Traggo

Self-hosted time tracking, honestly reviewed. No tasks, no projects, no invoicing — just tagged time spans and full data control.

TL;DR

• What it is: Self-hosted, GPL-3.0 time tracking tool built around tags rather than projects or tasks [README].
• Who it’s for: Solo developers or technical founders who want a dead-simple, privacy-first time tracker with a flexible tagging model and zero per-seat cost.
• Cost savings: Toggl Track charges $10/user/month on paid plans; Clockify’s paid tiers start at $5.49/user/month. Traggo self-hosted runs on a $5–6 VPS with no user caps and no subscription.
• Key strength: The tag-first model is genuinely different — no rigid project hierarchy, just free-form tags. If your work spans multiple dimensions (client × project type × activity) and you hate forcing it into a single tree, this approach is worth trying [README].
• Key weakness: Development has largely stalled. Kimai’s comparison page — a competitor, so read it critically — reports code activity of 3 days in 2021, 4 days in 2022, and 2 days in 2023 [2]. No paid support, no user manual, no roadmap [2]. The project has 1,553 GitHub stars after six years, which suggests a small but real user base that hasn’t driven commercial investment.

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What is Traggo

Traggo is a self-hosted time tracking tool built around a single opinionated idea: there are no tasks, only time spans with tags [README]. You don’t create a “client” record, then nest a “project” under it, then nest a “task” under that. You track a time span and attach whatever tags you want — project:acme, type:meeting, billable:yes, or anything else. The structure emerges from your tags, not from a predefined hierarchy.

The project was created in Go in 2019 [2] and is licensed under GPL-3.0. It ships as a single Docker image with a web UI. There’s no SaaS version — self-hosting is the only option, which is by design: “If you want to use Traggo, you need to host it yourself. This way, you have the full control over your data and no third-party may be able to read it.” [README]

As of this review the GitHub repository has 1,553 stars. The website is functional but sparse, and the documentation is minimal — install guide, configuration reference, and a dev setup page [website]. There’s no changelog, no blog, no release notes that explain what changed between versions.

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Why people choose it

The honest answer is: the people who choose Traggo are choosing it specifically because it isn’t Toggl or Kimai. They want something lighter, more flexible, and entirely under their control.

The tag model is the main draw. Traditional time trackers force a client → project → task hierarchy. That works well for agencies billing clients. It works less well for a solo developer or researcher who works on things that don’t fit neatly into one project at a time — where a single work session might be relevant to multiple dimensions simultaneously. Traggo’s tags let you define whatever axes matter to you without fighting the tool’s data model [README].

The absence of a pricing conversation is another signal. The Kimai comparison page [2] lists Traggo alongside Toggl, Clockify, Harvest, and Factorial as alternatives, but Traggo is the only entry in that list with no pricing tier to evaluate. That simplicity — no free vs. paid features to reason about, no seat limits — is appealing to users who’ve been burned by SaaS tools that gradually move capabilities behind paywalls.

The flip side is that Kimai [2] — admittedly a competitor with skin in the game — raises a concern worth acknowledging: Traggo’s development activity has dropped to a handful of days per year, there’s no support offering of any kind, and the project appears to be in long-term maintenance mode rather than active development. If you need a tool that will receive security patches, new integrations, or bug fixes on a predictable schedule, that’s a real risk.

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Features

Based on the README and website:

Core time tracking:

• Start/stop and manual entry for time spans [README]
• List view for reviewing logged entries [README]
• Calendar view for a time-map of your week [README]
• Tagging system — add any key:value tags to any time span [README]

Dashboards and reporting:

• Customizable dashboards with diagrams [README]
• Filter and aggregate time by tag combinations [README]
• Statistics derived from your tag dimensions — if you tagged by project and type, you can slice both ways [README]

UI and access:

• Sleek web UI with multiple themes [README]
• Simple user management — multi-user support, but no RBAC or team features [README]
• Docker deployment [README]

What it doesn’t have:

• Invoicing — there’s no billing or invoice generation [README]
• Mobile app — web only
• Integrations with external tools — no API clients, no Zapier pieces, no calendar sync mentioned anywhere
• SSO or LDAP [website]
• Offline mode or desktop client
• Import from other time trackers

The feature list is short. This isn’t a knock — it’s the product’s identity. Traggo does time tracking and tag-based reporting. It doesn’t try to be a project management tool, a billing platform, or an analytics suite. If you need any of those things in the same package, Traggo isn’t the answer.

