EU-hosted16 sub-processorschecked 12 August 2026

TimerOS vs Hubstaff: no screenshots, and a client portal from €8

TimerOS takes no screenshots and logs no keystrokes, so there is no screenshot policy to negotiate with your team. For €8 a month you get projects, invoicing and a branded client portal. Tracking runs on Windows today; macOS is in development.

  • No screenshots, no keystroke logging
  • EU-hosted · 16 sub-processors
  • Client portal at your own address
  • Hours become invoices, from €8

TimerOS is our product. Every Hubstaff fact below was read off the company’s own pages on 12 August 2026 and links to its source.

Automatic tracking runs in the Windows app; the macOS build is in development. Everything else runs in the browser.

14 days of the full plan, with nothing locked. Your card is saved at signup and is not charged if you cancel before the trial ends. If you stay, you pay from €8 a month for one person or €15 per user, billed annually. Full pricing.

For freelancers and for teams of two to fifty. Larger organisations need Enterprise, which is in early access.

Stay on Hubstaff if
  • Budget is your main constraint. Starter is $4.99 per seat / month on annual billing, against our €8 for one seat and €15 per user for a team. Starter carries a two-seat minimum, so for one person the prices are close. From three people up, Hubstaff is much cheaper. We compare dollars with euros as published, without converting. src
  • You need tracking outside Windows today. Hubstaff’s pricing page lists a “Multi platform timer app” on every plan. src Our macOS build is in development.
  • Integrations decide it. Hubstaff’s pricing page lists one integration on Grow and unlimited on Team; our third-party integrations are planned for Enterprise and not shipped yet. src
Switch to TimerOS if
  • You want a tracker your team will accept. Screenshots and keystroke logging are not in the product at all, and the timer sits in a bar they can see all day.
  • You bill clients and want to look established. They get a branded portal at your own address with their projects, approvals, tickets, invoices and chat. It is included from the €8 Freelancer tier, and a client costs you no seat or licence.
  • A client’s procurement team asks where their data is processed and you want a short answer. Databases, application compute and uploaded files are in the EU on every plan, the contract is with an EU company, and all sixteen sub-processors are published for them to read.
EU vs US
Default storage location

where each stores by default. Ours: databases, application compute and uploaded files, on every plan. Hubstaff “retains customer data in the United States”. src

Windows today
Where tracking runs

is where TimerOS tracking runs; the macOS build is in development. Hubstaff’s pricing page lists a “Multi platform timer app”. src

16 vs 34
Published sub-processors

sub-processors on each company’s published list. ours theirs

Neither the location nor the count is a verdict on anyone’s security. Both companies publish a sub-processor list and rely on Standard Contractual Clauses, and either can be used lawfully under GDPR. What differs is the default, and the paperwork it creates. Every figure here is sourced in the rows below.

What you get with TimerOS

A timer the person can see

The timer sits in a bar the tracked person sees all day. Screenshots and keystroke logging do not exist in the product, so there is nothing to switch off or review. download

Data in the EU, a contract with an EU company

Databases in Frankfurt and Ireland, application compute in Frankfurt, files in Cloudflare R2 under the EU jurisdiction restriction. All 16 sub-processors are published. Your contract is with Vezoft in Bulgaria, under EU law. our list

A client portal at your own address

Your client signs in at your-slug.timeros.ai and sees their projects, approvals, support requests, invoices, chat and whiteboard. A client takes no seat and pays nothing. features

From hours to invoice, without an export

Hours are logged against a project with a budget and become an invoice in the same workspace, with no export to another tool. Plans start at €8 a month. our pricing

What we don’t have: time tracking outside Windows, integrations beyond the AI assistant connector, a SOC 2 report or a free plan. See “Where Hubstaff is the better choice”.

01The product

Your team’s workspace, and your client’s

One subscription runs both. Your client signs in at your own branded address and sees their side of the same job, with no seat, no licence and nothing to install.

What the person being tracked sees all day: a bar that stays on top, showing what it is recording and the running total. Nothing is hidden from them. There is no silent mode, and no screenshots for anyone to review later.

