Self-Hosted Alternatives to Harvest
Why Replace Harvest?
Harvest charges $10.80/seat/month (billed annually). For a 10-person agency, that’s $1,296/year for time tracking and invoicing. Harvest’s free plan is limited to 1 seat and 2 projects — usable for solo freelancers but restrictive for teams.
Updated March 2026: Verified with latest Docker images and configurations.
Beyond pricing, Harvest stores your billable hours, client data, and invoices on their servers. For consulting firms handling sensitive client projects, keeping this data on your own infrastructure is a compliance and privacy win.
Best Alternatives
Kimai — Best Overall Replacement
Kimai is the closest self-hosted match to Harvest. It provides time tracking with project and activity management, built-in invoicing, team management with role-based permissions, and detailed reports. It covers Harvest’s core value proposition — tracking billable time and generating invoices — without per-seat fees.
Key advantages over Harvest:
- Unlimited users, projects, and activities
- Built-in invoicing with customizable templates
- Expense tracking plugin
- Budget and time estimate tracking per project
- REST API for integrations with accounting tools
Read our full guide: How to Self-Host Kimai
TimeTagger — Best for Solo Freelancers
If you use Harvest primarily as a solo freelancer to track your own time, TimeTagger offers a simpler alternative. Its tag-based approach replaces Harvest’s project hierarchy with flexible #hashtags. No invoicing built-in, but the time data exports to CSV for manual invoice creation.
Key advantages over Harvest:
- Tag-based tracking is faster than project/task hierarchies
- Interactive timeline view for editing entries
- Uses under 100 MB RAM — runs on anything
- No database setup required
Read our full guide: How to Self-Host TimeTagger
Traggo — Best Minimal Option
Traggo is even lighter than TimeTagger — a single Go binary with tag-based time tracking and basic dashboards. If you want the absolute minimum viable time tracker, Traggo deploys in seconds and uses almost no resources.
Read our full guide: How to Self-Host Traggo
Migration Guide
Harvest exports time entries, expenses, and invoices as CSV:
- Export from Harvest: Go to Settings → Manage → Time → Export. Select your date range and download CSV
- Import to Kimai: Use Kimai’s API to create projects, activities, and time entries from the Harvest CSV. Map Harvest projects to Kimai projects, tasks to activities, and entries to time records
- Client data: Recreate clients manually in Kimai (no automated import for client records)
What transfers:
- Time entries (date, hours, project, task, notes)
- Project and task structure
- Expense records (if using Kimai’s expense plugin)
What doesn’t transfer:
- Invoice history (export and archive from Harvest before canceling)
- Harvest integrations (Asana, Trello, Slack — recreate via Kimai API or n8n)
- Team permissions (reconfigure in Kimai)
Cost Comparison
| Harvest (10 seats) | Self-Hosted Kimai | |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly cost | $108/month | $0 (your server) |
| Annual cost | $1,296/year | ~$60/year (VPS share) |
| 3-year cost | $3,888 | ~$180 |
| Users | 10 (paid per seat) | Unlimited |
| Projects | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Invoicing | Included | Included |
| Expense tracking | Included | Plugin (free) |
| Data ownership | Harvest’s servers | Your server |
For solo freelancers on Harvest’s free plan (1 seat, 2 projects), self-hosting only makes sense if you need more than 2 projects or want data privacy. For teams, the savings are substantial from day one.
What You Give Up
- Harvest integrations: Native integrations with Asana, Trello, Slack, QuickBooks, and Xero. Kimai has API-based alternatives, but they require setup via n8n or custom scripts.
- Mobile apps: Harvest has polished iOS and Android apps with offline time tracking. Kimai’s mobile web UI is responsive but lacks offline support.
- Desktop timer: Harvest has Mac and Windows desktop apps for time tracking. Kimai relies on the web browser or its Chrome extension.
- Forecasting: Harvest’s Forecast add-on ($5/seat/month) provides team capacity planning. No self-hosted equivalent exists in Kimai.
- QuickBooks/Xero sync: Harvest syncs invoices directly to accounting software. With Kimai, you export invoices as PDF and enter them manually or build an API bridge.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can Kimai generate invoices like Harvest does?
Yes. Kimai has built-in invoicing with customizable templates. Select a date range, choose a customer, and generate invoices from tracked time entries. Export as PDF, DOCX, or CSV. You can customize invoice templates with your branding, tax rates, and line item formats. The main difference from Harvest: Kimai doesn’t directly sync invoices to QuickBooks or Xero — you export and import manually or build an API bridge with n8n.
Does Kimai support team management with billable rates?
Kimai supports per-user hourly rates, per-project rates, and per-activity rates with a clear hierarchy. Team admins see all entries; team leads see their team’s entries; regular users see only their own. Role-based permissions control who can edit time entries, manage projects, approve timesheets, and generate reports. Unlimited users at no additional cost.
How do I track time on mobile without Harvest’s app?
Kimai’s web interface is fully responsive and works in mobile browsers. For native-app-like functionality, add Kimai to your home screen as a PWA. Third-party apps like “Kimai Time Tracker” are available for Android. The main gap versus Harvest: no offline time tracking on mobile — you need an internet connection to start/stop timers.
Can I import my existing Harvest time entries?
Export your Harvest data as CSV (Settings → Manage → Time → Export). Use Kimai’s REST API to import entries programmatically. Map Harvest fields: project → Kimai project, task → activity, hours → duration, notes → description. Client records need manual recreation. Several community scripts exist for Harvest-to-Kimai migration on GitHub. Budget 1-2 hours for a typical migration.
What’s the difference between Kimai, TimeTagger, and Traggo?
Kimai is a full-featured time tracking and invoicing platform — the Harvest replacement for teams. TimeTagger uses hashtag-based time tracking with an interactive timeline — best for solo freelancers who want speed over structure. Traggo is the absolute minimum — a single binary for basic time tracking with dashboards. Choose Kimai for teams and invoicing, TimeTagger for personal tracking, Traggo if you want near-zero overhead.
How much server resources does Kimai need?
Kimai runs on PHP with a MySQL/MariaDB database. Expect ~256 MB RAM for the PHP process and ~256 MB for the database. A $5/month VPS handles a 20-person team easily. TimeTagger needs under 100 MB RAM total. Traggo uses even less. All three are lightweight enough to share a server with other self-hosted services.
Can I set up project budgets and track burn rate like in Harvest?
Kimai supports time budgets per project and per activity. Set a budget in hours or monetary value, and Kimai shows remaining budget and burn rate in the project view. When a budget is exceeded, Kimai can optionally prevent further time entries. The expense tracking plugin adds cost tracking beyond just time.
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