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Pricing: SaaS vs self-hosted math

Traggo has no pricing tiers because it has no SaaS. The software is free (GPL-3.0), and you run it yourself.

What you’re replacing:

Toggl Track’s paid plans start at $10/user/month (Starter) and $20/user/month (Premium). A 3-person team on Starter pays $360/year. A 5-person team pays $600/year. The free tier is limited to 5 users but cuts off features like billable rates and required fields.

Clockify’s paid plans start at $5.49/user/month (Basic) and go up to $11.99/user/month (Pro). A 5-user team on Basic pays $329/year. The free tier is generous but lacks approval workflows, lock time entries, and some reporting.

Kimai (the most comparable open-source alternative) offers a self-hosted free version and cloud plans, with no public pricing page for the cloud tier.

Self-hosting Traggo:

• Software: $0 [README]
• VPS (Hetzner CAX11 or similar): $4–6/month
• Domain + SSL: $0 with Cloudflare + Let’s Encrypt
• Your time: 30–60 minutes for initial setup, near zero ongoing

Concrete example: A 5-person team currently on Toggl Track Starter paying $600/year switches to Traggo on a $5/month VPS. Annual cost: $60. Savings: $540/year, or roughly $4,500 over the SaaS lifetime assuming no price increases.

Caveat: this math works if your team’s needs align with what Traggo offers. If you rely on Toggl’s invoicing, time audits, integrations, or mobile apps, you’re not getting those on Traggo — so the comparison isn’t apples-to-apples.

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Deployment reality check

The README describes deployment as “easy to setup” and the install path is Docker [README]. The website links to an install guide, configuration docs, and a reverse proxy guide [website].

What you actually need:

• A Linux VPS with 512MB–1GB RAM (Traggo is a Go binary — it’s lightweight)
• Docker installed
• A reverse proxy (nginx or Caddy) for HTTPS if you want a domain
• Basic familiarity with docker-compose

What the install looks like in practice: The Docker image is traggo/server and is available on Docker Hub [README]. You pass environment variables for the admin credentials and database path. There’s no separate database service needed by default — Traggo uses SQLite under the hood, which simplifies the deployment considerably.

What can go sideways:

• Documentation is sparse [2]. The install guide exists, but if you run into a non-obvious issue, there’s no community forum, no paid support, and GitHub issues are the only fallback [2].
• The project’s maintenance cadence is low [2]. If a bug appears in a newer Docker version or a Go dependency, there’s no guarantee it gets patched quickly.
• No obvious backup tooling — SQLite means your data is a single file, which is actually easy to back up, but you have to manage it yourself.
• Multi-user setup works, but there’s no invite flow or SSO — you create users manually [README].

For a technically comfortable user, setup is probably 20–30 minutes. For someone new to Docker or Linux, budget an afternoon.

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Pros and cons

Pros

• Tag-first data model. If the client/project/task hierarchy doesn’t match how you actually work, Traggo’s tag system gives you genuine flexibility to define your own dimensions [README].
• Lightweight and self-contained. Go binary + SQLite means low resource usage and a simple backup story — copy one file and you have your entire history.
• No seat pricing, no usage limits. Run it for 1 person or 10; the cost is the same VPS bill [README].
• Multiple themes. Minor point, but the UI has theme options, which matters for daily-use tools [README].
• Data sovereignty. Your time data stays on your hardware. No vendor can analyze it, sell it, or use it as training data [README].
• Docker deployment. Standard, well-understood, easy to fit into an existing self-hosted stack [README].

Cons

• Development is effectively stalled. Code activity of 2–4 days per year [2] is not maintenance — it’s abandonment with occasional pulse checks. New features are not coming.
• No user manual or documentation beyond basics. No search, no community forum, no FAQ [2]. You’re on your own when something breaks.
• GPL-3.0 license. Copyleft means you can’t embed Traggo in a commercial product without GPL-compatible licensing. If you need to build on top of it or offer it to clients as part of a service, consult a lawyer first.
• No mobile app. Web-only means you’re reaching for a browser to log time on your phone. That friction adds up.
• No invoicing or billing. If you need to turn tracked hours into invoices, you’re exporting manually or using another tool.
• No integrations. No API clients, no calendar sync, no webhooks, no Zapier/Make support visible anywhere in the documentation.
• Small community. 1,553 stars after six years means a tiny user base. Third-party tutorials, YouTube walkthroughs, and forum threads don’t really exist for this tool.
• No paid support option of any kind [2]. If Traggo breaks in production, you fix it yourself.

