activitywatch: Log what you do on your computer
ActivityWatch
The goal of ActivityWatch is simple: Enable the collection of as many valuable lifedata as possible without compromising user privacy.
What ActivityWatch is
- A set of watchers that record relevant information about what you do and what happens on your computer (such as if you are AFK or not, or which window is currently active).
- A way of storing data collected by the watchers.
- A dataformat accomodating most logging needs due to its flexibility.
- An ecosystem of tools to help users extend the software to fit their needs.
Reason for existence
There are plenty of companies offering services which do collection of Quantified Self data with goals ranging from increasing personal producivity to understanding the people that managers manage (organizational productivity). However, all known services suffer from a significant disadvantage, the users data is in the hands of the service providers which leads to the problem of trust. Every customer of these companies have their data in hands they are forced to trust if they want to use their service.
This is a significant problem, but the true reason that we decided to do something about it was that existing solutions were inadequate. They focused on short-term insight, a goal worthy in itself, but we also want long-term understanding. We made it completely free and open source so anyone can use, improve and extend it.
Feature comparison
Basics
User owns data | GUI | Sync | Open Source | |
---|---|---|---|---|
ActivityWatch | ✅ | ✅ | WIP, decentralized | ✅ |
Selfspy | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ |
ulogme | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ |
RescueTime | ❌ | ✅ | Centralized | ❌ |
WakaTime | ❌ | ✅ | Centralized | Clients |
Platforms
Windows | macOS | Linux | Android | |
---|---|---|---|---|
ActivityWatch | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | WIP |
Selfspy | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ |
ulogme | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ |
RescueTime | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
Tracking
App & Window Title | AFK | Browser Extensions | Editor Plugins | Extensible | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
ActivityWatch | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | Possible | ✅ |
Selfspy | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
ulogme | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
RescueTime | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ |
WakaTime | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | Only for text editors |
Installation & Usage
© Copyright 2016-2020 by Erik Bjäreholt, Johan Bjäreholt and contributors