Is TimeTrex free for hourly teams?
The Community (open source) edition is free, but a company must host and maintain it. The commercial editions come with vendor packaging and are priced by quote.
Best Open Source Employee Monitoring Software for Hourly Teams
Open source time clocks and attendance tools for hourly staff, compared on mobile punches, geofencing, scheduling, payroll links and the real cost of running free software yourself.
What this audience should prioritize
For hourly workers, monitoring mostly means accurate punches: when a shift started, where the worker was and how overtime adds up. That is time and attendance rather than screen tracking. Open source options can cut license costs, but a broken time clock on payday costs more than a subscription.
TimeTrex is the most complete of the group for shift work. Its product includes iOS and Android apps, geofencing aimed at time fraud, facial recognition time clocks, scheduling with shift swaps and integrated payroll. A free Community edition exists, paid editions are quote-based, and a 30-day trial is available. Self-hosting the free version still needs technical staff.
Two names that come up in this search are not open source: Open Time Clock is a proprietary hosted time clock with a free plan, and eHour has replaced its open-source edition with a hosted service at €4.99 per user per month. Kimai records timesheets and generates invoices in PDF or DOCX, which suits hourly contractors billing by the hour more than a shop-floor clock. OrangeHRM covers attendance within a wider HR system for SMB and mid-market employers.
Shortlist candidates for Hourly Teams
Published price means the vendor shows a figure; quote only means it does not. The best-fit and tradeoff lines are each tool's own.
Showing 5 of 5
| Tool | Published price | Best for | Main tradeoff |
|---|---|---|---|
| ActivityWatch | Free | ActivityWatch suits individuals, freelancers and developers on Windows, macOS, Linux or Android who want automatic records of their own computer use, and teams that let each member track privately for self-review or to fill in timesheets elsewhere. | No team or manager view |
| Kimai | Free | Kimai suits agencies, consultancies, software shops and NGOs of roughly 5 to 200 people that bill or report hours by customer and project and want to own their time data. | Kimai HR features cost extra |
| TimeTrex | Free | TimeTrex is best for operations and people teams at SMB and mid-market companies that want structured time tracking, attendance, and workforce visibility while keeping control of where their data lives. | TimeTrex commercial pricing requires validation before you can plan budget |
| OrangeHRM | Free | OrangeHRM suits HR managers at small and mid-size companies, including healthcare, manufacturing and education employers, who want a full HRMS with employee records, leave, time and recruiting under their own control rather than inside a closed cloud product. | OrangeHRM Advanced has no published price |
| Sentrifugo | Free | Sentrifugo is best for small and mid-sized teams that want a free, self-hosted way to track time, activity, attendance, and workforce visibility while keeping people data inside infrastructure they control. | Sentrifugo has no paid or supported plan |
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