You can skip the tracker entirely
Attendance, leave and daily work reports all run in the browser. Some customers install no desktop agent at all and still get what they needed.
Comparison ยท No screenshots
A Hubstaff alternative without screenshots
Screenshots are off by default in Employee Desk and a large share of customers never turn them on. You still get measured hours, active and idle time, activity percentages and hours per project — without a single image being captured.
- 7-day trial
- Self-hosting available
- No keystroke logging
- INR pricing published
What each product is
Employee Desk
Employee management with time tracking attached
Attendance, leave, holidays, employee records, projects, tasks and daily work reports, with an optional desktop time tracker on top. Available as a cloud subscription or as a licence you install on your own server. Built in India, priced in rupees.
- Attendance and leave are core, not an add-on
- Self-hosted and private cloud are first-class options
- No keystroke content is ever recorded
- Employees see everything recorded about them
Hubstaff
Screenshots are configurable, and central to the pitch
Hubstaff supports disabling screenshots too, so this is not a capability the other product lacks. The difference is one of default and of posture.
Screen capture is prominent in how the category, Hubstaff included, is marketed and understood. Employee Desk starts new teams with captures off, treats activity-only tracking as a first-class configuration rather than a reduced one, and publishes what is never recorded as prominently as what is.
Feature comparison
Compared on facts that can be checked from public documentation. Where something is genuinely unclear it is marked rather than guessed at.
| Employee Desk | Hubstaff | |
|---|---|---|
| Screenshots default state | Off | Configurable; commonly on |
| Time tracking with captures fully disabled | Yes | Yes |
| Active and idle time without captures | Yes | Yes |
| Activity percentage without captures | Yes | Yes |
| Hours per project without captures | Yes | Yes |
| Keystroke content recorded | No | No |
| Camera or microphone access | No | No |
| Location tracking | No | Yes |
| Employee can stop the tracker | Yes | Yes |
| Stealth or hidden mode | Does not exist | Check current options |
| Attendance and leave without any tracker at all | Yes | Limited |
| Self-hosted so nothing leaves the building | Yes | No |
Check Hubstaff’s own site before you decide. Software changes. Everything on this page is written from Hubstaff’s public documentation and pricing pages at the time of writing, we do not restate their prices here because they move, and we correct this page when we are told it is wrong. If you find something inaccurate, email contact@digitalgeniussolution.com and we will fix it.
Where Employee Desk is stronger
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Off is the default
A new team starts with captures disabled. Turning them on is a deliberate decision somebody makes, which is the right way round for the most sensitive thing the product can collect.
Screenshot docs → 02A complete product without them
Attendance, leave, projects, tasks, daily work reports and measured hours are the product. Screen capture is an add-on, not the spine.
Time tracking →No stealth mode exists
Not as a setting, not on request, not on the roadmap. The tray icon is visible whenever recording is active.
Privacy →Blur, as a middle position
If you need evidence of activity but not of content, captures can be blurred so the shape of the work is visible and the content is not.
Self-hosting removes the question
If captures are enabled for a client contract, self-hosting keeps every image on your own disk under your own retention.
Self-hosted →Where Hubstaff may be stronger
Written plainly, because a comparison page that finds no fault with itself is not worth reading.
Screenshot tooling depth
If you do want captures, Hubstaff has more mature review and management tooling around them, built over a longer period.
Field and GPS tracking
For non-desk staff, a location-based product answers a question screenshots never could, and we do not offer it.
Integrations and invoicing
Broader native integrations and built-in invoicing from tracked hours.
Which should you choose?
If your requirement is hours, not images, turn screenshots off in whichever product you buy and compare the rest: attendance, leave, reporting, price and where the data sits. That is the comparison that will still matter in a year.
If your team is nervous about monitoring, the deciding factor is usually not the feature list but what employees can see about themselves. In Employee Desk, everything — without exception. Show them the privacy page before you install anything.
If a client contract requires captures, keep them and shorten the retention. Seven days is enough for almost every purpose, and on a self-hosted installation the images never leave your building at all.
Frequently asked questions
Can we use time tracking with no screenshots at all?
Yes. Disable captures company-wide or per team. Tracked hours, active and idle time, activity percentages and hours per project all work exactly the same way with captures off.
Do we still see whether someone was actually working?
You see active versus idle time and the activity percentage. What you do not see is what was on the screen, which for most management questions turns out to be the part you did not need.
Can screenshots be blurred instead of disabled?
Yes. Blurring keeps the shape of the work visible while making the content unreadable, which is a reasonable middle position when a contract requires evidence of activity.
Are screenshots off by default?
Yes, for new teams. Enabling them is an explicit decision, and employees are notified at capture from the moment they are switched on.
Can we run attendance and leave with no desktop app at all?
Yes, and plenty of customers do. The web portal is complete on its own; the desktop tracker is optional.
Run both for a week
A 7-day trial with your real team is a better comparison than any table. Install the tracker on two machines and look at what the reports actually say.
- 7-day trial
- No credit card
- Cancel anytime