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Best Hubstaff Alternatives

David Kariuki
Last update on:
April 18, 2024 1:55 AM
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While Hubstaff is a useful time-tracking and productivity-monitoring tool, it mostly caters to remote at-desk users. This means businesses with a workforce on the field may not find Hubstaff the best option for GPS location and mileage tracking purposes. 

Limited automatic time tracking (only for the remote workforce) and the inability to track mileage are the key reasons you might look for alternatives to Hubstaff.

To streamline time tracking for workers in the field and rapidly track mileage for tax deductions purposes, you need the right solution in your arsenal. Luckily, there is no shortage of reliable time-tracking apps on the market. We did the heavy lifting for you and tested some of the best alternatives to replace Hubstaff.

Read on to find out what is the alternative to Hubstaff.

In search of a more accurate Hubstaff alternative?

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Why Do You Need A Hubstaff Alternative?

If you are using Hubstaff for employee time and mileage tracking, you may have encountered a couple of challenges along the way.

Here is a closer look why you may need a Hubstaff alternative:

No automatic time tracking for field workers

Hubstaff offers reliable time tracking and employee monitoring for in-office and remote teams with real-time insights. However, it falls short regarding tracking time for users in the field.

While Hubstaff’s map section provides a list of employees that clocked-in in a certain location, you cannot view detailed timestamps or breadcrumbs to analyze field team productivity and for activity tracking purposes. 

Lacks mileage tracking capabilities

Hubstaff only tracks the time and location of remote users. However, it doesn’t track mileage for employees on the go.

What Are The Best Hubstaff Alternatives?

While Hubstaff seems an ideal choice for time tracking and project management, it may not be the best fit for everyone. Luckily, more robust solutions with improved features such as GPS location tracking for field workforce, mileage tracking, invoicing, and expense tracking are better suited for your business needs.

So, what is better than Hubstaff? Here are the best Hubstaff alternatives in the market.

  • Timeero - Best Hubstaff Alternative With a GPS Location Mileage Tracker 
  • Toggl  - Hubstaff Alternative For Freelancers
  • Time Doctor - Time Tracking App With Productivity Monitoring Capabilities
  • DeskTime - Hubstaff Alternative To Calculate Productivity and Efficiency Rates
  • Clockify - Time and GPS Tracking App For Both Contractors and Freelancers
  • Harvest - Reliable Hubstaff Alternative For Employee Monitoring 
  • On The Clock App - Simple Time and Attendance App With No Mileage Tracking
  • Deputy - Time Tracking App With Employee Scheduling Functionalities

We will discuss each based on the following capabilities: time tracking, employee GPS tracking, and mileage tracking.

Timeero: Best Hubstaff Alternative With a GPS Location Mileage Tracker For Both Remote and Field Teams

Timeero tops our list as the most recommended alternative to Hubstaff for various reasons. It offers reliable time tracking, GPS location tracking, and mileage tracking capability - a feature not present on Hubstaff, which puts it at the top of most time-tracking solutions in the market. 

Time Tracking

Timeero is designed to streamline workflow and make it easy for employees and employers to track hours and locations in real-time. The “Who’s Working” dashboard is user-friendly, with plenty of details on activities the employee is working on, including when they started and completed. This makes it easy for employers to distribute jobs and track progress.

The Android and iOS apps make it super easy to clock in and get a comprehensive timesheet at the end of every shift. 

Timeero timesheet
Timeero: the Best Hubstaff Alternative

Timeero has further enhanced the accuracy of employee hours using geofencing and facial recognition capabilities - features missing on Hubstaff. If the app detects a face mismatch, it automatically blocks the user from punching in and instantly sends notifications to you. Timeero also helps you stay on top of your actual labor costs and adjust workflows to maintain healthy profitability.

GPS Location Tracking

Timeero GPS tracking
Timeero tracks location accurately

In addition to reliable time tracking, Timeero offers accurate location tracking once you clock in, thanks to the improved GPS technology. The best part is that you can access a map showing the employee’s actual location and zoom in to get a glimpse of the time the user has been in that specific location.

