At a Glance:
Wakapi is a self-hosted, WakaTime-compatible backend for coding statistics that tracks projects, languages, editors, and operating systems, and supports REST API, Prometheus exports, and weekly email reports.
Overview:
Wakapi is an open-source, self-hosted backend for collecting and analyzing coding statistics. It is designed as a WakaTime-compatible alternative, allowing developers to use standard WakaTime client plugins to send heartbeat data to their own server. Wakapi provides statistics on projects, languages, editors, hosts, and operating systems, and offers a REST API for data access and integration. It is built for individual developers who want to track their coding activity without relying on a third-party cloud service. The project can be self-hosted using Docker, a pre-built binary, or compiled from source, and supports SQLite, MySQL, MariaDB, and Postgres databases. Wakapi describes itself as a smaller subset of WakaTime, lacking features like team support, leaderboards, and embeddable charts.
Key Decision Points:
Self-hosted backend: Wakapi runs on your own infrastructure, giving you control over the server and database where your coding activity data is stored.
WakaTime client compatibility: It relies on the existing open-source WakaTime client plugins for data collection, so you must configure those plugins to point to your Wakapi instance.
WakaTime integration features: Wakapi supports forwarding heartbeats to WakaTime and importing historical data from WakaTime, allowing parallel use of both systems.
Database flexibility: By default it uses SQLite for easy setup, but MySQL, MariaDB, and Postgres are explicitly supported for production deployments.
Authentication options: It supports cookie-based browser auth, API keys (header or query parameter), and trusted header authentication via reverse proxy, as well as OpenID Connect for single sign-on.
Explicitly limited scope: The README states Wakapi is a subset of WakaTime and does not include leaderboards, personal goals, team support, embeddable charts, or integrations with platforms like GitLab.
Core Features:
Coding statistics: Aggregates data on projects, languages, editors, hosts, and operating systems from heartbeat events.
WakaTime heartbeat relay: Can forward received heartbeats to a WakaTime account, enabling dual tracking.
Historical data import: Supports importing existing coding activity data from WakaTime.
REST API: Exposes a documented API for accessing statistics and integrating with other tools.
Weekly email reports: Can send scheduled email summaries of coding activity to users.
Prometheus metrics export: Can expose statistics under
/api/metricsfor monitoring with Prometheus and Grafana.
Use Cases:
Developers who want private, self-hosted coding time tracking without relying on a third-party cloud service.
Individuals already using WakaTime client plugins who want to switch to a self-managed backend while retaining their existing editor integrations.
Developers who want to track coding activity across multiple editors and machines using a single, self-controlled service.
Open-Source Alternative Value:
Wakapi provides a self-hosted, open-source backend that is compatible with the widely adopted WakaTime client plugin ecosystem, allowing developers to collect and own their coding statistics without depending on a proprietary cloud service. The project is explicit about its scope, stating it offers a subset of WakaTime’s features, which helps users understand what to expect. Its support for multiple databases, including the open-source Postgres and MariaDB options, and various authentication methods, including OpenID Connect, gives self-hosters practical flexibility in how they deploy and integrate the service into their existing infrastructure.
