Monitoring employee productivity without disrupting their workflow is a common challenge for team leaders, HR professionals, and business owners. Platforms like DeskTime and TimeDoctor are widely used workforce management tools that streamline and automate daily workforce operations.
These tools offer a comprehensive solution to workforce challenges by addressing issues such as time theft, buddy punching, manual timesheets, inaccurate attendance records, and inefficient scheduling.
This DeskTime vs Time Doctor comparison explores each software's key features, pricing, benefits, and limitations, helping you determine which solution best supports your team’s objectives and workflow needs.
DeskTime vs Time Doctor – At A Glance
Feature
DeskTime
Time Doctor
Time Tracking
Automatic and manual tracking, clock-in/out, break durations
Timeline and activity reports, hours tracked, client-based reporting
Project Management
Project/task creation, hourly rate assignment
Task-level monitoring, integrations with project management software
Pricing
Starting from $7/user/month
Starting from $8/user/month
What Is DeskTime?
DeskTime is an automatic time tracking software designed to streamline the workflow management of onsite and remote teams. Its comprehensive suite of features includes productivity calculations, time tracking dashboards, screenshots, and export capabilities.
DeskTime is primarily used by business owners for managing their team’s working hours and project managers for handling resource allocations and project productivity analysis. Businesses can boost their productivity by 30% with their effective resource allocation, eliminating overworking and employee burnout.
Standout Features
Productivity Calculations: DeskTime classifies apps and websites as productive or unproductive based on team roles, providing accurate productivity insights
Document Title Tracking: This feature records both app usage and specific document titles, allowing managers to see exactly what employees are working on
Absence Calendar: Enables teams to log their time off, sick days, vacations, and partial day out, giving managers a clear view of staff availability
User Dashboards: Each user has a customized dashboard displaying their productivity data, work hours, and daily performance trends
Pros And Cons
Pros
Enables daily, weekly, or monthly data retrieval
Segments employees by department for better insights
Offers accurate time tracking with a user-friendly interface
Cons
Charts and data can be confusing to interpret
Limited functionality and support on Linux systems
What Is Time Doctor?
Time Doctor is a robust time-tracking and productivity management tool that helps businesses monitor and improve employee performance, especially in remote and hybrid work settings. The software offers businesses features like payroll management, inactivity alerts, and enterprise-level security and support.
Time Doctor caters to a diverse range of industries and sectors, including staff leasing, technology, agencies, and contact centers. It assists them by offering insights into work patterns while monitoring activities.
Standout Features
Silent Tracking: This feature allows businesses to track employee activity in the background, enabling businesses to protect their company’s overall productivity, leading to successful outcome
Executive Dashboards: Enables managers to gain clear insights on how their team works while ensuring each of their work is being accounted for
Inactivity Alerts: This feature allows HR professionals and managers to identify when employees are losing focus and send them a gentle reminder to refocus and stay on task
Payroll Reporting: Allows HR professionals to simplify budgeting, billing, and payroll by integrating them with your existing system, reducing manual payroll errors, leading to better accuracy
Pros And Cons
Pros
The screenshot feature enhances activity monitoring
Easy to use and track software development tasks
Precise real-time tracking ensures accurate billable hours
Cons
Time resets when the network connection is lost
The mobile app lacks certain features, like keyboard/mouse tracking
DeskTime Vs Time Doctor: Key Features Comparison
1. Time Tracking
DeskTime records employee work hours and attendance, capturing clock-in/clock-out times, break durations, and total hours worked. Its manual time tracking enables users to log work hours for tasks completed away from the computer, ensuring a complete overview of the workday. Users value its automatic time tracking, which helps managers calculate an employee's hourly spend for both online and offline work.
Time Doctor provides a robust time-tracking solution that enables users to monitor and analyze time spent on individual tasks. Managers can create tasks and track time with precision, ensuring accurate measurement of work activities. The software also includes automatic inactivity alerts to help keep teams focused. Users value its real-time tracking capabilities, which provide precise recording of billable hours and full accountability for every minute spent on data analysis tasks.
