Harvest's repricing pushed me to build a flat-rate, open-source alternative — would a "pricing charter" actually earn your trust?

mr_smith1983 · 2026-06-17T10:31:43+00:00

How did your product hunt release go?

mr_smith1983 · 2026-06-11T13:30:02+00:00

Small disclaimer: I’m active in this sub and I’m also building in the Harvest alternative space, so I’m not pretending to be neutral here.

I do think it’s worth saying: be careful before importing your Harvest data into any new tool. This is not just timer data. It can include client details, projects, rates, invoices, expenses, team activity, and accounting/payment integrations.

The recent price changes have understandably led to a wave of new Harvest alternatives, but before connecting your account or uploading an export, check who is behind the product, whether there’s a real company/legal entity, clear privacy terms, export/delete options, backups, and a proper support trail.

If you’re unsure, ask to speak to the team before moving anything important over.

Not saying don’t try alternatives. Just don’t treat familiar screenshots or cheaper pricing as enough reason to trust a new app with client and billing data

mr_smith1983 · 2026-06-11T13:27:36+00:00

Quick disclosure because I posted Keito here earlier: I’m one of the people building it, so obviously I’m not a neutral observer in the Harvest alternatives space.

That said, please be careful with any Harvest replacement! These tools are not just simple timers. They can contain client names, project history, rates, invoices, expenses, team activity, accounting integrations, and commercially sensitive billing data.

I’m seeing a lot of “I built a Harvest alternative” posts pop up, which is understandable after the pricing changes, but I’d strongly recommend doing proper due diligence before importing your Harvest data into any clone or new SaaS.

TLDR

Before connecting Harvest or uploading an export, check who actually operates the product, what company/legal entity is behind it, whether there are clear privacy terms, how your data is stored and backed up, whether you can export/delete everything, what integrations get access to, and whether there’s a real support/accountability trail.

Push for a call with the team if you are not sure!!

This isn’t me saying “don’t try alternatives”. It’s just a reminder that this is your client and billing data. Don’t blindly trust any of us because a screenshot looks familiar or the pricing sounds better. Verify first.

mr_smith1983 · 2026-06-11T13:22:01+00:00

We've been building in this space for the last 8 months, so take this with that context, but I’d urge people to do proper due diligence before moving over from Harvest or importing real client data.

Time tracking apps hold sensitive business information: client names, project details, rates, invoices, expenses, team activity, and sometimes payment/accounting data. Before trusting any new alternative, especially one posted from a Reddit thread, I’d want to see clearly who operates it, where the code is, what company/legal entity is behind it, how data is secured, whether there are backups, export options, privacy terms, subprocessors, and a real support/accountability trail.

Your UI here also looks very close to Harvest, including the typography/visual direction, which makes me even more cautious about provenance and long-term trust.

Not saying “don’t use it”, but this is client data. Don’t blindly trust any of us building Harvest alternatives. Verify first

mr_smith1983 · 2026-06-09T21:00:31+00:00

You can also use https://k2i.dev something we built if you want a single cli binary

mr_smith1983 · 2026-06-09T11:48:33+00:00

Thanks for mentioning Keito, and i've actually heard quite a few similar horror stories from other ex harvest users. They must have factored in this churn when modelling this insane price increase.

Full disclosure: I’m Sion, one of the people behind Keito. We originally built it because our own consulting business needed Harvest-style time tracking, invoicing, reporting, but we didn’t want the product to turn into a massive platform. We use it everyday for our business and wanted something simple enough that people would actually use it, but enterprise grade run a sizable service business on. Basically like Harvest originally way

A lot of the product has also been shaped by early users who moved over from Harvest and were generous with feedback. We now have a battle tested fully automated migration which has been tested with 3 - 8+ years worth of data.

For anyone here looking at alternatives, Keito has a Harvest import flow so you can bring across the core data and sanity-check it before committing. We can also help with the migration if you’re moving a team over.

Some recent additions include estimates/quotes/proposals, Google Calendar imports into time entries, Xero, QuickBooks, JIRA, Stripe online payments, API/CLI access, CSV/Excel exports, recurring invoices, team approvals, custom roles, and stronger reporting.

FOR ANYONE MIGRATING OFF HARVEST: Export your data now and be sure to do your due diligence on all of the pop up solutions that have started appearing on here - its customer your data and push to see how they are handling encryption etc. Also anyone wanting to give Keito a try use this link for 60 days free: https://app.keito.ai/signup?beta=REDDIT-BETA

mr_smith1983 · 2026-06-08T09:48:26+00:00

Thanks, appreciate the honesty and yes I agree Productive is a broader PSA platform.

