5 min. read
Note: I am not associated with WakaTime, nor did I get paid anything to write this. I just think it’s a great tool that I wanted to share with you. Here’s my WakaTime profile for reference. I have over 2,500 hours logged in programming as of writing this article since I installed the application in February 2022.
WakaTime is a productivity tool that tracks the time you spend coding in various programming languages and IDEs. It provides detailed statistics on your coding habits, including the amount of time spent on different projects, languages, and even specific files. This data can help you identify patterns in your work and make informed decisions about how to improve your productivity.
I really enjoy it because I like to see how I’ve progressed as a programmer over the years. I spent a lot of time in Java around the time I discovered the tool, which is why I have over 1,200 hours in that language alone. That statistic is not only a good thing to put on my CV, but also as a general tracker to see how much I actually spend coding. I also like to see how much time I spend on different projects, which is a great way to see how much time I spend on my own projects versus schoolwork.
WakaTime comes as a plugin in various IDEs and text editors, including Visual Studio Code, IntelliJ IDEA, and Sublime Text. It’s also a browser plugin, which is why my “Other” language is around 300 hours, since it tracks how much time I spend reading and reviewing GitHub issues and pull requests. You can install the plugin for your preferred IDE or text editor, and it will automatically start tracking your coding activity.
No. All of WakaTime is open source, by the way, if you really think it’s that deep. Their FAQ also details all of the safety measures you can take if you’re afraid your file paths or project names will get out.
Deleting your account also wipes your data across all their servers. And, most of this “sensitive data” isn’t actually public. What is public makes the application even better, in my opinion, which is why I like it much better than other code tracking statistics.
WakaTime also features a leaderboard system based on general coding time for that week, and the coding time in that week for a speicfic programming language. This in of itself is very interesting, as in introduces an anonymous yet competitive aspect to progamming, encouraging me to work more when I don’t want to. It’s pretty nice.
You could compare WakaTime to the other thousands of code stat tracking tools out there, but there’s a few reasons why I like WakaTime over the others.
For one, it’s open source, and the data is stored on your own servers. You can also self-host it if you want to, which is a nice feature. The other tools I’ve seen are either not open source or don’t have the same level of detail in their statistics. Second, they have a really good way of visualizing all of your data. The graphs and charts look really sleek and are easy to read. My third and favorite thing that they do is that they can send all of this to your email so you don’t have to remember to open up the app all the time. They have a nice, clean way of detailling a daily, weekly, monthly, even yearly reports about your leaderboard status and your hours coded.
These all make WakaTime a great tool for tracking your coding activity and improving your productivity. The data is easy to read and understand, and the competitive aspect adds an extra layer of motivation to keep coding.
No good application is perfect. The bad ones pretend they are, and WakaTime doesn’t. For one, their language detection system has always been pretty interesting. You can kind of control what language it is in your user settings, which means that there is probably always a fight between what a *.m or *.scs file is. I overrode the latter while I was developing StarCosmetics, and when I looked at the leaderboard, around 10,000+ people were now developing structures for my project. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but it was interesting to see that I was the only one who had that language set to StarCosmetics. I think it would be nice if they had a way to override the language detection system for specific files, but I don’t know how they would do that.
Another thing is that their plans are a little skewed. Free is free, and it is what it is. Basic doesn’t really give you much of anything, and Premium gives you everything. I think Basic is a little overproced and Premium is a little underpriced.
I also joined in a weird time when they started making things available in the free plan now only available in the premium/basic plans. My old email reports were grandfathered in, but I technically can’t modify them in any way because they are only available in the Basic plan. Because of how old the platform looks, it’s probably built with an older tech stack, meaning that there have been bugs here or there.
Speaking of bugs, my biggest gripe is the fact that their web plugins are a little… terribly designed. For example, I use Cloudinary for one project, but haven’t been able to figure out how to link the two together. In addition, when you use the github.dev vs a GitHub Codespace area, it appends [GitHub] to your project name, which is annoying.
Even with my few gripes, WakaTime is a great tool for tracking your coding activity and improving your productivity. It’s easy to use, provides detailed statistics, and has a competitive aspect that can help motivate you to code more. If you’re looking for a way to boost your productivity and track your coding habits, I highly recommend giving WakaTime a try. You can find more information on their website.