Product comparison · reviewed August 1, 2026
Timely reconstructs your hours from app and page titles. screenpipe keeps the content of the work and makes it queryable.. A side-by-side look at scope, data control, platform support, and extensibility—without pretending one product is best for everyone.
Same criteria
Both products are evaluated against the same feature and deployment questions.
Trade-offs included
Timely's strengths are shown alongside Screenpipe's.
No winner score
The right choice depends on the job, risk model, and operating environment.
The practical differences
Start with the criteria that can actually change your decision. Marketing category labels are less useful than concrete operating constraints.
Timely's Memory app records that you spent 42 minutes in a document called Q3 Roadmap. screenpipe records what the roadmap said, what you changed, and what was discussed about it on the call afterwards. Timely states it does not capture screenshots, keystrokes, or page content (timely.com/privacy, as of 2026-07).
screenpipe is local-first by design. In local-only mode, screen captures, audio transcriptions, and extracted text are stored on your device, and data movement depends on whether you enable sync, cloud AI, exports, connectors, or team workflows. Timely processes and stores activity in its cloud, with no self-hosted option.
The two products end in different places. Timely produces an approved timesheet. screenpipe produces a queryable record that answers questions and feeds automations.
screenpipe transcribes meetings and calls locally. Timely tracks that a call happened and for how long, but does not record or transcribe what was said.
Ask screenpipe what the client objected to in the March pricing call and get the transcript. Timely can tell you the call ran 38 minutes and was billed to the account.
Side by side
Capabilities can change. Treat this as an evaluation starting point and verify purchase-critical requirements with each vendor.
| Criterion | Screenpipe | Timely |
|---|---|---|
| What Gets CapturedTimely's Memory app records that you spent 42 minutes in a document called Q3 Roadmap. screenpipe records what the roadmap said, what you changed, and what was discussed about it on the call afterwards. Timely states it does not capture screenshots, keystrokes, or page content (timely.com/privacy, as of 2026-07). | On-screen text via OCR and accessibility APIs, system audio, and microphone | App names, document and page titles, and timestamps |
| Data Storagescreenpipe is local-first by design. In local-only mode, screen captures, audio transcriptions, and extracted text are stored on your device, and data movement depends on whether you enable sync, cloud AI, exports, connectors, or team workflows. Timely processes and stores activity in its cloud, with no self-hosted option. | Local-first: in local-only mode, captures stay in a database on the device | Cloud, on ISO 27001 certified AWS servers in Europe |
| Primary OutputThe two products end in different places. Timely produces an approved timesheet. screenpipe produces a queryable record that answers questions and feeds automations. | Searchable work memory and context for AI agents | Timesheets, billable hours, budgets, and client reports |
| Meeting and Audio Transcriptionscreenpipe transcribes meetings and calls locally. Timely tracks that a call happened and for how long, but does not record or transcribe what was said. | Transcribes system audio and microphone on device | Not available |
| Search Across Your WorkAsk screenpipe what the client objected to in the March pricing call and get the transcript. Timely can tell you the call ran 38 minutes and was billed to the account. | Full-text and semantic search over everything seen, said, and heard | Search over time entries, projects, and tags |
| AI Model Choice | Any model: Claude, GPT, or local models such as Ollama | Timely's own AI only |
| Source AvailableSecurity teams can read screenpipe's capture engine and verify exactly what is collected and where it goes. Timely is proprietary, so its privacy commitments rest on policy and certification rather than code review. | Source available on GitHub | Not available |
| Developer and Agent AccessTimely's API exposes the timesheet layer. screenpipe exposes the underlying activity itself, which is what an agent needs to act on your work rather than report on it. | REST API, MCP server, SQL, and scheduled tasks for event-driven automation | REST API for time entries, projects, and users |
| Manager VisibilityBoth products avoid the manager-watching-screens model. Timely keeps the raw Memory timeline private to the user and shares only what the user logs. screenpipe keeps the record on the endpoint, with admin policy controls that govern capture rather than expose it. | The employee holds the data; team deployments add scoped admin policies | Managers see approved timesheets, not the individual's private Memory timeline |
| Platform Support | Mac, Windows, Linux | Mac, Windows, iOS, Android, web |
| PricingTimely lists Starter at $11 per user per month capped at 5 users, Premium at $20 capped at 50 users, Unlimited at $28, and custom Enterprise pricing, with roughly 20 percent off on annual billing (timely.com/pricing, as of 2026-07). screenpipe starts at $25 per month, is free to self-host, and does not charge per seat for individual use. | From $25/month | $11 to $28 per user per month billed monthly, $9 to $22 billed annually |
Evidence review
Timely publishes its pricing, its capture scope, and its privacy commitments directly. The comparison below uses those pages rather than third-party reviews, and the decision rows are written so a buyer can tell in one pass which product their question belongs to.
