Memtime vs. Alternatives & Competitors: The Honest Comparison

Hearing a software company praise its own product is…well, expected. After all, how else are we supposed to advertise our solutions and generate demand for what we offer?

Except at Memtime, we mean it when we say we have the best deal you can get in the automatic time tracking space. We’re talking price vs quality, without the marketing fluff.

Below is a very honest comparison of Memtime vs its alternatives and competitors. We’ll go through 3 of our biggest competitors and be transparent about both our strengths and limitations, so that you know what you settle for when choosing an automatic time tracking software provider.

Disclaimer: all of the apps mentioned in this article belong to the category of automatic time tracking software, i.e. desktop apps that record your time for you. That is why you won’t find tools like Harvest or Clockodo on the list — these are examples of manual stopwatch-based apps irrelevant for this kind of comparison.

Without further ado, let’s roll.

Memtime vs Timely: same offer, different use cases

Memtime and Timely are the closest alternatives when it comes to pricing ($9-27/mo per user) as well as core time tracking features.

• Both Memtime and Timely track every minute of your day automatically in the background.
• Both Memtime and Timely arrange your activities in a chronological timeline.
• Both Memtime and Timely allow you to zoom in/out on your day and group activities for your chosen time interval.
• Both Memtime and Timely let you create time entries next to your automatic timeline.

What Memtime does better than Timely

Instead of stating that Memtime is better than Timely, let us demonstrate which specific parts of the product are better executed.

1. Activity data privacy

To start off, Memtime is desktop-only. There’s no web app so your automatically captured activity data never leaves your computer unless you create a time entry and sync it into your project software. Timely, on the other hand, syncs all of your automatically captured activity data into its web app — Timely’s Memory app for desktop has no interface of its own.

This is not to say that Timely does not protect your data. We’re simply stating the fact that it has to be continuously uploaded to the cloud to be visible in your web dashboard. Memtime, being a desktop-only app, doesn’t need to upload your activity data anywhere; it stays on your device offline forever.

2. Timeline visualization

Timely’s activity timeline looks sleek but can get overwhelming if you’re trying to go beyond activity summary and really get into the details of your day. If you switch between programs and tabs a lot, Memtime is a better option for clarity of visualization.

In terms of precision, the smallest time interval to view your activities is 1 min in Memtime and 5 min in Timely. So if you’re a consultant or lawyer trying to recover every minute in your client calls or emails, Memtime is more convenient.

3. Calendar integrations

Being able to connect your calendar and import scheduled events into your time tracker is a valuable tool for visualization, billable time recovery, and productivity. Timely only allows you to connect your Google Calendar and Office 365 calendar.

Meanwhile, Memtime supports 5 types of calendars:

1. Google Calendar,
2. Microsoft Calendar,
3. iCloud Calendar,
4. Mac Calendar,
5. and any CalDAV calendar you have.

4. Sync integrations

Timely offers 7 integrations with project and accounting software, all of which work one-way, i.e. either by importing data into Timely or exporting logged time into respective software.

• Toggl (import)
• Harvest (import)
• Azure AD (import)
• QuickBooks (export)
• ClickUp (export)
• monday.com (import) 
• Asana sync (export)

Memtime, on the other hand, has 100+ integrations, over 65 of which have two-way sync. For example, you can import your projects and tasks and then automatically export time entries back into connected software (Asana, ClickUp, Forecast, Scoro, Wrike, etc.).

5. Lawyer & accountant tools

In addition to popular project tools for agencies, Memtime has two-way sync integrations with specialized lawyer and accounting tools:

• Clio,
• Lawcus,
• FreshBooks,
• Xero,
• Zoho,
• MS Teams, and more.

6. Phone call time tracking

On top of some crucial VoIP and call tracking integrations, Memtime allows you to connect your iPhone and see your phone & Mac calls history next to your automatic timeline and calendar events.

Your past calls will be pulled into your timeline for effortless recovery of every billable second. Memtime will display historical call data so you can go through your call history and log all billable time even from before you installed the Memtime app.

Choose Timely if:

So as to remain objective, we have to admit that Memtime might not be perfect for you in every single scenario. If you find yourself in the scenarios below, Timely could be a more suitable option. 

