Build Mode vs Toggl Track: The Privacy-First Mac Alternative with No Subscription

Before I built Build Mode, I tried the time trackers that already existed, and every single one wanted me to create an account before it would tell me where my time went. That always struck me as backwards. The hours happened on my Mac. Why did a server need to hear about them before I did?

Toggl Track is one of the account-first tools, and to be clear, it's a good one. It's built for teams that bill clients: timesheets, approvals, reports that someone else reads. Build Mode is built for one person who wants proof their hours existed. Those are different jobs, and the honest version of this comparison is mostly a question of which job is yours.

Build Mode and Toggl Track at a glance

You pay for Toggl Track monthly, you buy Build Mode once

Toggl's paid tiers are a per-user monthly subscription, and there's a genuinely free plan for individuals. If you run an agency, per-user pricing is normal and the free plan is a real offer, not a trick. But the subscription recurs for every month you keep tracking, and tracking is the kind of thing you do for years.

Build Mode is a single payment. Pay once and it's yours, and no renewal ever shows up. I never built a cloud, so there's nothing that costs me money every month you use the app, and nothing I need to keep charging you for.

Where the hours live: Toggl's cloud or a file on your Mac

Toggl Track syncs your entries to its cloud across web, desktop, and mobile. For a team tool that's the whole point, and Toggl deserves credit for being explicit that it takes no screenshots. It also keeps working while you're temporarily offline and syncs when you reconnect. None of that is sinister. It's just a shape, and the shape is that your hours live on their servers.

Build Mode's shape is a local file on your Mac. There's no account, and there is no networking code in the app at all. I don't mean "we promise not to upload anything." I mean you can search the binary for networking symbols and find none. Nothing leaves your Mac because nothing in the app can send.

I'm prouder of that than of any feature. Privacy that depends on a policy asks for your trust. Privacy that depends on structure only asks for a look.

The longer version of this comparison lives on the Toggl alternative page.

What tracking feels like day to day

Toggl is organized around projects, clients, tags, and billable rates. If your hours exist so someone can be invoiced, that structure is exactly right, and I mean that without irony. Timesheets are a real need. They're just not mine.

Here's my actual day. I press ⌘⌥B and a session starts instantly. A small clock sits in the notch while I work, which sounds like nothing and turns out to matter, because a visible timer keeps me honest about whether I'm really in the work. If I step away, the session pauses, so the totals only contain hours I was actually there for. My hours sort into modes I named myself, like Build, Design, and Distribution, and Auto Mode can suggest one from the app in front of me. At the end of the week I open Wrapped and see what the week actually was.

I built this because for a long stretch my hours were the only visible progress my startup had. No users, no revenue, just time going in.

I wanted proof the hours existed.

That's also why Build Mode has no timesheets, no invoicing, no teams, and no cloud. I refused to build them on purpose. Every one of those features exists so somebody else can look at your hours, and Build Mode is for you looking at yours.

Pick Toggl Track if someone else needs your hours

If you run a team that needs timesheet approval and shared reporting, if you bill clients and want invoices generated from tracked hours, or if you need your time synced between Windows, web, and Android, pick Toggl. It's built for exactly that, and Build Mode would frustrate you within a day, because none of it exists there.

Pick Build Mode if the hours are for you

If you're building something of your own and the only person who needs to see the hours is you, that's who I made this for. Your data stays in a file on your Mac. No account, no cloud, no screenshots, nothing leaving your machine. You pay once and own it.

I built it for myself and I use it every day. There are paying customers now, so it's no longer just mine, but the shape hasn't changed: the hours are yours, and they stay yours.

Get Build Mode for Mac. Pay once, no account, macOS 14 or later.