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Show HN: An open source alternative to Wakatime

wakana.io

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Show HN: An open source alternative to Wakatime

#1
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

Show HN: An open source alternative to Wakatime
wakana.io

Re: Show HN: An open source alternative to Wakatime

#6
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
From the FAQ:

> 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

Re: Show HN: An open source alternative to Wakatime

#9
post #8

Why does such a tool need an API and an external connection? I use `arbtt`, which is local-only.

> 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.

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