About a minute, from signing in to a tracked day. Nothing loads from YouTube until you press play. Watch on YouTube.

Your team desktop app + web

Your team’s workspace, live and clickable. Shown here in the Windows desktop app, where tracking runs. The web app at app.timeros.ai is the same workspace without tracking.

Your client your-slug.timeros.ai

The same work from the client’s side: their projects, their invoices, their tickets. Included from the €8 Freelancer tier up.

The client’s side, at your own address. Nothing loads from YouTube until you press play. Watch on YouTube.

02Comparison

Head to head

12 rows, each sourced, so you can check all of it without taking our word for anything. Where Hubstaff’s own documentation does not answer a row, the cell says so; where the gap is ours, it says that too.

TimerOS
Hubstaff
What you can actually do with itThe work between tracking an hour and getting paid for it. We chose these rows, so they favour us.
Project management
Projects, tasks, budgets and a whiteboard where the client approves work. On every tier. features
Project management
“Project budgets” from Grow; “Tasks / To-dos” capped at 500 on Starter and 1,500 on Grow, unlimited on Team. src
Client portal
A branded client portal at your own address (your-slug.timeros.ai): projects, approvals, tickets, invoices and chat, with no seat billed for the client. Every tier. features
Client portal
Hubstaff’s pricing page lists “Clients” (5 on Starter, included on higher plans) and “Client invoices”, but no client-login row. src Its help centre does describe client access: you can add clients and give them a “Project viewer” role. help centre
Invoicing
Invoices raised from tracked hours in the same workspace, on every tier. Full P&L including payroll is on Enterprise. our pricing
Invoicing
“Client invoices” on all four plans; “Team invoices” on Team and Enterprise only. src
Support desk for your clients
Your client raises support tickets, and for any incident you can open a war room and bring them in. On every tier. features
Support desk for your clients
Not stated on the pages checked: the pricing page’s “Support” section lists the support Hubstaff gives you (help center, chat support, email SLA). It is not a helpdesk you run for your clients. src
Integrations
Only the AI assistant connector (MCP) has shipped, on every plan. Third-party integrations are listed on Enterprise but are not built yet. roadmap
Integrations
One integration on Grow, unlimited on Team and Enterprise. src
What it does to the people using itWhat is recorded, and what your team has to agree to.
Where tracking runs
Windows 10 and 11 today, as a desktop app; the macOS build is in development. The timer sits in a bar the tracked person can see at all times. Projects, invoicing, approvals and everything else run in a browser at app.timeros.ai, and your clients sign in separately at your own branded portal address. download
Where tracking runs
Its pricing page lists a “Multi platform timer app” on every plan, and location tracking on mobile as a paid add-on. src
Screenshots
None. The feature is not built, so there is nothing to switch off. To classify the time, the Windows app reads the active window title, the application name and, in a browser, the site’s domain, all in memory. What reaches the server is the label, its confidence and the hours per day. If you correct a classification, that app and title are saved on your own machine.
Screenshots
On every plan: 500 per seat per month on Starter, 1,500 on Grow, unlimited on Team and Enterprise. src An Owner or Manager can switch them off: “You can disable screenshot capture across an entire organization, or for specific users only”. src
Keystroke logging
None.
Keystroke logging
None, by Hubstaff’s own account: “it never logs keystrokes or records video or webcam footage”. src
What it costsEntry price, and what happens when the trial ends.
Entry price
  • Freelancer €8 / month billed annually, €10 monthly. One seat.
  • Startup €15 per user / month billed annually, €18 monthly. Up to 50 seats.
  • Enterprise is in early access and not self-serve.
  • No free tier. The 14-day trial takes a card at signup. Nothing is charged if you cancel before it ends. our pricing
Entry price
  • Starter $4.99 per seat / month billed annually, $7 monthly, with a two-seat minimum.
  • Grow $7.50 / $9.
  • Team $10 / $12.
  • Enterprise $25, annual only.
  • Free 14-day trial, no card required. src
Where your data livesThe part your client’s procurement team asks about.
Where data lives, and on whose infrastructure
EU. Databases on MongoDB Atlas pinned to AWS eu-central-1 (Frankfurt) and eu-west-1 (Ireland); application compute on Render in Frankfurt; uploaded files in Cloudflare R2 created with the EU jurisdiction restriction. our list
Where data lives, and on whose infrastructure
United States. “Hubstaff retains customer data in the United States.” src Amazon Web Services is listed as “Infrastructure Hosting”, jurisdiction US, and Cloudflare for hosting and content delivery, jurisdiction Global. src
EU region option
Default on every plan. There is no region toggle, because there is no other region.
EU region option
Not stated on the pages checked: the data-transfer page, the privacy policy and the trust centre state US retention and name no regional alternative. src
Sub-processors
Sixteen. Seven serve the core product. The other nine process data only for AI employees, if you hire one. Eight of those process it in the US: OpenRouter, Anthropic and five inference providers handle model calls, Anthropic also runs web searches, and fal.ai generates images. The ninth, Hetzner, runs each AI employee’s virtual machine in the EU. Three of the sixteen are EU companies that process data inside the EU (Lettermint B.V. and Zoho Corporation B.V. in the Netherlands, Hetzner Online GmbH in Germany). Stripe and Google LLC involve US processing; for Google, that is only Play distribution and push notifications in the Android build. our list
