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Both as an employee and a people person, I'd say happy employees lead to increased productivity quotient.
Keeping calculative eyes on the tiniest employee activity is always jarring to an employee. Not that they have a vendetta, but they expect their workplace to trust in their merit. As the social revolution takes shape, I have grown curious to learn the ropes of employee monitoring and its significance.
With selective mentoring from HR and accounting teams, I came to terms with challenges like decreased employee engagement, employee absenteeism, low-quality performance, and high employee attrition, which leaves HR teams at a crossroads. That led me to shortlist 40+ of the best employee monitoring software, out of which I tried and evaluated 7 tools to see how they measure up in terms of employee productivity and staff return on investment that HR teams seek.
Other than my own experience, these 7 best employee monitoring software have also been ranked as top performing leaders on G2 based on flagship G2 score that highlights customer satisfaction, ease of budget, market presence, and ease of usability.
*These employee monitoring software are top-rated in their category, according to G2 Grid Reports. I’ve also added their monthly pricing to make comparisons easier for you.
Employee monitoring software are workforce productivity tools that track, manage, and optimize team performance for reporting managers via cursory movement tracking, time tracking, browser activity tracking, calendar updates, leaves, and attendance to ensure they are hitting their monthly, quarterly, or yearly targets.
As an experienced professional, I understand where to draw a line between managing employees efficiently and nitpicking on slight deviations from employee behavior. While tracking browser activity and day-to-day behavior seemed like a part of the process, there can be different anticipation at the employee's end. I didn't delve too much into the criticalities of managing screen or browser behavior since they don't matter if the employee delivers on their target and projects otherwise.
While this is true, having a tangible knowledge of which features can clinically track employee performance and which ones simply strain employee experience is necessary as you sit down to evaluate the best employee software. In keeping with my extensive experience as an employee, I have tried my best to give the gist of all the tools that I analyzed.
I spent weeks trying and testing several employee monitoring software based on dedicated pros and cons, reviews, pricing, features, and other market parameters. During my testing, I also referred to artificial intelligence to narrow down my findings and identify certain patterns from real-time G2 reviews to describe the actual customer sentiment for all the products in this list. I also referred to the G2 Grid Reports and evaluated the G2 score, G2 ratings, and other buying factors like ease of use, ease of admin, customer segments, and market satisfaction to arrive at a final list.
As I explored these tools, I enlisted the must-have features that are directly proportionate to an employee's high throughput and task timeliness. I experimented with core functions like presetting calendar meets, scheduling events, building custom performance reports, analyzing timesheets, and managing screen inactivity to evaluate whether the impact on the employee is genuine or not.
As I dug deeper into employee monitoring tools, I also outlined the actual common protocols and standards that teams can agree on jointly and take into account as they start their work day. This list combines all of these features to help me envision an agile, creative, and proactive workplace where lethargy or dissatisfaction never gets in the way of organizing and managing work agendas.
Based on my in-depth analysis, these five factors can really make your employee monitoring software stand out and lead to an efficient workplace.
After scouring through around 40 solutions, I shortlisted the top 7 employee monitoring software based on the above criteria and set my foot to examine them to the tiniest detail.
The list below contains genuine user reviews from employee monitoring software. Please note that in the context of this list, vendors offering a free trial are also considered free.
To be included in this software category, a solution must:
*This data was pulled from G2 in 2025. Some reviews may have been edited for clarity.
For my fellow HR team members, I would recommend Hubstaff as a suitable employee monitoring software. It provides performance tracking and project management services on a centralized platform.
What I loved most about Hubstaff was that it tracked employee activities and informed me about what was on everyone's plate. The time tracking feature is super straightforward to use, and I could monitor hours and activities across my team. The main dashboard cleanly described the number of employees present, task progress, work inactivity, and stakeholder communication.
I didn't know any tool would offer such a detailed and personalized reporting feature as Hubstaff. It helped me generate activity summaries, track app URLs, log time taken, and even filter reports for a specific date and time. Whether you are prepping for an upcoming meeting or performance cycles, custom reporting helps save a lot of time.
Another path-breaking feature was the easy plugs I could make with project management and productivity tools like Trello, Slack, and Asana. Plus, I could track the proximity of my peers and team members, which is a plus if your teams frequently remain out of the office for events or field visits.
That said, I found the pricing to be a little steep. If you're managing a set of 10 or 15 employees and choosing an affordable plan, this might overshoot your budget. Especially if you are not using all the features.
Speaking of accuracy, the activity metrics might need a bit of tweaking. I have noticed occasional discrepancies, like reporting 80% activity for tasks that don't require much attention.
