Rize alternative
You use Rize, or looked at it. It shows where your hours went, often in detail. But knowing the day went to meetings and email doesn't make a deep work block happen, and you may prefer not to run a tracker that reads every window title. Below is where each tool is stronger, going by what Rize publishes about itself.
21 days free · no card · $5.99/mo after
Effort to track
Rize is stronger here
Rize
Automatic. Rize runs on your desktop and tags time to clients and projects without timers.
trydeepwork
Manual. Only time you log as a session is counted, so a session you forget to start isn't recorded.
The whole day
Rize is stronger here
Rize
Covers every tracked hour, shallow work included, with reports and daily summaries.
trydeepwork
Knows only about sessions. Meetings, email and everything between them aren't shown.
Clients and invoices
Rize is stronger here
Rize
Tags time to clients and projects, and can turn tracked time into invoices.
trydeepwork
Sessions can sync to Toggl, but trydeepwork has no client reports or invoicing.
Deciding what counts
trydeepwork is stronger here
Rize
Rize also has a timer for focus sessions. Most of the record comes from automatic tracking, which labels activity after it happens.
trydeepwork
You decide. A session is one task and one clock on a full-screen dark screen. Deep work is whatever you start a session for.
Booking ahead
trydeepwork is stronger here
Rize
Connects to Google Calendar and Outlook. Its session timer starts focus sessions on the spot.
trydeepwork
Book a session for a real time. It syncs both ways with Google Calendar, with reminders 60, 30, 10 and 1 minute before, by email, push or Telegram.
Platforms
trydeepwork is stronger here
Rize
Mac and Windows desktop apps. Rize says it isn't available on mobile.
trydeepwork
Any browser, installable to a phone home screen, and a terminal app for macOS, Windows and Linux.
Price
trydeepwork is stronger here
Rize
Basic is $9.99 a month billed annually, or $12.99 billed monthly. 7-day trial, no card.
trydeepwork
$5.99 a month or $49.99 a year. 21 days free, no card.
Rize details as of October 2026.
If you want an accurate account of every working hour without lifting a finger, Rize is the better tool. It runs in the background on Mac or Windows, and there is nothing to start or forget. trydeepwork can't match that, because it only knows about time you log as a session.
Rize also shows the whole day, shallow work included. If your question is how much of the week went to meetings, email and chat, a tool that records only deep work sessions can't answer it. trydeepwork doesn't try to.
And if you bill clients, Rize is built for that. It tags time to clients and projects, and it can turn tracked time into invoices. trydeepwork keeps a daily tally and a weekly view, but no client reports.
Rize describes the day after it has happened. trydeepwork works before the fact. You book a session for a real time, it syncs both ways with Google Calendar, and reminders arrive 60, 30, 10 and 1 minute before, by email, push or Telegram. A tally of where the hours went is useful, but a block on the calendar is what puts the hours there.
It's also deliberate about what counts. You decide what is deep work by starting a session for it: one task, one clock, a full-screen dark screen, from 5 minutes to 4 hours. Break time builds up as you work, 5 minutes for every 25. Home shows today's hours against a daily goal, and the week page shows the week against your 4-week average, split across up to three objectives.
Two optional features raise the stakes. You can buy session credits ($9.99 for 2, $24.99 for 5) and stake one on a booked session: start within 10 minutes of the booked time and finish at least 75% of it, and the credit comes back. You can also send a friend your link, so you each see the other's week and either of you can send a nudge, at most one email a day.
Nothing in trydeepwork watches your screen. It doesn't read app names, window titles or URLs, and it doesn't block anything. It runs in any browser, including your phone's, in a terminal app, and in ChatGPT over MCP in developer mode. It costs $5.99 a month or $49.99 a year, against $9.99 a month for Rize Basic billed annually.
Neither tool decides which work matters, and neither does it for you. Rize can show that the week went to the wrong things. trydeepwork can hold a session on the calendar. Choosing the task and sitting down with it is still yours.
Both also measure hours, and hours are a proxy. A long session on the wrong task counts the same as a good one.
Name what matters, book a time, then show up. Every session is logged, so by the end of the week you know how many deep hours you did, not roughly how many.