Sub-processors
34 listed. Every entry shows jurisdiction US except Cloudflare (Global) and four with no jurisdiction shown. The list includes OpenAI and Anthropic under “AI Services”. src
What you can actually do with itThe work between tracking an hour and getting paid for it. We chose these rows, so they favour us.5
Project management
TimerOS
Projects, tasks, budgets and a whiteboard where the client approves work. On every tier. features
Hubstaff
“Project budgets” from Grow; “Tasks / To-dos” capped at 500 on Starter and 1,500 on Grow, unlimited on Team. src
Client portal
TimerOS
A branded client portal at your own address (your-slug.timeros.ai): projects, approvals, tickets, invoices and chat, with no seat billed for the client. Every tier. features
Hubstaff
Hubstaff’s pricing page lists “Clients” (5 on Starter, included on higher plans) and “Client invoices”, but no client-login row. src Its help centre does describe client access: you can add clients and give them a “Project viewer” role. help centre
Invoicing
TimerOS
Invoices raised from tracked hours in the same workspace, on every tier. Full P&L including payroll is on Enterprise. our pricing
Hubstaff
“Client invoices” on all four plans; “Team invoices” on Team and Enterprise only. src
Support desk for your clients
TimerOS
Your client raises support tickets, and for any incident you can open a war room and bring them in. On every tier. features
Hubstaff
Not stated on the pages checked: the pricing page’s “Support” section lists the support Hubstaff gives you (help center, chat support, email SLA). It is not a helpdesk you run for your clients. src
Integrations
TimerOS
Only the AI assistant connector (MCP) has shipped, on every plan. Third-party integrations are listed on Enterprise but are not built yet. roadmap
Hubstaff
One integration on Grow, unlimited on Team and Enterprise. src
What it does to the people using itWhat is recorded, and what your team has to agree to.3
Where tracking runs
TimerOS
Windows 10 and 11 today, as a desktop app; the macOS build is in development. The timer sits in a bar the tracked person can see at all times. Projects, invoicing, approvals and everything else run in a browser at app.timeros.ai, and your clients sign in separately at your own branded portal address. download
Hubstaff
Its pricing page lists a “Multi platform timer app” on every plan, and location tracking on mobile as a paid add-on. src
Screenshots
TimerOS
None. The feature is not built, so there is nothing to switch off. To classify the time, the Windows app reads the active window title, the application name and, in a browser, the site’s domain, all in memory. What reaches the server is the label, its confidence and the hours per day. If you correct a classification, that app and title are saved on your own machine.
Hubstaff
On every plan: 500 per seat per month on Starter, 1,500 on Grow, unlimited on Team and Enterprise. src An Owner or Manager can switch them off: “You can disable screenshot capture across an entire organization, or for specific users only”. src
Keystroke logging
TimerOS
None.
Hubstaff
None, by Hubstaff’s own account: “it never logs keystrokes or records video or webcam footage”. src
What it costsEntry price, and what happens when the trial ends.1
Entry price
TimerOS
  • Freelancer €8 / month billed annually, €10 monthly. One seat.
  • Startup €15 per user / month billed annually, €18 monthly. Up to 50 seats.
  • Enterprise is in early access and not self-serve.
  • No free tier. The 14-day trial takes a card at signup. Nothing is charged if you cancel before it ends. our pricing
Hubstaff
  • Starter $4.99 per seat / month billed annually, $7 monthly, with a two-seat minimum.
  • Grow $7.50 / $9.
  • Team $10 / $12.
  • Enterprise $25, annual only.
  • Free 14-day trial, no card required. src
Where your data livesThe part your client’s procurement team asks about.3
Where data lives, and on whose infrastructure
TimerOS
EU. Databases on MongoDB Atlas pinned to AWS eu-central-1 (Frankfurt) and eu-west-1 (Ireland); application compute on Render in Frankfurt; uploaded files in Cloudflare R2 created with the EU jurisdiction restriction. our list
Hubstaff
United States. “Hubstaff retains customer data in the United States.” src Amazon Web Services is listed as “Infrastructure Hosting”, jurisdiction US, and Cloudflare for hosting and content delivery, jurisdiction Global. src
EU region option
TimerOS
Default on every plan. There is no region toggle, because there is no other region.
Hubstaff
Not stated on the pages checked: the data-transfer page, the privacy policy and the trust centre state US retention and name no regional alternative. src
Sub-processors
TimerOS
Sixteen. Seven serve the core product. The other nine process data only for AI employees, if you hire one. Eight of those process it in the US: OpenRouter, Anthropic and five inference providers handle model calls, Anthropic also runs web searches, and fal.ai generates images. The ninth, Hetzner, runs each AI employee’s virtual machine in the EU. Three of the sixteen are EU companies that process data inside the EU (Lettermint B.V. and Zoho Corporation B.V. in the Netherlands, Hetzner Online GmbH in Germany). Stripe and Google LLC involve US processing; for Google, that is only Play distribution and push notifications in the Android build. our list
Hubstaff
34 listed. Every entry shows jurisdiction US except Cloudflare (Global) and four with no jurisdiction shown. The list includes OpenAI and Anthropic under “AI Services”. src
03Hosting