Finally, when compared to contenders, some employee monitoring systems also offer inbuilt surveillance and take screenshots at a lesser cost. I felt that Hubstaff could be more competitive and strengthen its employee-based feature set.
"Well, It is the best tool for monitoring the productivity of our employees and it also helps us to monitor the data breaches by the employee side. I know this because I'm an HR manager, and it is a very good thing to monitor this kind of activity. It is easy to use it for our employees to track their time at work and their presence at their work station. It also has great customer support that offers help to overcome the issues we are facing. We use it frequently in our daily work life. We have downloaded it to our every employee to monitor their productivity. Integrating the Hubstaff in the system is easy. The implementation of the Hubstaff is essential in the employee's system."
- Hubstaff Review, Muhammad H.
"What I find challenging about Hubstaff is that its detailed tracking features can sometimes feel too involved, especially with the frequent screenshots and activity monitoring. While these features are helpful for productivity, they can occasionally feel like they add a bit of extra pressure."
- Hubstaff Review, Agatha C.
Build a solid staffing budget and track employee expense reimbursements with added agility with free expense management software to smoothen your HR operations.
I found out that Time Doctor has over 245,000 active users, and I got the hype as it divided employee activity and time monitoring into three parts: team insights, manager insights, and company insights. Whether I wanted to learn about peer tasks and projects, track screen behavior, or customize real-time data-driven performance metrics, Time Doctor delivered on all these fronts.
The time-tracking feature is incredibly detailed. I could capture the start and end times of tasks, the time spent on an average website URL, and even breaks or timeout sessions.
Time Doctor took periodic screenshots of my screen, which I found was pretty competitive and useful for the employee. It is especially beneficial if you, as a manager, need visibility in your team's activities.
The reporting features were top-notch, offering custom and data-driven summaries of performance metrics like deals closed, contract value, and so on. From detailed breakdowns of time usage to project progress graphs, I was in awe of the amount of accountability that came with the platform.
Another thing to mention is the ease of integration with productivity and billing management software to track employee billable hours with ease. Also, whether I use it as an individual, small business owner, or CEO, the tool offers flexible and affordable subscription plans to not bleed my budget.
However, while I could track and maintain employee performance, the software also froze or crashed at times. That interrupted my workflow and forced me to restart everything manually.
While screen sharing and screenshots are helpful, I grew concerned that they might be suspicious at the employee's end. While I could disable them, they might still feel intrusive to team members. A few times, when I needed more guidance regarding these features, I tried to raise a customer service ticket, but the turnaround and resolution were quite slow.
"Time Doctor has always been our go-to platform whenever we have questions on productivity by the agents. It eliminates guesses as the platform itself does its wonders on proofs such as screenshots and URLs being accessed by our agents.
- Time Doctor Review, Epok P.
"Some employees may resist the implementation of time tracking apps, viewing them as intrusive or a sign of distrust from management."
- Time Doctor Review, Roxanne Marie V.
Explore free task management software that can optimize team communication and collaboration to analyze employee literacy regarding particular tasks.
I have been using ActiveTrak for a while now, and I didn't find a match for services like workforce intelligence, AI-powered insights and cursor matching.
Getting started was super easy—the setup was quick, and the interface was pretty intuitive and beginner-friendly. Everything is organized intuitively, from activity tracking to behavior analytics to app URL logs, so I didn't have to spend much time figuring it out.
It offered everything under one roof- workforce management, performance tracking, and employee monitoring so I didn't have to tussle between multiple apps. What impressed me was how effectively it traced employee work hours- from app usage to idle time.
Custom reporting is another detailed and customizable service that lets me set up dashboards tailored to my priorities. I love that it can monitor various apps and websites, set up alerts, and even group users for focused tracking.
That said, some performance management features were locked behind high-tier subscriptions, which threw me a little. While basic plans are great to start, you will need a premium subscription to unlock ActivTrak's full potential.
But overall, ActivTrack offers compliance management, keystroke logging, billable rate management, and other features for small to larger organizations, which are enough to manage employee productivity.
"I like that we can pretty much track all activity on out end users laptops. It's easy to use once you get the hang of it. It has lots of features like building groups and teams."
- ActivTrak Review, Dante E.
"There are some filtering features that do not capture correct categorizations, even after you have categorized sites."
- ActivTrak Review, Micah D.
Learn how to plan and organize employee performance reviews to motivate your direct reports and empower them to improve their services in the next quarter.
If you are looking for a rundown of employee activity timetables and monitoring performance in real time, I have DeskTime for you.