We discovered that it was easy to use the route replay feature to know whether your employee visited the actual place. Besides recreating their route, you can click on the breadcrumbs with timestamps, a feature absent in Hubstaff. This allows you to see where the employee spent the day and even determine how much time they spent at that particular location.

Mileage Tracking

Timeero is considered one of the best mileage-tracking apps built for remote and field teams. 

What sets this mileage tracking app apart is its ability to record mileage in real-time as long as the vehicle exceeds the set speed limit. This makes it easy for agents, freelancers, drivers, and employers to track travel expenses and reimburse their agents fairly while computing IRS tax deductions more accurately.

All this information is compiled in a timesheet; you can access it anytime.

Other Key Features

Timeero offers other features, including:

  • Employee scheduling
  • Time off tracking
  • Seamless integrations with payroll software such as Xero, Viventium, Gusto, Paychex, QuickBooks Online, Rippling, QuickBooks Desktop, and ADP.

Timeero Pricing

The Basic Plan goes for $4 per user per month

Pro Plan goes for $8 per user per month

Premium Plan goes for $11 per user per month

A 14-day free trial is also available.

Toggl: Hubstaff Alternative For Freelancers

The primary purpose of tracking time is to record your team’s billable work hours. Toggl can help you achieve this within a few clicks.

Time Tracking

Toggl Time Tracking
Toggl Time Tracking

Toggl allows you to track time on any device and view the tracked hours on the “team tab”. 

With Toggl, you can easily track time by using a timer, manually entering the time, or adding your calendar events as time entries. You can use tasks, clients, and tags for more advanced categorization.

The only problem with start and stop time trackers is that it’s possible to forget about clocking in or out. Toggl tackles this problem with time-tracking reminders as well as idle detection. You will get a notification when you’re away from the computer while the timer is still running, and when you’re active so that you can discard the idle time.

Set a Pomodoro timer with Toggl’s desktop (Windows or macOS) app or browser extension to automatically track websites and apps an employee visits. That said, you might not get the best experience with time-tracking workers in the field, which is where Timeero excels.

GPS Location Tracking

While Toggl is a great automatic time-tracking software, we found that it doesn’t provide GPS location-tracking features for employees. Unfortunately, this means employers who want to track field agents' or real estate agents' activities and location might not find Toggle a reliable option - Timeero excels in GPS location tracking in real-time.

Other Features

Other notable features on Toggl include project reporting, payroll time tracking, billing, and invoicing. Toggle also integrates with other popular project management tools such as Trello, Asana or Jira. You can also integrate payment systems such as Quickbooks and Zoho Books. 

Time Doctor: Time Tracking App With Productivity Monitoring Capabilities

Individuals, remote teams, and small businesses can track and optimize their workflows with Time Doctor. They can also use detailed insights on how they spend their time to make decisions and boost productivity.

Time Tracking

time doctor
Time Doctor Dashboard

Time Doctor offers many benefits you would get in a time tracker. Still, we will focus on its time-tracking capabilities. 

While most time-tracking tools require workers to punch in and out, employees can set Time Doctor to start tracking once they power on their computers. Users can also receive reminders to clock in. From there, the app will automatically track the time spent on different tasks. Employees can categorize their activities based on projects or tasks.

Time Doctor also provides real-time analytics of where time is spent in the workday. This information can be used to track billable and non-billable hours for staff. 

GPS Location Tracking

Time Doctor is reliable for monitoring employees and tracking how they spend their time working. However, we discovered that it doesn’t offer geofencing capabilities, which means you can’t locate where your field employees are and track mileage. If you want to track time for your projects, you have to do it manually on this app.

For such purposes, you should consider Timeero's geofencing capabilities to track the actual location of your employees within a specific working site. 

Other Features

  • Employee time management features
  • Reporting
  • Employee monitoring
  • Integrations with Freshbooks, Asana, ADP, Flow, GitHub, and more

DeskTime: Hubstaff Alternative To Calculate Productivity and Efficiency Rates

DeskTime is another alternative you can try in place of Hubstaff. Here is what we discovered about its most popular features.