Winner: This section ends with a draw as both software offers advanced time tracking capabilities, allowing managers to track employee work activities with precision.
2. Employee Monitoring
DeskTime employee monitoring feature offers businesses real-time insights on how an employee uses their computer during working hours. It allows them to track URLs and applications while showing time spent on each activity and categorizing them as productive or unproductive. The software also provides an optional screenshot feature along with a blur option for privacy. Users find its web browsing URL tracking feature useful for maintaining transparency and ensuring focus during work hours.
Time Doctor provides a robust employee monitoring solution with versatile time tracking. It logs website and application usage, takes screenshots at customizable intervals, and monitors keyboard and mouse activity to assess user engagement. Businesses can track employee’s time either online or offline on their computer, tablets, and mobile devices, ensuring accurate and timely working hours records regardless of the location.
Winner: Time Doctor wins this section with its mouse and keyboard movement activity tracking.
3. Reporting And Analytics
DeskTime offers detailed, customizable reports on employee productivity and attendance tailored to meet specific needs. These customizable reports help identify patterns and establish benchmarks for improvement. The platform provides time-tracking reports, data exports, and a real-time dashboard, giving managers valuable insights into work hours, application usage, and productivity trends. Additionally, DeskTime allows users to export data in Excel or CSV formats, enabling deeper analysis and easy sharing with stakeholders.
Time Doctor delivers powerful reporting tools that help managers analyze productivity, track time spent on tasks or clients and review overall work patterns. It offers various report types, such as timelines, activity summaries, hours tracked, and attendance records, providing managers with valuable insights into work patterns, employee activity, and overall efficiency.
Winner: DeskTime wins this section with its comprehensive reporting and analytic capabilities.
4. Project Management
DeskTime’s project tracking feature allows users to track the exact time spent on specific projects and tasks. Users can create projects and tasks within the platform, assign hourly rates, and add descriptions. This feature provides accurate insights into work progress, aids in estimating resources for future tasks, and ensures precise client billing based on the time spent.
Time Doctor provides project and task tracking capabilities, enabling users to monitor time spent on projects, clients, or tasks. Additionally, Time Doctor features real-time monitoring with optional screenshots and time reports, offering enhanced oversight of project activities. You can create new projects and tasks within those projects, assign employees or teams to specific tasks, and integrate with popular project and task management apps like Jira, Trello, and Asana.
Winner: This section ends with a tie as both software offers powerful project tracking features.
5. Pricing
DeskTime offers four pricing plans with a free trial in its Pro and Premium plans. The free plan includes basic time tracking features with web time and app tracking. The paid plans include advanced features like document title tracking, screenshots, and integrations with various third-party applications. Here’s the breakdown of its pricing tiers:
Lite: Free (1 user only)
Pro: $7/user/month
Premium: $10/user/month
Enterprise: Custom pricing
Disclaimer: The pricing is subject to change.
Time Doctor offers four subscription plans, each with a 14-day free trial, designed to meet various business requirements. The Basic plan includes time tracking, task and project management, and timeline reports. The paid plans provide additional features such as time approval, activity summaries, executive dashboards, and AI-generated reports on unusual activity. Below is the pricing breakdown
Basic: $8/user/month
Standard: $14/user/month
Premium: $20/user/month
Enterprise: Customized Pricing
Disclaimer: The pricing is subject to change.
Winner: DeskTime takes the lead in this section as it offers budget-friendly pricing options, making it ideal for small to medium-sized businesses.
Final Verdict: Which Platform Best Matches Your Needs?
DeskTime and Time Doctor offer a robust range of features, both catering to diverse business requirements. DeskTime is an ideal choice for businesses who are looking for in-depth reporting and analytical capabilities, along with its customizable productivity reports and real-time dashboards. Time Doctor, on the other hand, excels in its employee monitoring, offering advanced features like mouse and keyboard tracking, silent monitoring, and extensive cross-device tracking.
Ultimately your choice for the right employee scheduling software depends on your business priorities—choose DeskTime for affordability and powerful reporting, and Time Doctor if your focus is employee oversight and performance optimization.