What differentiated it the most for me was its ability to handle the technical side of things—managing billable rates, tracking project hours, and keeping timesheets up to date.
DeskTime was perfect for allocating hours to specific tasks, ensuring I stayed on top of deadlines and budgets for new hires. I can assign spending to projects, get updates from the revenue team, and do a real-time computation of ROI. Completing projects on time has never been easier for me.
The automated time tracking feature also ensured that I logged my work and my team's work accurately, which led to a tangible increase in efficiency. Plus, the integration with electronic payment systems streamlined the pay cycles for employees and freelancers alike.
That said, DeskTime created some ripples in the form of syncing time or sharing screens in real time with fellow colleagues. The reporting features, while detailed, were hard to decipher and understand to build tailored reports.
Another issue I noticed was with third-party integrations - while it was great with productivity tools, I couldn't set a link with more niche third-party office tools. Also, the mobile app, while functional, appeared a little outdated to me in terms of user interface.
Overall, DeskTime is a competitive time-tracking and employee-monitoring tool that offered me a lot of legroom to track and optimize project agility. But you can make that call after signing up for a free trial or demo.
"Desktime was a lifesaver for me; as an IT manager, I was having a hard time managing my team, which was mostly working from home, and our productivity in tasks was going down; after implementing Desktime on every team member now, I can list measure productivity as well as reporting feature are top notch which helps me to evaluate performance for every member without micromanaging. And for platform desktime integrated with out any issue and running smoothly."
- DeskTime Review, Adarsh G.
"One downside of DeskTime is that it can feel overly invasive for some users. Constantly tracking activities may create discomfort, especially for employees who feel micromanaged. While the intention is to boost productivity, it’s important for organizations to strike a balance and communicate clearly about its purpose to avoid reducing morale."
- Hubstaff Review, Kimberly A.
If you are serious about managing your staff and building an agile project framework to coordinate and regularize the work quotient, let me tell you about the Teramind tool.
I was fascinated with Teramind's services, which provide data loss protection, threat investigation and management, and network operationalization as part of the productivity stack. I felt right at home navigating through them, as I knew that data connections were secure and reliable at all times.
Also, it offers real-time activity monitoring for all your employees on a centralized dashboard so that nothing escapes your eye. Whether it is tracking app logins, web usage, or real-time interactions, you can set granular controls and keep your pulse on recent tasks and projects.
Another big win is the focus on data loss prevention. It was surreal to navigate to many access controls, monitor file transfer, encrypt files, and even set up alerts for suspicious logins. The reporting and analytics feature was also a big win by a huge margin. I was not just watching over employee work; but optimizing workflows and improving communication at the same time.
However, no product is perfect, and Teramind has its share of issues. They worked well for the most part but had occasional performance lags and downtime, which interrupted my flow of tasks.
While I didn't have major issues, I can see that someone less tech-savvy may struggle to find their way. Some of the configurations, like setting custom rules for monitoring, confused me as I couldn't set those conditions or formulas properly.
Overall, Teramind proved to be a feature-backed employee monitoring tool that offered robust DLP and encryption support to ensure that your data does not seep through the cracks at any given time.
"Teramind allows us to use it in the easiest way. You can download it quickly, and there is great customer support if you have issues. I use it every day, and what I love more is that it does not affect your work with intrusive pop-ups for screenshots. All my team and I were using it in the insurance agency, and it helped increase productivity without micromanagement."
- Teramind Review, Maria Angélica G.
"Very occasionally, the agent updates will fail due to a conflict with antivirus applications, but after the initial teething problems, we haven't experienced any issues."
- Teramind Review, Rob S.
When I used Time Champ, I affirmed that it simplistic and friendly user interface and seamless productivity management services can uplift any organization's throughput.
Time Champ offers seamless attendance management, browser tracking and task management across all departments in your organization. I could easily segregate my focus hours, project syncs, and time reports on a centralized platform to keep a routine tracking record and set a disciplined framework for higher productivity.
During my test, I found that it was also seamlessly integrated with different operating systems, providing smooth transitions without any noticeable lags or errors.
The employee monitoring feature was also a standout. While testing, I appreciated how unobtrusive it was while still offering performance insights and activity reports. It also offered every other known option, like attendance tracking, reporting analytics, and timesheet automation, at our fingertips.
On the integration front, I set smooth application programming interface (APIP) flows for other project management extensions like Trello or Slack. Receiving a dropdown of time duration on projects was also a huge plus for me.
However, I also noticed the tool's extensive menus can be a little daunting to first-time users. You need to refer to additional tutorials and tooltips to uncover the complete magic of the platform.