Time Tracking

The DeskTime automatic time tracker starts and stops working when you do. This means the app will start tracking time once you turn on your computer and stop when you turn it off - no need for manual input when clocking in or switching on the timer.

Desktime
DeskTime

We discovered that DeskTime has two unique features. One is a Pomodoro timer, and the other is the private time option. The Pomodoro timer helps reduce the monotony of workers working at a stretch.

If you need to do something unrelated to work during office hours, then you can turn on the private time feature. This time will not be tracked while it’s turned on. 

DeskTime tracks everything from websites visited and mobile apps used, to screenshots taken on the device. This allows for detailed reporting of workflow progress and work performance metrics, like Pomodoros.

GPS Location Tracking

DeskTime automatically calculates your daily productivity and efficiency rate based on your categorization of programs, URLs, and apps. 

That said, we realized that DeskTime lacks certain features. For example, it does not have an employee GPS location time tracking system to track your workers' actual location and movement, nor a mileage tracker to track the distance covered by your employees

With Timeero GPS location system and mileage tracking, you can easily track your workers’ location, routes, and activities. This helps you calculate expenses and tax deductions.

Other Features

In addition to tracking time,  DeskTime has other notable features such as:

  • Detailed reports 
  • Daily productivity timeline
  • Integrations with other task management apps such as Google Calendar, Gitlab, Jira, Asana, Trello, Outlook Calendar, Basecamp, and more.
  • Shift scheduling
  • Absence calendar

Clockify: Time Tracking App For Both Contractors and Freelancers

Like DeskTime, Clockify is another good time-tracking app for contractors and freelancers that allow you to track billable hours and hourly rates. 

Time Tracking

While time tracking is a common feature in most time and attendance software, Clockify offers more time-tracking features such as timer and default project, depending on your chosen service plan. 

Clockify
Clockify

The timer is a stopwatch that helps your team start and stop time when working. A unique feature we found on Clockify is that you can change the start time of the running timer. For instance, if you forget to start the timer at the start of the day, you can manually adjust the start time to show when you started working. This ensures you’re not working more hours than you should or overcharging clients. 

That said, the auto-tracker tool observes time spent using the systems and compiles inactive and active time totals. Unlike Time Doctor, Clockify doesn’t share data activity levels with employers.

GPS Tracking

Of all the apps we tested, Clockify is among the few that offer GPS tracking, but you have to upgrade to the Pro or Enterprise version to access it. Clockify, with your permission, can access your location, allowing employers or workspace field managers to keep track of your movements. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have a mileage tracker, so field agents who want to calculate miles and expenses won’t find Clockify the best option.

For a mobile workforce, check out our Timeero Review, which offers more expansive GPS location tracking, mileage tracking, and field team coordination capabilities without upgrading to the most expensive version.

With Clockify’s GPS tracker, you can see who’s currently working on a certain location, including their location history throughout the day. 

Unfortunately, GPS tracking data is only available for a week, after which Clockify deletes the information. This can be useful for managing field agents who visit client sites and get a glimpse of the worker’s last-tracked location.

If you have a large fleet to monitor, consider our top pick for the best GPS and mileage tracking app in the market.

Other Key Features

In addition to time tracking and GPS tracking capabilities, Clokify offers additional features such as:

  • Detailed reports
  • Alerts for work progress
  • Time rounding in reports
  • Timesheet locking

Harvest: Hubstaff Alternative For Employee Monitoring 

Harvest is another suitable Hubstaff alternative with several features that make time tracking and employee monitoring easy and convenient. Here is what we discovered about the app’s time and location tracking capabilities.

Time Tracking

harvest
Harvest

Harvest is a cloud-based time-tracking and expense-monitoring tool that tracks time spent on every project or task. It provides insight for employees and employers into how everyone on the team is spending their time, the actual cost of the project, and how much they bring in, making invoicing and billing easier.

The time tracking feature allows you to track time to specific tasks, clients, and projects. A little icon next to the timer allows you to add notes to your projects, tasks, or clients. 

You can also add time in bulk on Harvest. This means you can easily make adjustments if you forget to track one of your projects.