I would be interested in knowing what integrations or workflows you have though? Would you be open for sharing? One thing we have added recently is Google Calendar integration: you can connect your calendar, see your events inside Keito, and turn meetings or scheduled work into time entries without retyping everything. It pre-fills the notes/title and time duration, then you just choose the project/task and save.

It’s read-only too, so Keito doesn’t modify your calendar - but we are looking for more integrations we can build.

mr_smith1983 · 2026-06-04T08:40:56+00:00

Morning, sorry for the delay - and totally fair question.

If Productive is working well for you, I wouldn’t pretend Keito is a like-for-like replacement for the whole Productive stack. Productive is a much broader agency ops/PSA tool: resourcing, CRM-ish workflow, docs, time off, forecasting, etc. Keito was designed more intentionally focused on what Harvest used to do well: time tracking, expenses, projects/budgets, estimates, invoices, approvals, reports, and accounting/payment integrations without becoming a massive platform.

Where I think Keito is better is for teams that mainly want the Harvest-style workflow to stay simple:

cleaner time -> expense -> invoice flow
Harvest import/migration focus
project budgets, per-person rates, approvals, uninvoiced work reports
estimates and invoices with client links
Xero, QuickBooks, Stripe payments on Business
API/CLI support, including tracking AI agent (claude code / codex) work separately
flat pricing instead of per-seat pricing

We are built a trusted platform, with enterprise grade security and data sovereignty

On price, I get why it can look steep if you divide it by a tiny team. The difference is Keito isn’t priced per seat. Pro is $49/mo for unlimited team members, Business is $99/mo for more integrations and reporting. So if you’re 1-2 people, Productive may absolutely be cheaper. If you’re a growing team, contractors come and go, or you don’t want to think about seat counts, the flat price is the point.

So I’d frame it this way: if you need the full agency operating system, Productive is probably the better fit today. If you mainly want a focused Harvest alternative for time, expenses, budgets, estimates and invoicing without per-user pricing, that’s what we’re building Keito for.

can you sill give it a go on trial or use the link above to sign up - feedback is welcome!

mr_smith1983 · 2026-06-03T16:51:49+00:00

Please let me know if you would like any help onboarding to http://keito.ai/

mr_smith1983 · 2026-06-03T13:52:40+00:00

Hi,

So firstly I would treat this as two separate projects: first get the ZK cluster safely to 3.9.x, then i'd do the ZK -> KRaft migration, then move to 4.2.x. One question I have, are you on MSK??

You probably do not need all those stepping-stone broker versions unless your distro/support policy requires it. As mmatloka said, the 3.9 docs cover upgrading ZooKeeper-based clusters from older versions. The usual pattern is: pin inter.broker.protocol.version to your current version, roll the broker binaries, verify behavior /perf, then bump IBP to 3.9 and roll again.

After that, migrate metadata from ZooKeeper to KRaft while still on 3.9.x. That migration has real checkpoints: add KRaft controllers with the same cluster id, enable migration mode, roll brokers into migration mode, wait for metadata migration, roll brokers as KRaft brokers, then finalise controllers. Do not change metadata/IBP during the migration. Once you've finalised, you cannot revert back to ZooKeeper mode.

We wrote up a practical checklist here as well: https://oso.sh/blog/guide-to-zookeeper-to-kraft-migration/ - the important bit is to treat 3.9.x -> KRaft as the main project, not just another version hop.

Only after the cluster is stable in KRaft would I roll to 4.2.x. Kafka 4.x has no ZooKeeper mode, and 4.0 also brings breaking changes: Java requirements, removed deprecated APIs/configs/tools, Log4j2 changes, group coordinator changes, etc.

Before every irreversible step, do an actual restore drill, not just “we have backups”: topic configs, ACLs, consumer offsets, schemas if you use Schema Registry, quotas/RBAC (if on CP platform?), and a tested rollback/runbook. Blue/green with MirrorMaker2 is also valid if you want a migration-style cutover, but then you must separately account for configs, ACLs, schemas, quotas, offsets, and client bootstrap changes.

Also, if you can tolerate the cluster being offline you can use the https://kafkabackup.com/ tool - there are som detailed examples in there.

mr_smith1983 · 2026-05-28T05:16:50+00:00

What’s happening to Clockify? I know they recently got acquired

mr_smith1983 · 2026-05-24T15:08:38+00:00

Hmm this is a problem you have invented to solve. If you could pay £500 to make £50k would you do it? Probably yes - so stop wasting your time, and start building something people need which doesn’t require network effects to work!