1. You want your data synced across devices

Because Memtime keeps your activity data offline on your computer only, there’s no option to sync your time tracking across multiple devices in real time. This is done for privacy reasons as we don’t upload your activity data to the cloud.

Timely, on the other hand, automatically uploads your data to your web dashboard every second you’re online. It can do the same across your desktop and mobile devices, so if you need your time tracking data available on all of your devices, then Timely is your best bet.

2. You want AI to do your timesheets

At Memtime, we don’t do AI time tracking because it’s too imprecise for sensitive billing data, which results in even more effort double-checking your timesheets. Instead, we offer automation rules so Memtime can suggest time entries for you to approve or reject.

Timely offers AI timesheets, which means the algorithm learns from your logging patterns and can then create time entries for you. If you’re comfortable with this approach to billable time tracking, you should choose Timely over Memtime.

3. You need invoice drafts for QuickBooks

Memtime doesn’t have invoices and instead offers two-way sync integrations with the most popular invoice and accounting software (including Zoho Books, QuickBooks, FreshBooks, etc.)

Timely, meanwhile, offers invoice drafts for QuickBooks. Even though you can’t download or share Timely invoices on their own, you can sync them into QuickBooks and proceed from there.

Memtime vs Toggl: same privacy, different precision

Toggl Track is another popular time tracking tool that gets compared to Memtime quite often. It’s important to note right off that Toggl is cheaper; it even has a free plan with automatic time tracking.

Here’s what Memtime and Toggl do in a similar way.

• Both Memtime and Toggl store captured activities locally and privately on your device.
• Both Memtime and Toggl allow you to create time entries side by side with your captured activities.

What Memtime does better than Toggl

Let’s see if the price of a Memtime subscription will make sense to you after we showcase what we do better than Toggl Track.

1. Precision of time tracking data

If you’ve used Toggl Track, you know that it can’t read file names, URLs, or tabs. The most it can do is show you the name of the program you were using without any more detail, so you’re left to guesstimate what exactly you did in e.g. Safari for 1:38:37.

Memtime, on the other hand, not only shows you the names of the tabs you were in but also provides full URLs so you can revisit the pages and specific documents you were working on.

2. Timeline visualization

Once again, Memtime wins in terms of visualization options on the activity timeline. Toggl Track doesn’t have the tools to let you adjust the zoom interval on your timeline and therefore change the level of detail you see.

Memtime lets you set the zoom interval from 1 to 60 minutes, including 6-minute increments for lawyers and consultants since this is how they bill for their time.

Memtime then groups all of your captured activities into e.g. 6-minute increments and displays the most prominent activity for each, allowing you to quickly assess what you can bill. You always have the option to look into any activity cluster and see all that it contains.

3. Time entry creation

If you want to create a time entry in Toggl Track from your captured activities, you only have the option to log an entire cluster of activities without selecting which ones you’d like to exclude. You can adjust the start and end times of your time entry but not exclude any of the activities captured in the same cluster.

Memtime allows you to select only the activities that you want to log under a project and exclude or even delete anything that’s irrelevant.

4. Integrations

We spoke above about the great variety of two-way sync integrations in Memtime that’s unavailable in other time trackers. This remains true for the sake of comparison to Toggl Track.

If you subscribe for a paid plan with Toggl Track ($18/mo with an annual subscription), you’ll get all of 5 sync integrations:

• Toggl Plan,
• Salesforce,
• Jira,
• Asana,
• QuickBooks.

Meanwhile, Memtime offers 65+ two-way sync integrations with project software for just $17/mo with our longest 2-year subscription.

Choose Toggl if:

Toggl Track is a perfectly adequate time tracker for a number of use cases. See below.

1. You’re on a strict budget

Toggl Track’s most obvious advantage over Memtime is how affordable it is. You can even use its free version for fully automated and private time tracking. This option is great for freelancers and teams of up to 5 users.

2. You need downloadable invoices

Toggl Track offers downloadable and shareable invoices starting from $9/mo per user. This is a good deal if you’re looking for a private and affordable automatic time tracker with invoicing. You can also sync your Toggl invoices into QuickBooks.

