drifty Alternative

The short answer

drifty is a focus tracker that runs itself. It records the apps, sites and window titles you use, splits the day into short blocks and labels each one focus, neutral or drift. You choose where the AI runs: on your own Mac for free, through your own API key, or in drifty's cloud on the Pro plan.

DoneThat reconstructs the day too, but it reads the screen rather than window titles and page clues, and the output is a written summary of what you worked on, goals and coaching while the work is happening. If what you want is a free, honest answer to "how much of today was focus", drifty gives it. If you want the day turned into something you act on, that is what DoneThat is for.

Credit where it is due

A real free plan. Automatic tracking, the timeline, daily review and on-device AI classification cost nothing and do not expire, and the local path needs no drifty account. DoneThat has no free plan.

You choose where the AI runs. drifty Cloud, your own OpenRouter, OpenAI or Anthropic key, or a local model that needs about 5 to 7 GB of RAM. drifty describes local mode as "Nothing leaves your Mac" for classification, and notes that analytics and sync have separate settings.

Focus as the unit. Every block gets a focus, neutral or drift label separate from its category, and weekly views show your rhythm by hour and weekday. Projects come from a few keywords you set, and corrections inform later classifications.

It pushes back. A menu-bar companion flags drift, and Extreme Nudge, an opt-in beta, closes a drift tab or quits a drift app. An iPhone app that holds distracting apps is on pre-order for 16 November 2026.

More than a timeline. Pro adds personal API keys and a ChatGPT connection that reads your daily totals, and a beta Chat answers questions about a week or a project. A Teams beta shares project and focus time.

Careful defaults. No browser extension is needed for the major Mac browsers, private windows keep only the address and title, and optional screen recording for a few supported apps is off by default, encrypted on your computer and deleted after 24 hours.

How the capture differs

drifty's privacy policy lists what it collects: application names, window titles, website domains and URLs, page titles, and, depending on settings and permissions, limited on-screen context such as headings, short visible text or images. With cloud AI or your own key, minimized fields like app, domain, page title and duration go to the AI provider. The policy says drifty may use activity data, AI requests and results, Chat conversations and feedback to train and improve its own AI models, and that, where available, it configures cloud providers not to train theirs on that data. Raw activity history stays on your device by default. Product analytics are on by default and can be turned off. With analytics on, its privacy policy says the app may also send drifty Cloud minimized activity records, such as apps, sites, window and page titles and times, and uses them to improve its AI; Settings → Privacy turns this off.

drifty's record is built from metadata, meaning titles, addresses and short page clues, rather than from the full screen. Its bet is that this is enough to tell focus from drift with less capture. DoneThat's bet is that the screen says more about what the work actually was.

So DoneThat captures screen-first. Screenshots are never stored. They are processed in real time and immediately deleted, and only derived structured activity persists. Excluded apps are redacted on your machine before anything is sent. With your own Gemini or OpenAI-compatible model, raw activity never reaches our servers, though the structured result is still stored there. The desktop app is open source.

The honest trade: drifty's local path keeps classification on your Mac with no account at all, and screen-first capture is a bigger ask than window titles.

Pricing

drifty pricing, as of 9 November 2026:

Your own API key works on Free, and drifty estimates the provider cost at about $4 to $6 a month. drifty says existing subscribers keep their price while their subscription stays active.

DoneThat is subscription-based with a 14-day free trial; current prices are on the DoneThat pricing page.

Platform support

Where drifty is the better choice

• You want to pay nothing, or you want AI classification that stays on your Mac.
• Focus versus drift is the question, and a timeline that answers it is enough.
• You want the tool to close distractions, or an iPhone app that holds them.

Where DoneThat is the better choice

• You want to know what the work was, not only which window was open.
• You want coaching during the work. Don nudges you onto goals, blocks calendar time, flags low-value work, checks your mood, reminds you of meetings and suggests breaks.
• You use Linux.
• You want screen-level context without screenshots being kept.
• You want team sharing each person controls, with relative trends instead of per-person hours. In drifty's Teams beta, administrators choose what is shared, which can include per-person focus and project time.
• You want your detailed work history, not daily totals, in your AI tools through MCP, the API, Zapier or n8n.

If drifty's focus angle appeals, Rize and RescueTime are compared on the same terms.

How we compared these

Everything stated about drifty comes from its home, pricing, download, changelog and private-tracker pages and its privacy policy, read on 9 November 2026 and linked below. The yearly price is the figure in its pricing page's yearly option. Claims about DoneThat are first-hand: we build it, which is the bias to read this with.

Questions people ask about drifty

Is drifty free?

Yes. As of 9 November 2026, the Free plan includes automatic tracking, the timeline, daily review and on-device AI classification with no time limit, and you can bring your own API key on it. Pro is $7 a month or $60 a year and adds drifty's hosted AI, sync on up to three computers and personal API keys. DoneThat has no free plan; it has a 14-day free trial.

Does drifty send my activity to the cloud?

Not for classification if you choose Local AI: those requests stay on your computer. With drifty Cloud or your own key, minimized fields such as app name, domain, page or window title and duration go to the AI provider. Separately, its privacy policy says that depending on settings such as product analytics, which is on by default, the app may send minimized activity records and Chat conversations to drifty Cloud to improve its AI. You can turn analytics off in Settings, and device sync is off by default.

Does drifty work on Linux?

Not as of 9 November 2026. drifty runs on Apple Silicon Macs with macOS 13 or later and on Windows, and an iPhone app is on pre-order for 16 November 2026. Intel Macs and Android have waitlists. DoneThat ships desktop apps for Windows, macOS and Linux.

Can drifty block distractions?

Partly. Extreme Nudge, an opt-in beta, closes a drift tab or quits a drift app, and the iPhone app holds distracting apps at a daily limit or during a focus session once it is out.