If you've searched for a way to automatically track coding time, you've almost certainly run into WakaTime. It's been around for years, has a large user base, and is probably the closest thing to an established default in this space. So it's a fair question: if WakaTime already exists, why would you look at anything else?

The honest answer is that the two tools are built around different priorities, and depending on what you actually want out of a time tracker, that difference matters more than it might seem at first glance. Here's a fact-checked breakdown, not a sales pitch.

What each one actually is

WakaTime is a metrics-and-analytics platform for developers. Beyond just logging time, it breaks activity down by language, file, branch, commit, and editor, and layers on social and gamification features — public and private leaderboards, coding streaks, and a yearly "Wrapped"-style recap that's become something of a community tradition.

JustClock is narrower by design. It automatically tracks active project time across your IDE and reports it back in clear, simple summaries — no manual start/stop, no per-file breakdowns, no leaderboard to keep up with. It's built for people who want an honest number for "how long did this project actually take," not a full analytics suite.

Pricing

This is where the difference is most concrete. Based on each company's current public pricing pages:

WakaTime:

1. Free — $0/mo, but limited to 1 week of dashboard history
2. Basic — $9/mo (or $8.25/mo billed yearly, $99/year) — 2 weeks of history, daily/weekly reports
3. Premium — $14/mo (or $12.83/mo billed yearly, ~$154/year) — full history, AI usage insights, unlimited goals
4. Team — $21/developer/mo, Business — $24/developer/mo

JustClock:

1. 60-day free trial — full access, no credit card required
2. Monthly — $6/month
3. Annual — $29/year (works out to roughly $2.42/month)

Worth being precise here: WakaTime's free tier is free forever, it just caps your history at one week. JustClock's free option is a full-access 60-day trial, after which you'd move to a paid plan. So it's not an apples-to-apples "free vs free" comparison — it's "permanently free but limited" vs. "fully-featured trial, then low fixed cost." Once you do move to a paid plan, though, JustClock's annual price is a fraction of even WakaTime's cheapest paid tier.

Editor and IDE coverage

WakaTime wins outright on raw breadth. Its open-source plugins cover somewhere north of 90 editors, including less mainstream ones like Vim, Emacs, Sublime Text, and Gedit. If you bounce between unusual editors during the week, WakaTime will see all of them.

JustClock covers a deliberately smaller, more targeted list: the full JetBrains family (IntelliJ IDEA, PyCharm, WebStorm, PhpStorm, GoLand, CLion, Rider, Android Studio), VS Code, Cursor, Devin, and Visual Studio. That's a shorter list, but it's built around where most professional developers — especially anyone doing JetBrains or AI-assisted coding work — actually spend their time, rather than trying to cover every editor that exists.

What data each one collects

WakaTime's own plugin documentation is upfront that its plugins collect file path and project names from your IDE to build the detailed per-file, per-language breakdowns the dashboard is known for. That's not a hidden practice — it's disclosed, and it's the trade-off that makes WakaTime's granular metrics possible in the first place.

JustClock takes the opposite approach on purpose: it doesn't read your code, files, or keystrokes. It only tracks that you're actively working, and on which project. That's a direct consequence of being narrower in scope — you get less granular data, but there's also less data to collect in the first place, which matters if you're working under an NDA or just don't want file-level activity leaving your machine.

Depth vs. simplicity

This is really the core trade-off. WakaTime gives you a genuinely deep analytics platform: per-language stats, commit correlation, AI-adoption tracking across tools like Copilot and Cursor, team dashboards, leaderboards. If you want to actually study your own coding habits, or you're managing a team and want that level of visibility, it's a mature, well-built tool for that job.

JustClock deliberately doesn't try to compete on that depth. It runs quietly, reports simple totals, and stays out of your way — which is exactly the point for anyone who just wants an accurate number without maintaining goals, checking leaderboards, or digging through a dashboard full of charts they'll never really use.

Which one actually fits your workflow

1. You want deep, granular stats, and maybe enjoy the social/competitive side of coding metrics: WakaTime is the more mature, feature-complete choice.
2. You manage a larger team and need rollups, SSO, and enterprise controls: WakaTime's Team and Business plans are built for exactly that.
3. You just want to know how much time a project actually took, without setting anything up or maintaining a dashboard, and you'd rather not have file-level data collected: that's the gap JustClock is built for — and at $29/year, it's priced to be an easy yes rather than a budget line item.

Neither tool is objectively "better" — they're solving different problems. If you're not sure which camp you're in, the free/trial tier on either one is enough to find out within a week.

Pricing and feature details above reflect each company's public pricing page as of August 2026 and are subject to change — check wakatime.com/pricing and justclock.dev/prices directly for current numbers.

Sources

1. WakaTime — Official Pricing Page
2. WakaTime — Supported Editors and IDEs
3. JustClock — Official Pricing Page