What the hosting difference actually changes

hubstaff.com/data-transfer-compliance

On its data-transfer page, Hubstaff says:

“Hubstaff retains customer data in the United States.”
Read it on Hubstaff’s sitechecked 12 August 2026
Where TimerOS stores your data
European Union
Where Hubstaff says it stores data
United States

With Hubstaff, customer data is transferred to the United States and retained there. src The transfer is documented and covered by a transfer framework. It still has to appear in your record of processing, your transfer impact assessment has to weigh US access law, and a works council will want to know why staff activity data sits in America. With TimerOS the databases, the application compute and the uploaded files are in the EU, so that part of the assessment stays short.

The second difference is the length of the sub-processor list. Hubstaff publishes its full list of thirty-four, and your DPO may have to review every name. src Ours has sixteen. Nine of them process data only for AI employees, if you hire one. Eight of those process it in the US, and the ninth, Hetzner, in the EU. Three of the sixteen are EU companies that process data within the EU.

04Plans

What one TimerOS subscription covers

Freelancer gives one person the client portal, invoicing and support tickets. Startup adds team management, shifts and approvals, up to 50 seats; Enterprise has no seat cap and is in early access.

FreelancerFor one person
€8
/ month billed annually · €10 monthly · one seat
  • Projects and tasks
  • Invoicing and billing
  • Basic expenses and a basic profit overview
  • Support tickets
  • A branded client portal with chat, whiteboard approvals and incident war rooms
Start with Freelancer
StartupFor teams
€15
/ user / month billed annually · €18 monthly
  • Everything in Freelancer
  • Team management, with hours per person in one workspace
  • Shifts and scheduling
  • Time-off approvals and leave balances
  • Company goals, awards and team performance

Up to 50 seats. Beyond that is Enterprise, which is in early access and not self-serve.

