ERP & Business Management

Kimai

Kimai: self-hosted open-source time tracker — manage timesheets, projects, clients and invoices on your own VPS, with full data sovereignty.

Official documentation

About Kimai

Kimai is an MIT-licensed open-source time tracking application that you run on your own VPS. Record hours against projects, clients and activities; assign custom hourly rates per team member or task; and export clean timesheets and PDF invoices directly from the dashboard — without paying per seat.

The application ships as a single Apache/PHP container backed by MySQL 8. ServOrbit provisions the full stack automatically: database, application, volumes and reverse proxy are ready in under a minute. At rest, Kimai uses roughly 150–200 MB of RAM, so it runs comfortably on the smallest VPS plan.

Kimai is used by thousands of freelancers, agencies and in-house IT teams worldwide. Its REST API integrates with Jira, GitLab, Slack and many HR tools; a plugin ecosystem extends invoicing, SAML/OIDC SSO and custom report formats. Because the server is yours, there is no monthly subscription, no telemetry and no vendor lock-in.

What gets installed

Ready when the VPS starts

Compatible OS
Choice of Linux distributions
Application
Kimai
Minimum RAM
150–200 MB (Kimai + MySQL)
Minimum CPU
1 vCPU
Default port
8001
Access
root over SSH

Key features

  • Time tracking by project, client and activity — custom hourly rates per user, project or activity
  • Multi-user with role-based permissions: create teams, assign projects, set per-member rates
  • Invoice generation from timesheets — PDF and HTML templates, directly from the dashboard
  • Detailed reports: weekly, monthly, per project, per client, per user — exportable to CSV/XLSX
  • REST API + plugin ecosystem — connect Jira, GitLab, Slack, SAML/OIDC SSO and Toggl importer
  • Single Docker container (Apache + PHP + MySQL 8) — under 200 MB RAM at idle
  • MIT licence — no per-seat fee, no telemetry, your data on your server forever

When to use this solution?

Freelance billing

Log every hour spent on a client project, assign your hourly rate and let Kimai build the invoice. Export a branded PDF directly from the dashboard — no spreadsheet, no third-party billing SaaS, and no monthly subscription eating into your margin.

Agency team management

Create one Kimai user per team member, assign them to client projects with individual rates, and pull consolidated reports at the end of the month. Spot over- or under-budget projects in real time before the invoice goes out.

IT project time accounting

Track internal IT effort across support tickets, development sprints and infrastructure work. The Jira and GitLab plugins link commits and issues to time entries automatically, giving you accurate data for cost allocation and retrospectives.

Guide

Deploy Kimai on your VPS

  1. Create your VPS

    Kimai runs on the smallest ServOrbit VPS plan. The stack — Apache/PHP container plus MySQL 8 — uses roughly 150–200 MB of RAM. No domain name is required: you can access Kimai via SSH tunnel immediately after deployment and add a domain later for team-wide access.

  2. Deploy Kimai from the Marketplace

    In your ServOrbit client area: Marketplace → ERP & Business Management → Kimai → Deploy. The stack starts in about 60 seconds. Three Docker volumes persist your data: kimai_db (MySQL data), kimai_data (uploaded files) and kimai_public (avatars).

  3. Log in for the first time

    Your admin credentials are shown on the app card in the ServOrbit client area immediately after deployment: login [email protected], password generated automatically. Access without a domain: open an SSH tunnel with ssh -L 8080:127.0.0.1:<port> root@<your-vps-ip>, then visit http://localhost:8080.

  4. Create your first project and client

    In the sidebar, go to Customers, add a client with a name and currency. Then go to Projects, create a project linked to that client and set a budget or hourly rate. Add Activities under the project to categorise the type of work.

  5. Start tracking time

    Click the ▶ timer button at the top of any page, select the project and activity, and Kimai starts counting. Stop the timer when done. Recorded entries appear in Timesheets; filter by period or project to build a report, then click Create invoice to generate a PDF ready to send to your client.

Frequently asked questions

Questions about Kimai

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Kimai is an MIT-licensed open-source time tracking application. It lets you record hours by project, client and activity; assign custom hourly rates; generate timesheets and PDF invoices; and produce detailed reports — all hosted on your own VPS, with no per-seat subscription and no vendor lock-in.

Embed the deploy button

Maintaining a project that uses Kimai? This button lets your readers deploy it on a VPS in one click, without reading Docker documentation.

Deploy Kimai on ServOrbit
Markdown
[![Deploy Kimai on ServOrbit](https://servorbit.com/brand/deploy/button.svg)](https://servorbit.com/vps-cloud?template=kimai&utm_source=deploy-badge&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=kimai)
HTML
<a href="https://servorbit.com/vps-cloud?template=kimai&utm_source=deploy-badge&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=kimai"><img src="https://servorbit.com/brand/deploy/button.svg" alt="Deploy Kimai on ServOrbit" height="40"></a>

The button points to a VPS order with the template preselected. The image is served from servorbit.com — nothing to host on your side.

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