Time Doctor VS Hubstaff: A Detailed Comparison With An Unbiased Review

When you work with a remote team, burnout is a natural phenomenon. You love your business, and you are utterly loyal towards it, but do your employees feel the same?

They’d spend much of their time flitting between Instagram and YouTube, and when it came to job reporting, they’d say things like, “It was a long day, sir.”

Witty employee after goofing you

What could you even do without having a reliable system of employee tracking in place? What if we tell you, you don’t have to stay tied in the same ‘don’t make me fool’ cycle.

How? By installing proven systems used to track the real-time activity of your employees.

employee after knowing about a time tracker app

Now, you’re probably scratching your head, trying to figure out what these systems are…

These are called time tracker apps, which let you watch what activity your employee is currently working on. Furthermore, these apps track the time spent on “real” work for the day, making it simpler to hold your staff accountable.

So, you see…

There are plenty of these systems available, but which is the best? Time Doctor and Hubstaff are two of the most well-known time tracker apps that we will discuss here. You should dig further into both of them to discover which one best suits your needs. Here’s a breakdown of their features and an ‘unbiased review’.

Excited? Let’s get this party started…

Hubstaff is a workforce management software in which you can track time, create payrolls and invoices and secure proof of work. Time doctor reports the in-depth analysis of the area of the task most worked upon, and it randomly screenshots the computer screen every few minutes.

We just touched the shell of the coconut. Let’s cut in the soft part- the comparison.

Time doctor vs Hubstaff

Most of the features in these apps are similar, but some are not! Let’s compare!

Time and Activity Tracking

Hubstaff’s time tracking approach is relatively automated and minimal, whereas Time doctor’s more interactive and advanced.

Hubstaff records productivity levels as per mouse and keyboard activities. As long as there’s a movement in your keyboard or mouse, the time interval will be recorded as active.

For example, you spend:

Ten minutes: outlining the design

Fifteen minutes: selecting the colour for the layout

Ten minutes: googling for inspo

Five minutes: sipping coffee (because you need it)

So, how will Hubstaff record my time working? Hubstaff will indicate ‘25’ minutes as ‘active time’ and ignore those 5 minutes of coffee time with no mouse or keyboard activity.

How does the Time doctor track productivity? Time doctor records the amount of time spent on a specific task. With time doctor, you can quickly figure out what duration your employees were on break and how long they’d been working.

When beginning and finishing the task, the start and stop buttons are used, this way, the Time doctor will report the total hours spent on that project.

Both time doctor and Hubstaff take random screenshots of the screen while working. Hubstaff stores these screenshots on Amazon’s S3 Servers, whereas Time doctor stores them on an SSL encrypted folder. Time doctor is more privacy-oriented.

In time doctor, the manager also gets an insight into what their employee in the active time visited websites or apps.

Compatibility

Hubstaff has successfully outplayed the game of compatibility. You can’t use time doctor if you use a Linux or Chromebook. Time Doctor supports only macOS, Android, IOS, and Windows. Hubstaff, on the other hand, is not only compatible with the devices stated but also with Chromebooks and Linux.

Pricing and FREE STUFF?

Hubstaff offers a free plan with minimal features but time doctor DOESN’T. If you want to use time doctor, you WILL have to shed money. Here is the breakdown of plans:

Hubstaff:

Basic plan:

• 24 hours support
• 10 users or less
• limited productivity features
• $5.83 per user monthly

Premium plan:

• All productivity features, including payroll, invoicing and integrations.
• Suitable for remote/ office/ field teams.
• GPS tracking
• $8.33 per user monthly

Enterprise plan:

• Bonus features like VIP support and unlimited job sites
• $16.67 per user monthly

Time doctor

Business Plan:

• All productivity tracking features and insights like payroll and integrations with support.
• $10 per user monthly

Enterprise plan:

• additional features like video screen capture and client login access
• $20 per user monthly

Oh! forgot to mention.

Both Hubstaff and time doctor have a FREE 14 days free trial too!

Geofencing

Time doctor lacks in geofencing, which is a fantastic feature. Geofencing tracks the employees’ location in the desired geographical fence.

Here’s an example:

Let’s say you have a construction business, and your employees visit the site frequently. Your employee, as you well know, is a witty wonka, and once he leaves the office, you are draining yourself thinking he must be doing this instead of working:

This is where geofencing comes to play. In geofencing, you can add multiple job sites and assign employees to these sites.

Hubstaff’s geofencing Insight

Once the employees reach the location, the timer will automatically turn on, and when they leave, it will be turned off. This way, you can track their actual location and workable hours and bill accordingly. Hubstaff has a USP in geofencing.

Distraction checking

Our mind is a wanderlust! Social media sites keep cal

ling us, and we hop on them real quick while working. In time doctor, if an excessive usage of these sites is reported, a pop up appears asking if you’re still working.

This feature turns out to be a game-changer in minimising distractions and improving productivity. Unfortunately, Hubstaff doesn’t have such a thing.

So much to remember, so much remains to go through…

A brief comparison of the various other parameters:

Features Hubstaff has but time doctor DOESN’T:

• Work order, territory, employee, activity and driver management
• Status tracking
• performance metrics
• Budgeting
• Accounting integration

Features time doctor has but Hubstaff DOESN’T:

• Time, expense, leave tracking
• SSP
• Real-time updates, customised reporting and analytics
• Attendance management
• Access controls/permissions

Phew…We have reached the end of our article…and it’s review time!!!

You can go through the following points to see what you should choose.

• For remote teams, like a content writing agency or a graphic designing agency where a lot of time is spent taking inspo, time doctor will do the needful for you. If you have a site-based business, then Hubstaff’s geofencing will be a brilliant option.
• If you don’t want to invest in a time tracker tool initially, you can choose Hubstaff’s free plan. Moreover, the paid plans of both of them don’t have much difference so you can choose either one.
• Chromebooks and Linux users won’t have an option of using time doctor.
• Lastly, we think time doctor is more encrypted and safer.

That’s all, folks! Time to make the team realise: