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Comparison · PM

Apploye vs Leantime

A side-by-side editorial comparison of Apploye and Leantime — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.

Apploye vs Leantime: at a glance

FeatureApployeLeantime
SectorPMPM
Velocity score5.05.0
Sparks · 30d00
Top themestime-tracking, employee-monitoring, workplace-privacy, complianceproject-management, self-hosted, permissions, plugins
Last editorial update2mo ago2d ago
WebsiteVisit →Visit →

What is Apploye?

A time tracker whose blog argues both sides of employee monitoring, and never mentions the product.

Every entry is search-targeted education about time tracking and workplace monitoring: what problems tracking solves, why to track salaried staff, how to cap daily hours, whether startups should track at all. Two of them approach the topic from the employee's side — what monitoring people find acceptable, and a critical explainer on bossware covering privacy risks and detection.

Read the full Apploye trajectory →

What is Leantime?

Leantime swaps role ranks for real permissions and syncs with your calendar app.

Leantime moved from 3.10 to 3.14 between October and 10 November. v3.14.0 replaces role-rank checks with specific permission checks across projects, timesheets, users, API keys, to-dos, milestones and sprints, and opens the calendar to plugins; a new CalDAV plugin syncs both ways with Nextcloud, Radicale and Apple Calendar. Earlier releases added mobile push, per-project modules, global search and self-updating plugins.

Read the full Leantime trajectory →

Apploye vs Leantime: editorial side-by-side

A5.0

A time tracker whose blog argues both sides of employee monitoring, and never mentions the product.

◆ Current state

Every entry is search-targeted education about time tracking and workplace monitoring: what problems tracking solves, why to track salaried staff, how to cap daily hours, whether startups should track at all. Two of them approach the topic from the employee's side — what monitoring people find acceptable, and a critical explainer on bossware covering privacy risks and detection.

◆ Where it's heading

The editorial choice worth noting is that a monitoring vendor is publishing the objections to monitoring. Covering bossware, employee attitudes to surveillance, and the risks of tracking startups is a bet that buyers arrive already worried about the ethics, and that meeting the objection is more effective than ignoring it. The compliance angle — FLSA, job costing, capacity planning — is the counterweight aimed at the buyer rather than the tracked employee. No product information appears anywhere in this feed.

◆ Prediction

Expect the content cadence to continue at roughly two posts a week on privacy, forecasting and time-data topics; product direction cannot be predicted from this feed.

L5.0

Leantime swaps role ranks for real permissions and syncs with your calendar app.

◆ Current state

Leantime moved from 3.10 to 3.14 between October and 10 November. v3.14.0 replaces role-rank checks with specific permission checks across projects, timesheets, users, API keys, to-dos, milestones and sprints, and opens the calendar to plugins; a new CalDAV plugin syncs both ways with Nextcloud, Radicale and Apple Calendar. Earlier releases added mobile push, per-project modules, global search and self-updating plugins.

◆ Where it's heading

The release cadence is roughly one feature version every two weeks, split between finer access control and a plugin marketplace that carries more functionality. Core changes increasingly exist to give plugins stable hooks, as the calendar rework shows.

◆ Prediction

Expect more marketplace plugins built on the new calendar and permission hooks, and further permission work extending to the remaining modules.

Alternatives to Apploye and Leantime

Other PM products tracked by Sparkpulse, ranked by recent ship velocity. Each card links to a full editorial trajectory and lets you pivot into a head-to-head comparison with either Apploye or Leantime.

See all Apploye alternatives → · See all Leantime alternatives →

Recent activity from Apploye and Leantime

Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.

  1. 3d agoLeantimev3.14.0: per-permission access checks and a CalDAV sync plugin
  2. 14d agoLeantimev3.13.2: digest changes, OIDC PKCE, marketplace install reporting
  3. 14d agoLeantimev3.13.1: clearer plugin install errors
  4. 14d agoLeantimev3.13.0: mobile push, per-project modules, Laravel 12
  5. 29d agoLeantimev3.12.0: self-updating plugins and a shared interface library
  6. 1mo agoLeantimev3.11.0: global search across the workspace
  7. 2mo agoApployeWhat Problems Does Time Tracking Solve? 6 Common Business Challenges
  8. 2mo agoApployeWhy Track Time for Salaried Employees? Benefits and Best Practices
  9. 2mo agoApployeWhat Employees Are Okay With When It Comes to Monitoring
  10. 2mo agoApployeShould Startups Track Time? Benefits, Risks & When It Works
  11. 3mo agoApployeHow to Limit Employees’ Daily Working Hours
  12. 3mo agoApployeWhat is Bossware? How It Works, Laws, Risks & Examples

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between Apploye and Leantime?

They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. Apploye and Leantime are shipping at a similar cadence (velocity 5.0 vs 5.0, both within Sparkpulse's "active" band). See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.

Is Apploye better than Leantime?

Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. Apploye and Leantime are shipping at a similar cadence (velocity 5.0 vs 5.0, both within Sparkpulse's "active" band). For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other PM products to evaluate alongside.

What are the best alternatives to Apploye?

Top Apploye alternatives in PM are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Apploye alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/apploye for the full list with editorial commentary on each.

What are the best alternatives to Leantime?

Top Leantime alternatives in PM are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Leantime alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/leantime for the full list with editorial commentary on each.