Partly. RescueTime has a free Lite tier that persists after cancellation, which is rare in this category. Paid plans are Focus at $7 per month billed annually ($9 monthly) and Solo+ at $12 per month annually ($15 monthly), with a 14-day trial.

Updated August 2026

RescueTime alternative, when the dashboard stops telling you anything

Q: Does RescueTime track time automatically?

Yes. RescueTime runs in the background and records applications and websites without you starting a timer. Its categorization is automatic but shallow: it scores activity against broad category defaults rather than understanding what you were doing.

Q: Why do people leave RescueTime?

Almost always the same reason: the reports do not resolve into a decision. RescueTime is very good at telling you what happened and not good at telling you what it meant, so the dashboard goes unopened.

We build a competing tracker, so weigh this accordingly. RescueTime has been at this longer than almost anyone and the data collection is genuinely good. This page is about the specific reason people stop opening it.

Is RescueTime free?

Partly, and it deserves credit for it. There is a free Lite tier that persists after cancellation, which almost no competitor offers. Paid is Focus $7 a month billed annually ($9 monthly) and Solo+ $12 annually ($15 monthly), after a 14-day trial.

Does RescueTime track time automatically?

Yes, and it has done for the better part of two decades. The collection is solid. The categorization is the shallow part: it scores activity against broad category defaults rather than working out what you were actually doing.

Why do people leave RescueTime?

Almost always one reason: the reports do not resolve into a decision. You learn that Tuesday was worse than Monday, not what to change, and by the time the weekly summary lands the week is over.

The RescueTime dashboard, dense with charts

What RescueTime does better than us

Eighteen years of operating history, a free tier that persists, Windows, Linux and mobile apps, and FocusTime blocking. It is also the cheapest credible paid option in the category.

And if you already have years of RescueTime history, that continuity is real and switching throws it away. That alone is a good reason to stay.

The one problem

RescueTime scores activity against broad category defaults. Social networking is negative, development tools are positive, and you tune it from there.

That works until your life stops matching the categories. LinkedIn is social networking, right up until the week you are hiring, when it is the most productive thing you do. Reddit is a distraction, except when the answer to your bug is on it. You can fix each case by hand, and that is the deal: a system you maintain.

The result is a lot of dashboard and comparatively little guidance. Thorough is not the same as actionable.

RescueTime versus Cronus

	RescueTime	Cronus
Price	Free Lite, then $7–$15/mo	$6 a month
Free tier	Yes, Lite	No, three-day trial
Categorization	Category scoring, you tune it	AI infers from context
Goal-aware	No	Yes
Rules to maintain	Yes, your own overrides	None
Blocking	FocusTime	Nudges only
Track record	~18 years	~1 year
Platforms	Mac, Windows, Linux, mobile	macOS, Windows in progress

The difference that decides it

RescueTime measures and reports. Cronus interprets and interrupts.

Instead of scoring domains on a fixed productivity scale, Cronus reads the app, window title and URL and works out what the activity meant relative to what you said you were trying to do. So the LinkedIn case resolves differently in different weeks, with nothing to tune. And the primary output is a nudge while the afternoon is getting away from you, not a summary on Sunday when the week is already spent.

Cronus showing a day broken down by what the time was in service of

Which to pick

Stay with RescueTime if you value years of history, need Windows, Linux or mobile, genuinely use FocusTime, or want a free tier from an established company.

Try Cronus if you have been paying for a dashboard you stopped opening, and what you actually wanted was for something to notice, in the moment, that the afternoon was going somewhere you did not choose.

Three days free, then $6 a month

The trial only counts days you actually use the app. Cronus never captures your screen.

Longer write-ups: every RescueTime alternative compared, the full head-to-head.