hackatime
Want to track your coding time without paying $9 a month? Hackatime is a free, open source tracker built by Hack Club. It uses the same editor plugins as WakaTime, so switching is mostly a config change.
Why look for a WakaTime alternative?
WakaTime invented this category and the product is genuinely good. We like it enough that we use their editor extensions. The catch is the free tier: you get basic stats, but project breakdowns and history past two weeks live behind a $9/month plan (or $14/month if you want more than two weeks of dashboard history). If you're a student or just tracking personal projects, paying every month for what's basically a nice graph gets old.
Hackatime is free. Not free trial, not free tier - just free. We're not planning to add a paid version later either.
So, how does Hackatime stack up?
| Feature | Hackatime | WakaTime Free | WakaTime Pro |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | Free forever | Free | $9/month |
| Open Source | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Editor Support | 70+ editors | 70+ editors | 70+ editors |
| Data Retention | Unlimited | 14 days | Unlimited |
| Project Stats | Full access | Limited | Full access |
| Language Breakdown | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Leaderboards | ✓ (Community) | ✓ (Community) | ✓ |
| Self-Hosting | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Team Features | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
| API Access | ✓ Full | Limited | ✓ Full |
What you give up
A few things WakaTime does that we don't:
No team dashboards
WakaTime Pro has team analytics. We don't. If you need to see what your coworkers are shipping, stick with WakaTime.
Built for Hack Club
Anyone can sign up, but the leaderboards and culture skew toward the Hack Club community. That's a feature for some people and a downside for others.
Younger project
WakaTime has been around since 2013. Hackatime launched in 2024. The plugin ecosystem is the same, but we're still adding things.
Reasons you might prefer Hackatime
Especially if you're a student, an open source contributor, or just not thrilled about another monthly subscription:
- Free, forever. No paid tier hiding behind a feature gate.
- Works with every WakaTime plugin. You just point it at a different URL.
- Open source, so you can read the code, send a PR, or run your own copy.
- We only track metadata (file names, languages, time). Never your code.
- Leaderboards if you want to see how you stack up against other people.
Getting started
Switching takes a couple of minutes. Same plugins, different server -
edit your ~/.wakatime.cfg file:
[settings]
api_url = https://hackatime.hackclub.com/api/hackatime/v1
api_key = YOUR_API_KEY_HEREOr sign in and let our setup page do it for you.
Give it a try!
Install the plugin and see your hours.
Start tracking for freeSetup takes about 2 minutes.