Also, I couldn't track active time sessions while in offline mode. I struggled to sync properly when the internet connection was finally restored but still faced some minor network inconsistencies.
The mobile application, though functional, didn't provide tailored options for performance and browser activity tracking, which was another gripe for me. All in all, Time Champ is a fitting solution for extending thoughtful supervision across your teams and motivating your colleagues or project stakeholders to optimize focus in the right areas.
"We have been using Time Champ for the past six months, and I must say it is one of the best tools I have come across. It helped us manage our remote and hybrid employees, improve their productivity, and help burnout employees make sure they manage their work-life balance by distributing the workload accordingly."
- Time Champ Review, Kata P.
"There are a couple of tweaks I wish they would make. It's not the most customizable tool out there, and every now and then, I bump into these tiny glitches that can be a bit annoying. But honestly, considering what it brings to the table, I'm willing to let those slide."
- Time Champ Review, Rohit K.
What sold me on Insightful was the real-time employee tracking, screen recording, and location tracking controls, which gave me intel about my employees' performance.
If you operate in a work-from-home or hybrid work setup, I ascertain that Insightful is pretty competitive in offering the same kind of employee experience. Whether I was tracking team activity or monitoring projects, I could enable a live dashboard view to ensure that everything was transparent and visible to all.
It was not just about seeing the actions—real-time time tracking, attendance management, and workforce analytics also stood out as ways to maintain synergy with peers and project stakeholders and monitor every single piece of collaboration until milestone completion.
Insightful's user interface is clean and sleek. I've seen employee monitoring software that takes weeks to master, but with Insightful, the learning curve was almost nonexistent. Employees and administrators can navigate it effortlessly.
What surprised me the most was the pricing. Insightful delivered top-tier features at a fraction of the cost of competitors. I also quickly resolved my doubts with the live chat feature, which was genuinely a great addition to the overall tech suite.
While the software is pretty versatile and employer-friendly, there are a few areas of concern. For example, I could tweak certain settings for a specific department without affecting anyone else. This can be limiting if you are managing diverse teams with diverse needs.
Also, some really cool features were paid integrations tucked behind the paid plan and restricted me from streamlining my project operations.
As much as I loved Insightful, I wish it had more integrations with Microsoft 365 or Slack. While the current setup is great, expanding its connectivity would have elevated the software to a different level.
"I love how Insightful makes it easy to track productivity and manage remote teams effectively. The automatic time tracking and detailed reports give me a clear view of project progress without micromanaging, and the intuitive interface is a plus. Additionally, Insightful’s ability to analyze work patterns helps improve efficiency and streamline our workflow. It’s definitely a valuable tool for anyone looking to optimize team productivity!"
- Insightful Review, Ahmed A.
"Basic functionalities like Zoom integrations do not work. Support is taking way too long to get us an answer. We've had an open ticket from the time we signed with them (2 months)."
- Insightful Review, Joshua E.
Yes, employee monitoring software is legal and ethical since it adheres to local labor laws, governmental policies, and compliance requirements. By clearly communicating workplace standards and job expectations to employees, it maintains a clean slate to rightfully track employee performance. The data shared on the platform remains encrypted and doesn’t compromise the organization’s data security.
Employee monitoring software offers flexible clock-in or clock-out time slots, sets attendance benchmarks, and anticipates due working hours for employees based on project intensity and stakeholder commitments. Users can customize employee monitoring software based on the nature and key performance indicators for their diverse teams.
Some of the best employee monitoring software are ActivTrak, Time Doctor, Teramind and Hubstaff, which promote agile task tracking and improve employee engagement and dedication.
Choosing the best free employee monitoring software depends on the organizational goals and work hierarchy you follow. Some of the best options are ActivTrak and Hubstaff which you can take a trial for at no cost.
Some of the best employee monitoring software for remote employee management are Insightful and Teramind as they offer end to end data encryption and remote system administration to keep a consistent flow of interaction and enable video sharing capabilities with ease.
Before you initialize your process of shortlisting an employee monitoring software, it is imperative to outline your common business goals and employee productivity throughput. Because of new protocols and standards in the human resources sector, being more agile and accommodating as senior leadership is the first step in developing a high-impact team of performers.
When I navigated through all of the above software and tested them, I anticipated that different functionalities would suit different industries but also know that the end goal is unanimous - scaling business growth while keeping employee energy levels high. Before you set about on your own software decision making venture, list down the exact resources and tools you've got and check my suggestions if you ever felt stuck!
Surpass the traditional employee standards and build a people-first strategy with performance management systems to never let your employee productivity drop.
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