DeskTime vs. Timely: compare the alternatives

Using a time tracking tool can improve your work performance significantly. But tracking your work time via an app that measures your productivity and efficiency levels can be a real game-changer. If you wish to receive analysis of your work performance, DeskTime is a great alternative to Timely.

In addition to tracking work hours, DeskTime measures how productively and effectively you've spent them. The time tracking software allows account owners and admins to set the status of the apps and URLs used, classifying them as productive, unproductive, or neutral. Then, together with tracking work time, DeskTime creates a daily, weekly, and monthly overview of your productivity and efficiency.

The productivity and efficiency measurements provide an excellent opportunity to explore your own working patterns. You can examine your monthly productivity and see what time of the day you're most efficient, when you experience productivity “slumps,” and much more. This knowledge can significantly increase your work quality, as you can arrange the workday in a way that suits your productivity and energy levels the best.

With Timely, you can create tag lists, such as “core work” and “distractions.” Then you can add the tags for tasks to classify them accordingly. When you receive a work time report from Timely, you see how much time has been spent on meaningful work and what amount of time has been wasted on distractions. However, it doesn't allow you to explore your work patterns as deeply as DeskTime does.

Both DeskTime and Timely track your work time automatically. These two solutions will be a good fit for those who don't see themselves operating a bunch of timers during the workday.

With the DeskTime app, time tracking is convenient and easy. The tool works together with you – no need to manually clock in/out during your work day. DeskTime's time tracking tool is built to automate all of the processes that can be automated – from time tracking to productivity analysis.

Timely will also be a good alternative – it tracks your work hours and tasks without unnecessary interruption. This time tracking tool uses AI to capture everything you've been working on during the day and then turns it into accurate timesheets. The longer you use Timely, the better the AI can learn your work patterns and start drafting time entries. Similarly to DeskTime, you can configure Timely's settings to have it switch on automatically when you log into your computer.

Choosing a time tracking tool that runs automatically eases your work quite a lot. A detail worth mentioning is that with Timely, you'll have to review and approve time entries drafted by the AI so that it can learn from your patterns in the long run. DeskTime, however, tracks your work hours automatically and doesn't require manual input.

Even though both time tracking apps support third-party integrations, Timely outnumbers DeskTime in the variety of possibilities. While DeskTime has the primary needs of integrations, such as Trello, Asana, Basecamp, and others, taken care of, Timely will be a better alternative because it can be integrated with 100 different tools.

Timely's integrations cover six categories: project management, communication, organization, design, development, and accounting. For teams that work with a large scope of different tools, this may be extremely handy. Glancing into Timely's integrations with project management apps, the list shows a substantial variety of nearly 30 options.

DeskTime also integrates with various project management tools, such as Asana, Jira, Zapier, Trello, Basecamp, Google Calendar, GitLab, and more. Even though they may not be that niche-oriented, if you're in need of common project management app integrations, DeskTime will suit your needs quite well. But in other cases, consider Timely to fulfill the variety of your integration needs.

Providing accurate project cost calculations for your customers can sometimes be tricky. It's not easy to estimate the amount of billable time for a project without having legitimate data to back up the calculations. Luckily, DeskTime's Project feature and Timely's tools can provide the needed support.

Besides tracking ongoing billable hours, DeskTime also allows you to estimate the costs of a new project beforehand. You can create a project, assign it to your team members, and see the potential costs according to the employees' hourly rates. Plus, no need to worry about writing manual reports after a project is finished – DeskTime does it for you.

Timely also has a project feature; it also lets you assign hourly rates that can be project-specific. You can see how much time everyone has contributed to the project, its expenses, and how they compare to the allocated budget.

Additionally, DeskTime offers an Invoicing feature, which is especially useful for small and medium-sized businesses where the manager has to deal with many tasks at once. Creating invoices manually takes a lot of time and energy, plus it adds the risk of underbilling clients. With DeskTime, you can generate invoices using the tracked data and send them to the clients straight from the app. Timely, on the other hand, offers an integration with the QuickBooks Online tool that lets you manage your invoices more efficiently. However, you won't be able to export or print the invoices in the Timely app without an integration with another tool.

Both time tracking apps are very convenient for tracking your team's work. Timely offers a handy overview of the team's attendance and performance in an easy-to-use dashboard. With Timely, you can also monitor employee performance against key metrics and see how exactly the work time is spent using the tool's tagging system.

DeskTime adds more to the table with features like the Absence Calendar, Shift Scheduling, and Private and Offline Time options. They make team management a lot easier by providing all the necessary data in one place – be it your team members' planned vacations, preferred shifts, or sick leaves.

In case you're still in the middle of choosing a time tracking tool that suits your team's needs the best, pick Timely if you're fine with using other tools for scheduling work hours or employees' absence, and go for DeskTime if you'd rather have it all in one tool.