Time Doctor Alternative Guide: Finding Your Best Software Solution

Are you looking to switch to a Time Doctor alternative?

As a specialized time tracking and productivity software, Time Doctor has a lot to offer. But if you’re looking for a more comprehensive tool, or simply a different billable hours tracker, keep reading to learn all about the best currently available options.

Time Doctor is an employee time management and productivity monitoring software. Some of its main features include an integrated timer, offline time tracking, alerts for idleness, screen capturing, and productivity-based insights.

Time Doctor has overall positive reviews, with a 4.4-star rating on G2 and a 4.6-star rating on Capterra. Despite this, users note some significant downsides, such as:

Regarding the benefits, project managers generally feel that the tool has helped them manage their employee’s time and efficiency. Other positive reviews mentioned that they enjoy the variety of available integrations.

Here’s our list of some of the best currently available Time Doctor alternatives, with key features, benefits, and downsides based on user reviews.

Productive is an all-in-one agency management software for agencies of all shapes and sizes.

Like Time Doctor, Productive offers time management functionalities, but it integrates this with more robust capabilities for operational support.

This includes a sales pipeline, project budgeting and billing, resource planning, financial forecasting, and more.

As a comprehensive tool, Productive can standardize your processes and support uniform data for easier project comparisons.

It also contributes to smaller IT overhead by replacing multiple solutions with a single platform.

Now, let’s explore some of Productive’s key benefits as a Time Doctor alternative.

Productive’s Time Tracking offers various methods of managing your time entries: this includes the standard timer, manual entry, as well as automatic creation through resource bookings. The final method can be suitable for agencies that need to keep track of billable and non-billable hours but also want to streamline repetitive tasks.

A user on Capterra has noted a particular downside of Time Doctor:

Productive resolves this with a desktop widget that you can use to stop and restart your timer easily. Some features for project managers include simple time approvals and timesheet locking after a specified period of time. 

Learn more about the best time tracking practices for agencies:

 Productive helps you manage your employees’ activities with streamlined project management capabilities. This includes:

Additionally, Productive’s Project Management feature also provides detailed insights into productivity. For example, you can compare time estimates with actual time in order to see how efficient your employees are. With Productive’s light-weight CRM, you can also analyze your sales team performance with insights into each representative, reasons for lost deals, and more. 

Productive’s Resource Planning takes employee and project insights to another level. By managing your team’s billable and non-billable hours, you can get utilization rate reports that show you which of your employees are being overloaded or underutilized. Productive also enables utilization forecasting, so you can support your business strategy by viewing which of your services are in high demand.

A core feature is the responsive resource plan, which makes viewing your agency capacity and allocating team members simple. To give you the full picture of your resources, Productive includes time off management — employees can request leave, and their status is depicted in your scheduling. You can also view overall absences with Productive’s time off reports.

Productive’s Budgeting feature combines three main capabilities in one:

Productive’s Reporting uses data across all platform activities, including resourcing, budgeting, sales, time tracking, and more, in order to deliver real-time reports. Use custom fields to add specific parameters, turn reports into visualizations, organize them into a single dashboard, or have them scheduled to be sent to email. 

Additional features: Sales, Docs, Automations.

Integrations include: Xero, QuickBooks, HubSpot, Breathe, Zapier, Slack, Jira, and more.

Productive offers a 14-day free trial, so you can decide if it’s the right Time Doctor alternative for your agency.

Hubstaff helps remote and external teams track time and manage their productivity. The tool supports a variety of industries, including manufacturing, health care, real estate, and professional services agencies.

Key features:

Although users generally leave positive reviews for Hubstaff, there are some notable employee complaints. This includes the screenshots being too frequent and the productivity tracking requiring an unrealistic amount of activity.

As a Time Doctor alternative, Hubstaff can be a suitable option for agencies that are looking for more customizations when it comes to comprehensiveness, as it offers more pricing tiers. However, as its main features are team and time management, it can’t provide a holistic view of agency operations like all-in-one PSA software.

TimeCamp is a time tracker and productivity-based software for agencies with remote teams. The tool also provides project progress management with reporting and employee attendance features.

Key features:

TimeCamp can be a suitable alternative for smaller agencies and startups, as it offers a free plan for unlimited users and projects. Users frequently comment that they find TimeCamp easy to use, as it “is really made specifically for time tracking” (Source: Capterra). The tool also offers some basic budgeting features, but for more robust financial oversight, consider a more comprehensive alternative.

TimeCamp is also a Harvest time tracking alternative, so you can head over to that article to learn more.

DeskTime is a time tracker with additional features for a robust workforce planning strategy that supports teams in delivering high-performance results.

Key features:

DeskTime has all of the essential features for simplified management of time entries. Some users have noted that certain capabilities are a bit unintuitive and rigid in their implementation. Another review mentioned that it would be good if DeskTime had basic task management functionalities to better integrate their workflows. Keep this in mind when considering it as your ideal alternative.

You can also check out our guide to the best agency management system for more comprehensive solutions.