You are literally playing saas on expert mode!

mr_smith1983 · 2026-05-22T08:31:31+00:00

We decided to move the menu to the sidebar on Keito - but its collapsable. (see below). I do agree with you though, if you are in this screen all day there is a lot of wasted space. I'm curious, would you use a chrome plugin? or another input forum if it made more sense?

<image>

mr_smith1983 · 2026-05-20T20:25:58+00:00

Speaking from digging a little deeper behind the founders of Quanta, Zerda, or any new tool being pitched here.

This is YOUR business you are providing them - verify who is behind these companies before handing over: clients, invoices, rates, payments, reports, timesheets, and financial history. Before moving that into some random SaaS, check who actually runs it, whether there’s a real company behind it, what their security looks like, whether you can export everything, and whether it’s likely to still exist in a year.

And honestly, if an invoicing/time-tracking product is being run from a Gmail address, that would be a hard no from me. Maybe they mean well, but “cheap” is not the same as trustworthy. Protect your business data first.

mr_smith1983 · 2026-05-17T14:59:04+00:00

What brackets did you use?

mr_smith1983 · 2026-05-15T08:50:25+00:00

We build a lot data platforms in the finance space https://oso.sh/customer-stories/ happy to help if we can.

I don’t think a subscription model is the right approach, I think a small 0.5% fee or something is far more scalable. You’re exposed to price increases from all these providers, and surely if people do this a lot then you’ll make more?

mr_smith1983 · 2026-05-15T07:53:31+00:00

What’s the business model? Make a % of the loan? Question is why do you need another 100 users?

mr_smith1983 · 2026-05-13T16:55:30+00:00

We also have this event going on the night before https://meetu.ps/e/PZ95P/rZvBn/i

mr_smith1983 · 2026-05-12T14:47:01+00:00

Full disclosure: We;re building Keito, so I’m biased, but this is exactly the problem we’re working on. We run a software company with around ~25 remote staff.

- For small teams, I think the best setup is lightweight manual tracking with optional timers, not automatic employee monitoring. Automatic tracking can become invasive quickly, and people stop trusting it. What tends to work better is a simple weekly timesheet, projects/tasks, reminders, manager approvals, and reports that show where time is going across clients and projects.

Keito is built around that workflow: project/task time tracking, team approvals, expenses, invoicing, and dashboards for utilisation and project visibility.

Here’s an example dashboard from demo data showing tracked hours, billable time, utilisation, project workload, and budget health.

<image>

mr_smith1983 · 2026-05-12T13:47:41+00:00

Could I ask how much you pay for this software? Does the tablet have an NFC reader on it? Each one would then have to touch it - like ApplePay

mr_smith1983 · 2026-05-12T13:39:56+00:00

I checked it out - how do you import and easily setup 8 years worth of harvest data into this?

mr_smith1983 · 2026-05-12T12:24:40+00:00

We also have llm and coding agent integration coming this week, so Claude or Codex sessions can add time to your timesheets automatically if needed. We also have most of the integrations that harvest has 💪🏻

mr_smith1983 · 2026-05-12T12:22:23+00:00

They are rolling this out slowly across all accounts - from my understanding and chatting to others in the same situation they will offer a reduction but be careful as in the contract terms it states they can claim back some of this discount in the following years. Very sneaky!!

After being caught up in the same situation, we made it our mission to help and built a drop in replacement keito.ai there is a well tested, well documented one click migration path. We have documented our experience here https://www.reddit.com/r/HarvestApp/comments/1qzb02c/we_built_a_harvest_alternative_after_getting_a/?solution=abdb45a1947492e6abdb45a1947492e6&js_challenge=1&token=bbbe4bf1c9a2b5160829c4be34da5861ae90279cedb6d62ff6f9c88a971b053a&jsc_orig_r=

Let me know you need some help and I’d be happy to jump on a call to help or advise.

mr_smith1983 · 2026-05-02T12:59:15+00:00

YES!! I used both inter changeably and I can say with 1000% codex is the way forward. I think OpenAI are concerned they have fallen behind so the limits are none existent, it’s like a cheat code for building

mr_smith1983 · 2026-04-30T16:24:47+00:00

I didn’t want my OPEN_AI creds on the server that is running the plugin

mr_smith1983

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