Plan tiers, per-user prices, annual discount, and the 5 user and 50 user seat ceilings on Starter and Premium (checked 2026-07).
Official statements on AWS hosting in Europe, ISO 27001 certification, the private Memory timeline, and the commitment not to add screenshots or keystroke monitoring (checked 2026-07).
Official description of what the Memory app records: app usage, document and page titles, and timestamps (checked 2026-07).
| Decision criterion | Timely | Screenpipe | What it means |
|---|---|---|---|
| Question being answered | How many hours went to which client | What was seen, said, and decided | If the output is an invoice, that is Timely. If the output is recall, that is screenpipe. |
| Capture depth | App, document, and page titles with timestamps | On-screen text and transcribed audio | Titles are enough to bill. Content is what an assistant can reason over. |
| Data boundary | Cloud processing on AWS in Europe, no self-hosted option | Local-only capture and search on the endpoint, with cloud paths enabled deliberately | Residency and certification versus never leaving the device are different compliance answers. |
| Verifiability | Closed source, assurance through policy and certification | Source available for security review | Both make privacy claims. Only one can be checked line by line. |
| Extensibility | REST API over timesheets and projects | REST, MCP, SQL, and event-driven scheduled tasks over the raw record | Timely integrates with billing tools. screenpipe is the substrate other workflows are built on. |
Decision guide
Choose Timely if
Choose Screenpipe if
Context
This is the whole difference in one line. Timely's Memory app collects the names of the things you worked on: the app, the document title, the page title, and the clock. That is exactly enough to rebuild a day into billable hours, and deliberately not enough to reconstruct the work. screenpipe collects the content: the text rendered on screen and the words spoken in the room. That is more than a timesheet needs, and it is the minimum an AI assistant needs in order to answer a question about last Tuesday.
Most tools in this category sell screenshots to managers. Timely does not, and says it never will (timely.com/privacy, as of 2026-07). The individual's Memory timeline is private until they choose to log hours from it. That is a genuinely better posture than the monitoring vendors, and it is worth saying plainly rather than arguing against. The remaining gap is architectural: Timely's activity data is processed and stored in its cloud, and the agent is closed source, so verification stops at the privacy policy. screenpipe moves the boundary to the device and publishes the code that draws it.
Teams that evaluate screenpipe alongside time trackers are usually solving two different problems at once: proving where hours went, and stopping knowledge from evaporating when the person who did the work is in another meeting. Time trackers solve the first. Nothing in a timesheet solves the second. screenpipe is bought for the second problem, which is why it tends to sit next to a tracker rather than replace one.
Because screenpipe records the activity underneath, a timesheet is something you can generate rather than something you have to buy separately. A scheduled task can group the day's captured activity by project, draft entries for review, and push them into an existing billing system. The person still approves before anything is submitted. The difference from Timely is that the same captured record also answers questions, drafts meeting notes, and feeds agents, instead of only producing hours.
Timely is a hosted product on AWS in Europe, which suits teams whose compliance question is about residency and certification. screenpipe suits teams whose compliance question is whether the data has to leave the endpoint at all. In local-only mode, screen captures, audio transcriptions, and extracted text stay on the device, with on-device PII removal applied before storage. Sync, cloud AI, exports, connectors, and team workflows are separate choices an admin makes deliberately.
FAQ
Disclosure: this comparison is written and maintained by Screenpipe, not an independent review publication.
Timely is an automatic time tracking product for agencies, consultancies, and professional services teams. Its Memory app records the applications you use, document and page titles, and timestamps, then drafts timesheet entries that you review and approve before they become billable hours. Timely states that Memory data is private to the individual user and that it will not add screenshots or keystroke monitoring (timely.com/privacy, as of 2026-07). screenpipe captures a different layer: the actual on-screen text and the audio in your meetings, stored on the device in local-only mode and exposed through search, SQL, REST, and MCP. Timely answers how long something took. screenpipe answers what actually happened. The overlap depends on the job you are buying for: Screenpipe focuses on continuous, searchable screen and audio context, while Timely may be a better fit for the narrower workflows described above.
Timely is a credible choice for teams that value automatic tracking with no timers to start and stop, explicitly refuses screenshots and keystroke logging (timely.com/privacy, as of 2026-07), memory timeline is private to the individual until they log hours. Those strengths should be weighed against the deployment, data-control, platform, and extensibility differences in the table.
Screenpipe is designed for continuous screen and audio capture, local-only capture and search, cross-platform deployment, and programmatic access through its local API and MCP integrations. Those advantages matter most when privacy, broad work context, or custom automation is the buying criterion.
No. Screenpipe publishes this page. We include Timely's strengths, avoid a numeric winner score, and state the criteria so readers can verify the claims that matter to them. Product capabilities change, so confirm critical details with each vendor before purchasing.
Evaluate with your own data
Install it, test the workflows that matter, and compare the result against your real requirements—not a vendor scorecard.
