Hourbrook or Timely?
Timely is an AI time tracker for agencies, consultancies and SaaS teams: a desktop Memory app records your work and AutoSheet drafts the timesheet in the web app.
No download yet: join the waitlist and get one email when it's ready.
Join the waitlistA fair comparison
Where Timely is the better choice comes first. Facts about Timely are from its own site, read on 4 November 2026.
Choose Timely if you want
- A mature team product: capacity, utilisation, locked time, a People dashboard for managers.
- Windows, web and mobile apps today.
- Over a hundred integrations and an enterprise plan with ISO 27001 and SSO.
- AutoSheet drafts a whole week's timesheet for one-click review.
Where Hourbrook is different
- Your activity stays on your Mac. Timely keeps memories in its cloud, private to you; Hourbrook doesn't upload them at all.
- Drafts are learned on your Mac from your own entries, with their reasons shown.
- Breaks and waiting on an agent count as work, and there's no compliance dashboard for chasing people.
- Free during the beta. Timely has a 14-day trial, then starts at $9 per user.
Side by side
| What | Hourbrook | Timely |
|---|---|---|
| Tracks your work by itself | Yes: the app, window title and page in front, every 2 s | Yes, with the Memory desktop app |
| Where that activity is kept | On your Mac, never uploaded; only entries you log sync | In Timely's cloud (AWS, EU); your timeline is private to you |
| Free plan | Everything is free during the beta | No; a 14-day trial |
| Lowest paid price, per person a month | None yet; prices after the beta aren't final | $9 (Starter, yearly, up to 5 users) |
| Platforms | Mac; web for synced time; Windows in the works | Mac, Windows, web, iOS, Android |
| Invoices | Yes, from logged hours | Yes |
| Team planning | Planning and capacity for teams | Planned time, capacity, People dashboard |
| AI assistant or MCP server | MCP server on your Mac, built into the app | — |
| Waiting on AI agents | Counted as your work, up to 3 h | Reads Claude and Codex conversation names to suggest projects (Hourbrook reads chat names too, on the Mac); doesn't count the wait |
| Certifications | None yet; it's a beta | ISO 27001; says it is not SOC 2 |
“—” means no, or nothing we could find on their site. All comparisons
Coming from Timely
There's no direct import from Timely yet. Export your hours from Timely as a CSV and tell us; it's on the list.
Hourbrook starts filling in your day from the first hour it runs, so the brook is there to pick from by the end of it.
What you'd be switching to
A small item in the menu bar, and a main window with your day, week and tasks. A native Mac app, with everything it learns kept on the Mac.
Sources
Read on 4 November 2026. If something has changed, reply to any email from us and we'll correct it.