Kimai
Time tracking software
- Features
- Ease of use
- Ease of management
- Quality of support
- Affordability
- Market presence
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€2.99 per user per month
Free TrialFree version
Small
Medium
Large
- Information technology and software
- Media and communications
- Professional services (engineering, legal, consulting, etc.)
What is Kimai
Kimai is a time tracking software application used to record work time against customers, projects, and activities for reporting and invoicing support. It is commonly used by freelancers, agencies, and small teams that need self-hosted time tracking with administrative control over data and configuration. Kimai is open source and can be deployed on a company-managed server, with optional paid cloud hosting and paid plugins available from the project maintainers.
Self-hosted deployment option
Kimai can be installed and operated on your own infrastructure, which supports internal data residency and custom operational controls. This is useful for organizations that cannot rely on a vendor-managed SaaS for compliance or policy reasons. It also enables deeper control over backups, authentication, and network access than typical cloud-only tools.
Project and client time logging
The product tracks time entries by customer, project, and activity, supporting common professional-services workflows. It provides reporting views that help summarize time by person, project, or period for internal review and billing preparation. This aligns with core requirements for time tracking in service delivery environments.
Extensible via plugins and API
Kimai supports extensions through plugins, allowing teams to add features without changing the core application. It also provides integration capabilities (commonly via API and webhooks depending on deployment and version) to connect time data with other business systems. This can reduce manual re-entry when used alongside project management or invoicing tools.
More admin overhead than SaaS
Self-hosting requires server provisioning, upgrades, monitoring, and security patching that many small teams do not want to manage. Even when using paid hosting, configuration and maintenance responsibilities can be higher than all-in-one work management suites. This can increase total effort compared with tools that bundle hosting, updates, and support in a single subscription.
Limited all-in-one work management
Kimai focuses on time tracking and related reporting rather than providing a broad set of project planning, task management, and collaboration features. Teams that want a single system for tasks, documents, approvals, and resource planning may need additional software. This can lead to more integrations and process fragmentation.
Feature depth varies by add-ons
Some capabilities are delivered through optional plugins, which can introduce dependency on specific extensions and their maintenance. Organizations may need to evaluate plugin compatibility during upgrades and confirm long-term support for critical add-ons. This can complicate standardization compared with products where advanced features are native and uniformly supported.
Plan & Pricing
| Plan | Price | Key features & notes |
|---|---|---|
| Standard | €2.99 per user/month (annual billing, -20%); €3.99 per user/month (monthly) | Project time-tracking; Billable & non-billable hours; Invoicing; Data export; Audit logs; Industry-specific translations; Email support. Cloud (hosted) plan. |
| Professional | €3.99 per user/month (annual billing, -20%); €4.99 per user/month (monthly) | All Standard features plus working hour accounts; public holidays, vacation & sick leave; expense tracking; custom fields; task management; customer portal; kiosk mode; daily backups; Single Sign-On (SAML); custom domain with SSL. Cloud (hosted) plan. |