GPS Location Tracking

Whether your team members are in a different location (remote or field) or the office, you shouldn’t have to worry about micromanaging or losing track of all your members.

Unfortunately, we found out that Harvest doesn’t have a dedicated GPS location tracker or geofencing to help you track the location of every team member.

The only thing you will get from Harvest is access to important information about how much your employees are working, including insights into which members are approaching burnout and which teams require additional assignments.

For convenient GPS location and mileage tracking, consider using Timeero’s time and mileage tracker.

Other Notable Features

  • Automatic invoicing
  • Visual reports in CSV or PDF
  • Automatic reminders sent to clients about invoices
  • Integrations with other project management software and apps such as QuickBooks Online, Xero, Stripe or PayPal.

On The Clock App: Simple Time and Attendance App With No Mileage Tracking

Another honorable candidate as a Hubstaff alternative is the On The Clock App, an advanced clock-in and clock-out time tracking tool for managing working time and employee attendance. 

Time Tracking

Available as an online app (for both Android and iOS users) and an online version for desktop users, On The Clock allows employees to punch in and out from any device that is authorized by their managers.

On the Clock
On the Clock

The app automatically adds regular overtime, PTO hours, and approvals to ensure you don’t make mistakes when preparing payrolls. The geofencing feature allows the time tracker on this app to prevent employees from clocking in and out outside their area of work. If you want to know who showed up or or who hasn't showed up for work, simply check “Who’s In” and get every detail you need. 

GPS Location Tracking

On The Clock app lets you see the location of your employees clocked in. The “Who’s In” tab contains a list of all the employees in a certain location, indicating whether they've clocked in or out. 

The “show map” tab allows you to see the location they clocked in or out. It’s a great feature for in-office, on-premise, mobile, and remote workers.

on the clock gps
On the Clock Location Tracking

If you have a workforce in the field, On The Clock app might not be the best option since it doesn’t provide specifics such as breadcrumbs on the map. In addition, it lacks a mileage tracker - a handy feature for managers and employers who want to calculate distance covered, expenses, and tax deductions.

Other Notable Features

  • Employee scheduling
  • Comprehensive billable hours reports
  • Geofencing capabilities
  • Integrations with QuickBooks, ADP, and Gusto

Deputy: Time Tracking App With Reliable Employee Scheduling Functionalities

By description, Deputy is an all-in-one employee scheduling platform. Still, it can assist with time tracking, performance management, and payroll.

Time Tracking

The time tracking feature on Deputy is not as powerful as other apps such as Timeero, but if you need a tool to ensure employees clock in and out at the right time, it works well. Employers can receive real-time updates about their remote employees' shifts and breaks. Employers can also set worker schedules in advance and monitor shift schedules in real-time. That said, you will be required to choose an assigned shift before you clock into the app.

GPS Location Tracking

Deputy is more of an employee scheduling app with a time tracking and attendance feature. But we discovered that it doesn’t have GPS location tracking capabilities meaning that you can’t track your field employee's exact location. That said, it will give you an overview of real-time employee attendance. You can also see who is working on which shift, including who’s on a break or running late for the shift.

Other Notable Features

  • Labor compliance tools with fair workweek, meal wages, hour laws, and other wages
  • Integrations with BambooHR, ADP, LastPass, Gusto, Dropbox, and more.

Try a Convenient Hubstaff Alternative

Hubstaff is proficient in time tracking. However, many Hubstaff alternatives have advanced and more distinctive features, capabilities, and prices. The best part is that most of these tools offer a free trial period to help you understand their functionalities better.

If you’re looking for the best HubStaff alternative with accurate time, GPS location, and mileage tracking capabilities, you can get started with Timeero.

Register for the 14-day trial to get started!

A more reliable alternative to Hubstaff with time, mileage, and GPS tracking capabilities!

Start your free 14-day trial today on Timeero!
AUTHOR
David Kariuki

David is a content writer passionate about all things SaaS and technology! With over seven years of experience, David knows how to craft content that captivates his readers and effectively communicates their value and offerings. When he is not writing, he is at home reading, out playing soccer, or exploring new places.

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