Start with Startup
Enterprise
Early access
Not self-serve
  • Full payroll
  • Unlimited departments and a company-wide org chart
  • Custom roles and permissions
  • Vendor bills & company-asset register
  • Full P&L including payroll

Single sign-on, an audit log, third-party integrations and dedicated support are planned for this tier but not shipped yet. See the roadmap.

05Switching

What switching actually involves

  • Only tracked machines need an install. Each one gets the Windows app; the macOS build is in development. Clients and anyone not being tracked install nothing.
  • There is no bulk import. Not even from CSV, for now. Start at the beginning of a new period and keep the old tool read-only for history.
  • Your clients get their own address. A branded portal on your own subdomain, separate from our dashboard.
  • There is no SOC 2 report. No Type I, no Type II. If a client’s security review begins with that document, we will not pass it.
  • Cancelling is self-serve. The workspace owner cancels from the Subscription page; nothing is charged if you do it before the trial ends.
06Where it is better

Where Hubstaff is the better choice

Four cases where we would point you to Hubstaff. Better to know now than in month two.

  • Starter from $4.99 per seat on annual billing

    $4.99 per seat per month on annual billing, against our €8 for a single seat and €15 per user on the team tier. Starter carries a two-seat minimum, so the smallest possible bill is $9.98 and a solo buyer pays close to our €8. At five people it is $24.95 against €75, and we quote euros against dollars without converting. If entry price decides it, Hubstaff is the cheaper choice for a team. src

  • A multi-platform timer app on every plan

    Our tracking runs on Windows today; the macOS build is in development. Hubstaff lists a multi-platform timer app on every plan, and mobile location tracking as a paid add-on. We cannot track a field team on phones or a studio on Macs today. src

  • Unlimited integrations on the Team plan

    Hubstaff’s pricing page lists one integration on Grow and unlimited on Team. Our third-party integrations are on Enterprise and are not shipped yet. If pushing timesheets into your existing payroll or PM tool is why you are buying, that gap decides it. src

  • Invoices, expenses and scheduling in its plans

    Hubstaff’s pricing page lists client invoices, expense tracking, project budgets, scheduling and attendance, time off, overtime and payments. Much of what we cover, Hubstaff covers too. What its plans do not list is a client-facing portal. src

If none of those describe you
You give up a lower entry price and a wider platform list. You get EU hosting by default, 16 sub-processors instead of 34, and an EU contracting entity, Vezoft in Bulgaria.
07Questions

Questions people ask before signing up

Does it take screenshots of my screen, or log what I type?

No. Neither feature exists in the product, so there is no setting to switch off and nothing to review afterwards. To work out what the time was spent on, the Windows app reads the active window title, the application name and, in a browser, the site’s domain, all in memory. Only the label, how confident the classification is and the hours per day reach the server. If you correct a classification, that app and title are saved on your own machine, not ours. The timer itself sits in a bar the tracked person can see all day. There is no silent mode.

Is there a free plan, and does the trial take a card?

There is no free plan, and yes, the trial takes a card at signup. You get 14 days of the full plan, with nothing cut or locked. The card is saved through Stripe and nothing is charged during the trial; the workspace owner can cancel from the Subscription page in the dashboard before it ends. If you stay, Freelancer is €8 a month billed annually (€10 month to month, one seat) and Startup is €15 per user per month billed annually (€18 monthly, up to 50 seats).

I work alone. What do I get for €8, and does my client have to pay?

Your client pays nothing. The €8 tier covers projects and tasks, invoicing and billing, basic expenses and a basic profit overview, support tickets and the full branded client portal at your own address. There your client sees their projects, approvals, tickets, invoices and chat, a whiteboard where they approve work, and incident war rooms. A client takes no seat and no licence. Team management, shifts, leave approvals and company goals start at Startup. Full expenses and a full P&L are on Enterprise, which is in early access and not self-serve.

What does my client actually see, and does a client cost me a seat?

Your client signs in at your own branded portal address, separate from our dashboard. There they see their projects, the approvals waiting on them, their tickets and invoices, a chat thread with you, a whiteboard where they sign off work, and an incident war room if something breaks. A client account takes no seat and no licence, so adding clients does not raise your bill. The portal is included from the €8 Freelancer tier up. Your own team works at app.timeros.ai, a different address; do not send clients there.