Clockify is a time tracker and team management software that helps companies across all industries simplify their workflow and improve productivity.

Key features:

Users frequently comment that Clockify is an easy-to-use software for smaller and growing agencies. When it comes to the downsides, multiple reviews have mentioned issues with Clockify’s reporting, especially when it comes to interpreting the data. Other than this, it can be a good Time Doctor alternative for users looking for similar features from a different vendor.

Toggl Track is a time tracking tool for remote employees and internal teams that is frequently praised for its user-friendly interface.

Key features:

Toggl Track is a streamlined tool that can be a good fit for agencies that are looking to manage their employees’ daily activities without surveillance features. Toggl also offers project planning and hiring tools, making it an interesting solution for those who want to scale their IT support without working with multiple vendors. However, you might also want to consider software that integrates these features into one platform — for example, an end-to-end project management tool like Productive.

QuickBooks is a project accounting tool for bookkeepers and small businesses. It offers features that help agencies support their cash flow management and invoicing.

Key features:

QuickBooks can be a good Time Doctor alternative for users who are mainly looking for financial management features. However, remember that the employee time tracking module, QuickBooks Time, is a separate solution that can be synced with QuickBooks Online and is included in certain plans. For a simpler alternative, consider an integrated software solution (we also have a QuickBooks vs Netsuite comparison you can check out).

ActivTrak is a workforce analytics tool that provides insights into employee behavior, productivity goals, and user activities.

Key features:

ActivTrak can be a suitable Time Doctor alternative for agencies that want to increase their levels of employee monitoring, as it has robust activity-tracking features. However, some users reported issues with customer service and software performance. Other tools might offer a better balance of project management, time tracking, and team collaboration, but ActivTrak can be a good specialized option.

TMetric is a time tracking and productivity app for businesses of various sizes, with a wide range of features such as billable hours tracking and budgeting.

Key features:

TMetric is a versatile solution with various features for project management, and it can be a good choice for users who want to expand the capabilities offered by their software. However, while more comprehensive than more focused time tracking tools, TMetric still lacks some advanced features offered by all-in-one software.

ManicTime is a time and activity tracking software for business owners who are looking for detailed reports on employee productivity.

Key features:

Since ManicTime offers both on-premise installation and a subscription service, it can be a good choice for agencies that are handling sensitive data. However, consider that on-premise installations are usually lengthier and require more technical knowledge. Additionally, some reviews reported that the user interface is somewhat outdated compared to similar tools.

In this article, we’ve reviewed various popular tools for time tracking and productivity management. Each software solution can be a good choice to support your operations, depending on your specific needs and team composition.

However, for agencies that are looking to grow their operations and support each facet of their daily workflows, an all-in-one solution is usually the best choice. Even if you might not require robust features currently, investing in the right tool now can save you a lot of time and effort down the line.

If you’re interested in software that provides deeper insights and robust agency management, consider booking a demo with Productive.

A good alternative to Time Doctor is Productive, an all-in-one tool for agency management. Productive combines time tracking and productivity management with a wide range of features, including project accounting and resource planning. For a more specialized solution with employee surveillance and screenshotting features, you can consider tools like Hubstaff and Desktime.

Like Productive, Time Doctor offers a 14-day free trial, but doesn’t have a full free-to-use version. Certain time tracking tools such as Clockify offer a free version of their software, though with basic features or a limited number of users. 

RescueTime and Time Doctor share some core features, such as employee productivity management and automatic tracking. However, Time Doctor has more transparent pricing options, which can significantly simplify your decision-making process. Neither of the two tools offers the extensive project management and reporting capabilities of all-in-one software like Productive.

Time Doctor is a legitimate tool for time tracking and employee management. The tool has numerous reviews on reputable sites such as Capterra and G2 that show how users experience it.

Time Doctor can take screenshots of users’ screens at set intervals, which is part of its functionality for monitoring work activity levels. The feature can be configured for frequency as well as specific permissions rules.

The screenshotting and video recording features in Time Doctor are optional. They can also be configured for frequency and permissions.

Time Doctor can track users with keyboard and mouse activity, as well as screenshotting and screen recording features.

Yes, Time Doctor has a mobile app. However, users have reported issues with time not syncing between the desktop, mobile, and web browser versions of the tool, so keep this in mind when considering it as your ideal tracker.

Time Doctor can be used by various service providers such as development companies, consultancies, marketing agencies, and more. It’s a suitable option for agencies of all sizes, though some users do report that the pricing could be lower considering the features that are offered, especially for smaller companies.

According to Time Doctor’s website, the tool requires an internet connection to sync data to its servers. However, if the internet connection goes down, time is tracked and stored in the local cache and then synced once the connection is re-established.

The benefits of Time Doctor include enhanced productivity through time tracking, employee monitoring capabilities like screenshot and activity tracking, and data analytics for managing team performance.

Time Doctor’s monitoring capabilities include screen capture, keystroke, and mouse movement monitoring.