3. You don’t need much precision

It’s possible that you don’t need to see the specific tabs you visited throughout the day. Or maybe you’re really good at separating your work into specific desktop apps, e.g. Figma, GitHub, etc. Then you’ll be content with Toggl Track’s level of precision that only shows you the name of the program you used and for how long.

Another option is if you don’t switch between clients throughout the day and maybe only have long-term projects. Then you can use Toggl Track to get a reliable record of total hours active on your computer in work apps.

Memtime vs Clockify: same detail, different purpose

Clockify is the name that pops up the most when you look for free automatic time tracking software. It’s true that it offers 100% free automatic time tracking with URLs, but anything on top of that comes with a price.

Here’s what Memtime and Clockify both manage to accomplish.

• Both Memtime and Clockify show the exact URLs you visited throughout the day.
• Both Memtime and Clockify allow you to individually pick and merge activities for project time entries.

What Memtime does better than Clockify

Let’s see how Memtime is different from Clockify so you can make an informed choice that aligns with your purpose with time tracking.

1. Employee privacy

One thing you should know about Clockify is that it’s an employee monitoring tool that offers screenshots. This is a paid feature that can be enabled and disabled. At Memtime, we take a stance against employee monitoring and feel very strongly about it.

Even if you only use Clockify for personal time tracking and never enable the screenshots feature, you should be aware of the fact that you’re using a piece of employee monitoring software. If you introduce Clockify to your team, be prepared for a well justified pushback.

2. Timeline visualization

Once again, we draw your attention to the superior visualization options in Memtime. Clockify’s auto tracker app for desktop displays all captured activities as a list with full details such as app name, description, URL, start and end time, precise duration, and the idle percentage.

There’s no option to view your activity timeline in any other way, zoom in and out on your day, or automatically group activities in your preferred time intervals. You can manually merge selected activities but you always have to go through the whole list in increments as small as 1 minute.

As we’ve demonstrated many times, Memtime allows you to view your activity timeline in as much (1 minute) or as little (1 hour) detail as you want. By adjusting the zoom level, you can quickly scan your day or dive in depending on your time tracking needs.

3. Time entry creation

In Clockify, your captured activities and your time entries live in two separate places. As soon as you log a time entry from your activities, they disappear from the timeline and go into the other part of the desktop app meant only for logging time.

You can’t view your captured activities and time entries side by side or reconstruct your day after you’ve logged some of the time towards projects. In Memtime, your captured activities never disappear from your timeline even after you’ve logged them as project time.

4. Integrations

Clockify has only one true sync integration — with QuickBooks — and it’s a paid feature starting from $5.49/mo. The other “integrations” work by embedding its manual timer button into third-party tools, rather than enabling any data sync. Memtime, on the other hand, offers 100+ integrations, including 5 types of calendars (vs Clockify’s Google Calendar and Outlook Calendar) and 65+ two-way sync integrations mentioned multiple times above.

Choose Clockify if:

1. You need free time tracking with URLs

There’s no denying that Clockify offers a lot of precision for no investment at all. You can use its free version and have your time tracked for you down to the second with exact URLs you visited.

2. You don’t mind a surveillance tool

If you’re comfortable using a piece of employee monitoring software, especially for personal time tracking, then Clockify is the best tool you can find. If you manage to convince your employees to use it with you, you can even have features like kiosk and timesheets for free.

3. You need affordable invoices

Clockify offers shareable and downloadable invoices for just $5.49/mo if billed annually. You can also sync these invoices into QuickBooks.

Final thoughts

Going through alternatives and competitors is a must when deciding on a piece of software you’re planning to invest your time and money in. This comparison was meant to help you form an informed opinion on your most popular options when it comes to Memtime alternatives. We tried to convince you with facts and not marketing promises.

Still, more than anything, we encourage you to start a free trial with all of the tools featured in this comparison. There’s nothing like first-hand experience with alternatives to help you better appreciate what a piece of software has to offer.

To start your free trial with Memtime, simply create an account and download the app for free. We don’t ask for your credit card info or even your company email.