Can I tell whether a client is making or losing money?

Up to a point. Hours attach to projects and tasks that carry budgets, and those hours become invoices in the same workspace. That lets you set the time a client’s work took against what you billed them. Freelancer and Startup include basic expenses and a basic profit overview. Full expenses with vendor bills and approvals, and a full P&L including payroll, are on Enterprise, which is in early access and not self-serve.

Half of us are on Macs. Can we use it?

Not for tracking today; for everything else, yes. Automatic tracking runs in the Windows desktop app, and there is no Linux or mobile tracking. It starts when someone signs in to the computer and classifies activity on the device itself. Everything else runs in a browser: your team works at app.timeros.ai, which has everything except tracking, and your clients sign in at your own portal address. Mac users and clients install nothing. A mixed team can still share one workspace. You can assign work to a designer on a Mac, approve it and invoice it, but their hours will not track themselves yet. If tracked hours off Windows are the reason you are buying today, check each vendor’s own platform page, linked in the comparison above. The macOS build is in development roadmap.

My client asks where the data is processed. What do I send them?

Databases on MongoDB Atlas in Frankfurt and Ireland, application compute on Render in Frankfurt, and uploaded files in Cloudflare R2 created with the EU jurisdiction restriction. Your contract is with Vezoft, a Bulgarian company under EU law imprint, and the full sub-processor list, sixteen names, is published alongside our DPA our DPA. You can send your client those links rather than write an answer yourself. What we will not give you is a line saying nothing ever leaves the EU. The Cloudflare CDN edge that serves the pages is global, Stripe and Google involve US processing, and if you hire an AI employee, its model calls, image generation and web searches are processed in the US. All of them are on the same published list, so the accurate answer is scoped to databases, application compute and uploaded files. We also do not hold SOC 2.

The other tool is cheaper per seat. Why should I pay more?

Sometimes it is cheaper. The price rows in the table above are quoted from each vendor’s own pricing page, in the currency each one publishes, with the date we checked. We have not converted anything. Two things to check first: whether the plan has a seat minimum, which changes what one person actually pays, and which of the things you need are on that entry plan rather than a higher one. Client login, invoicing and support tickets sit in our €8 tier; if you buy those from someone else today, add what they cost before comparing per-seat prices. And if entry price is your main constraint, buy the cheaper plan. Better that than cancelling in month two.

What do the other tools have that you do not?

Integrations: only the AI assistant connector (MCP) has shipped. Third-party integrations appear on the Enterprise tier list and are not built yet. SOC 2: we do not hold it, in any form. If procurement begins there, that is a real reason to choose something else. Screenshots and keystroke logging: neither feature exists in the product, so if you need visual evidence of work we cannot produce it. Tracking off Windows: not today; the macOS build is in development. Payroll, unlimited departments, a company-wide org chart, single sign-on and an audit log: all on Enterprise, which is in early access and not self-serve. A free plan: we have none, and the 14-day trial takes a card. The comparison rows above link each fact we could verify to the vendor’s own page, with the date we checked it. For anything they do not cover, read the vendor’s page rather than take our word for it.

More comparisons

Compare the others

Try it against Hubstaff on a week of real work

Track a real working week on a Windows machine. Raise one invoice from those hours. Let one client into the portal and see what they see. If it does not work for you, cancel from the Subscription page inside the trial and nothing is charged.

14 days of the full plan, with nothing locked. Your card is saved at signup and is not charged if you cancel before the trial ends. If you stay, you pay from €8 a month for one person or €15 per user, billed annually. Full pricing.

Sources and trademarks
Hubstaff is a trademark of its respective owner. TimerOS is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Netsoft Holdings, LLC or Hubstaff. Every claim above was checked on 12 August 2026 against these pages and may have changed since: Data transfer compliance, Privacy policy, Trust centre / sub-processors, Pricing, Disabling screenshots. Prices are quoted in the currency each vendor publishes and are not converted. Spotted something out of date? Tell us and we will correct it.