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Who should use this / who shouldn’t

Use Traggo if:

• You’re a solo developer or researcher who tracks time for personal accountability rather than client billing, and the rigid project-hierarchy model in every other tool annoys you.
• You want the absolute minimum viable time tracker — start, stop, tag, report — with zero ongoing cost and zero vendor relationship.
• You’re already running a self-hosted stack and adding one more Docker container costs you nothing.
• You value your time data being local more than you value features or support.

Don’t use Traggo if:

• You need to invoice clients based on tracked hours. Traggo has no billing features [README].
• You need a mobile app. It’s web-only.
• You need your tool to receive regular updates or security patches. Development activity is minimal [2].
• You’re evaluating tools for a team of more than 2–3 people. There’s no RBAC, no approval workflows, no user management beyond basic accounts [README].
• You need integrations with calendar apps, project management tools, or accounting software. None exist.
• You want support when things go wrong. There is none [2].

Skip Traggo and use Kimai if:

• You need invoicing, project management features, SAML SSO, team management, or a JSON API for integrations [2]. Kimai is more complex but far more capable and actively maintained.

Skip Traggo and use Solidtime if:

• You want modern, actively developed open-source time tracking with a cleaner interface and ongoing investment from the maintainers.

Skip Traggo and use Toggl Track free tier if:

• You have fewer than 5 users and don’t need billing — the free tier covers most personal use cases without requiring a server.

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Alternatives worth considering

• Kimai — the obvious self-hosted alternative. Much more feature-rich: invoicing, project management, SAML SSO, API, team management. Actively developed with a paying customer base. More complex to set up, but the trade-off is worth it for anything beyond personal use [2].
• Solidtime — newer open-source time tracker, more modern codebase, actively maintained. Worth evaluating if you want self-hosted without the abandonment risk.
• Toggl Track — the SaaS incumbent. Best mobile apps, huge feature set, solid integrations. The free tier is genuinely useful for small teams; paid tiers are expensive at scale but polished.
• Clockify — Toggl’s main SaaS competitor. Generous free tier, reasonable paid pricing, web + mobile + desktop apps. Closed source.
• Timetagger — another self-hosted open-source option, tag-based like Traggo but with a different UI approach and seemingly more active development.
• ActivityWatch — if you want passive, automatic time tracking (what’s open on your screen) rather than manual start/stop, ActivityWatch is the self-hosted option worth looking at.

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Bottom line

Traggo’s core idea is good: time tracking without a rigid task hierarchy, built around flexible tags that you define. For a developer or researcher who hates being forced into client → project → task boxes, the model genuinely fits better. The execution is clean — lightweight Go binary, simple Docker deployment, decent dashboards — and the cost math is hard to argue with compared to Toggl or Clockify.

The problem is what surrounds that good core idea: near-zero development activity, no documentation beyond the basics, no support of any kind, and no sign that this will change [2]. Traggo is a snapshot of a tool that worked well for its author in 2019 and has been mostly frozen since. If you need a personal time tracker with a tag-first model and you’re comfortable owning the operational risk, Traggo is fine. If you need a tool that will still be maintained in two years, or one you can hand to non-technical teammates, look at Kimai or Solidtime instead.

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Sources

1. Kimai — Compare time tracker (Portuguese, comparison page listing Traggo as alternative). https://www.kimai.org/pt/compare/
2. Kimai — Best open source Traggo alternative (Kimai vs Traggo comparison, English). https://www.kimai.org/en/traggo-alternative
3. Kimai — Confronta il time-tracker (Italian, comparison page listing Traggo as alternative). https://www.kimai.org/it/compare/

Primary sources:

• GitHub repository and README: https://github.com/traggo/server (1,553 stars, GPL-3.0 license)
• Official website: https://traggo.net
• Install guide: https://traggo.net/install/
• Configuration reference: https://traggo.net/config/