Kimai

Kimai is a free and open-source time tracking platform developed for freelancers, agencies, and businesses that require a dependable way to record billable hours, manage client projects, and generate accurate invoices. As a self-hosted alternative to Toggl, Harvest, and Clockify, Kimai offers you full ownership of your time data without any per-user subscription fees. With a clean, modern web interface and support for multiple users, clients, and projects, Kimai scales from solo freelancers tracking their own hours to larger teams managing complex billing across dozens of clients.

Typical Use Cases

Freelancers utilise Kimai to track billable hours across multiple clients and projects, generating detailed reports and invoices at the end of each billing period without relying on third-party SaaS platforms. Agencies implement Kimai as a shared time tracking hub where team members record hours against client projects, enabling project managers to monitor budgets, track utilisation, and generate client-facing reports. Small businesses use Kimai for internal time management — tracking how employee hours are distributed across departments, tasks, and cost centres for accurate payroll and project costing. Consultants and contractors use the activity tagging system to categorise time entries by type of work, facilitating the breakdown of invoices and demonstrating value delivered to clients.

Key Features

• Clean web interface for starting, stopping, and logging time entries
• Multi-user support with role-based permissions for teams of any size
• Project and client management with budget tracking and rate configuration
• Detailed reporting with filters by user, project, client, and date range
• Invoice generation directly from tracked time entries
• Activity tagging for categorising work types across projects
• REST API for integrations with external tools and workflows
• Plugin system for extending functionality
• Import and export support for CSV and other formats
• Mobile-friendly interface for logging time on the go

Why deploy Kimai on Hostinger VPS

Deploying Kimai on a Hostinger VPS does away with per-user subscription costs that often make SaaS time tracking tools expensive as teams grow. With full data ownership, your time records, client data, and billing information remain on infrastructure you control — a crucial aspect for businesses with confidentiality requirements or data residency concerns. Hostinger VPS provides the reliable uptime needed for a time tracking tool that team members depend on daily, with MySQL ensuring durable storage of all time entries and project data. Traefik handles HTTPS automatically, so your Kimai instance is securely accessible from any device without manual SSL configuration.