Show HN: An open source alternative to Wakatime
26 comments
·March 25, 2025xnx
Hoping someone can change the title to something like "Shown HN: Wakana - Open source wakatime alternative"
jemiluv8
This is embarrassing. At the time I was making the post, HN kept rejecting it and the title became shorter and shorter with every try. I am trying to edit the title now without much success. Thanks for the suggestion. It would’ve helped people know what it was about better than the current title
spacechild1
The missing title happens to be quite effective click bait, so I would keep it :)
jemiluv8
hahahaaa. The title has been updated. Great observation fyi
neilv
WakaTime offers business/enterprise licensing, where self-improvement/introspection suddenly looks exactly like corporate task management, employee surveillance, and performance metrics.
So, "leaderboard" (fun!) becomes "stack-ranking" (vicious!).
How do you see Wakana positioned and used, in practice?
* Will it be used by the individual for self-improvement and time management?
* Will metrics-crazed companies use it to whip-crack employees?
* Will even a non-corporate leaderboard/ranking be twisted and gamed for self-promotion?
jemiluv8
I share your sentiments as a developer. That was one of my motivations for starting work on this. I wanted developers to decide and develop some of these metrics. I am not sure how exactly that looks like and I am hoping open source will help in figuring that out. In the meantime please check the faq. Developer productivity is not something that can be measured with simple metrics like time spent coding.
jemiluv8
> Will it be used by the individual for self-improvement and time management?
At the moment my only goal is for the developer to use it to track and observe work habits. All else is not really applicable at the moment.
rustc
So this uses https://github.com/wakatime/wakatime-cli under the hood. Is there any way to make wakatime-cli store all data locally in a file (like sqlite or csv)?
airstrike
Home page says:
> Copy and paste this into your ~/.wakatime.cfg file
[settings]
api_url = https://api.wakana.io/api
api_key = ## replace this with your api key when you login
> This is a self-hosted version of wakatime.com that is open source and free to use. We rely on the same open source plugins and collect the same data that is available from wakatime's open source plugins.
Naturally this being FOSS, I see from the README on github that you have a choice to self-host, so maybe that ought to be front and center on the home page? Actually the README has a ton of content that could be on the site
jemiluv8
I agree. There is a lot that is not on the homepage. I’d welcome any contributions. I barely managed to put together a decent homepage.
j1elo
The Docker instructions at https://github.com/jemiluv8/wakana point to using this image:
ghcr.io/muety/wakapi:latest
jemiluv8
Yup. My bad. My fork needs lots of readme and other updates
null
Diti
Why does such a tool need an API and an external connection? I use `arbtt`, which is local-only.
echoangle
> Why does such a tool need an API and an external connection?
So time spent on different devices can be tracked under a single user account, I guess.
Klaster_1
This problem exists indeed and I encounter it from time to time when I switch between desktop and laptop. My time tracking tool [0] is local-only and I still didn't come up with a solution that lets it remain so and a PWA at the same time. Solutions that allow you to sync data without a dedicated server (as in running specifically for your app needs) range from trivial ones like storing the data in a Google Drive all the way to P2P.
jemiluv8
Ideally a tool like this should be a desktop app. But people tend to use multiple devices or even change their devices and then the question of data migration comes in.
It also helps to be able to access these stats anywhere instead of just on the device it is installed on.
Eventually, this can become a hybrid. But the expedient solution is what we have now.
null
jonny_eh
What's wakatime?
jemiluv8
It is a tool used by developers to keep track of time spent in their editor as well as related metadata like which projects were worked on, which languages were used and so on
jemiluv8
Let me know if anyone has challenges setting up.
botanical76
When trying to login via GitHub, I was redirected to "https://wakana.io/login?error=An+unexpected+error+occurred+w...", without an error message being displayed.
jemiluv8
This has been fixed. You may now login with github.
jemiluv8
Try the email otp for now.
I built an open source alternative to wakatime because I don't think a wakatime premium should cost more than a Github copilot subscription. The problem wakatime solves is rather straightforward. Their hardest bit of business is creating all those plugins, besides that the backend just ingests plugin data and organizes it into a dashboard that gives insights into developer work habits.
I also felt features like goals, invoices and management of clients shouldn't require premium subscription. And for the most part, I feel I'm right. Especially after implementing these features.
The website is now in beta testing and I'd love your feedback on some of the metrics you'd like to see that are not currently on the wakatime website.
I've already added stats about the amount of coding time spent writing code. And for me it feels like a big deal thus far.
I've also been playing with an idea of showing developer focus/attention as buckets of heartbeats over time or heartbeat frequency over time.
I feel there is more. Looking forward to hearing your feedback