8 Best Remote Desktop Monitoring Software

Many business owners search for the best remote desktop monitoring software to help ensure their teams are working efficiently. After all, these tools allow you to easily stay on top of your team’s progress, manage productivity, and minimize wasted time.

In this article, we’ll talk about the best remote desktop monitoring tools and their benefits and drawbacks to help you decide which one best fits your business needs.

1. Hubstaff

Hubstaff is a workforce management tool with several productivity features like time tracking, activity monitoring, and advanced workforce analytics. The app helps remote, hybrid, and in-office teams be more efficient by enabling meaningful, focused work. GPS and geofencing features also make it great for teams out in the field, too. 

Features

• Time tracking
• App and URL tracking
• Optional screenshots
• Shift scheduling and attendance tracking
• Online timesheets
• Project budgeting and expense tracking
• GPS and geofenced job sites
• Automated payroll and invoicing
• Custom reports

Reasons to buy

Hubstaff’s comprehensive suite makes it a highly versatile tool. It works well for small businesses in need of basic time tracking, enterprise teams looking for advanced monitoring and productivity tools, and anyone in between.

While it has many offerings, the Hubstaff app is compact and straightforward. Team members simply have to track time, and Hubstaff does the rest. It’s a great tool for creating reports, generating automated timesheets, and processing team payments. 

Hubstaff also has the Insights add-on, which gives you even more in-depth productivity metrics like performance trends, meetings and focus time, and more. 

Reasons to avoid

Hubstaff doesn’t offer the more extensive monitoring features that other tools have. You also won’t find real-time screen monitoring, keylogging, and file access features.

If these features are important to your workflow, other apps might suit you better. At Hubstaff, we’re more about trust and transparency that works both ways — not just for managers. 

Price

• Free ($0 per user/month)
• Starter ($7 per user/month)
• Grow ($9 per user/month)
• Team ($12 per user/month)
• Enterprise (Custom pricing available upon request)

Hubstaff also offers add-ons to power up your workflow:

• Insights ($2 per user/month)
• Tasks ($3 per user/month)
• Data retention ($2 per user/month)
• More screenshots ($3 per user/month)

For more details, check out our pricing page.

2. Toggl

Toggl simplifies managing teams with its intuitive desktop monitoring features. The app generates helpful reports and activity data that teams can use to gauge performance and optimize their work.

Features

• Time tracking
• Activity
• Project and expense tracking
• Client billing
• Resource planning

Reasons to buy

One of Toggl’s main selling points is its simplicity, which it does very well. Because it has almost no learning curve, new users can start tracking their time when they log into the app. This also makes it great for freelancers and independent contractors with limited time for training. Toggl’s task management features and project timelines are also valuable if you need basic project management capabilities.

Reasons to avoid

While Toggl has good time tracking and resource planning capabilities, it lacks payroll and advanced activity monitoring features. While Toggl is a great time tracker with some solid project management features, it certainly wouldn’t market itself as a true desktop monitoring tool. 

Pricing

• Free ($0 per user/month)
• Starter ($10 per user/month)
• Premium ($20 per user/month)

Enterprise pricing is also available upon request. 

3. SoftActivity

SoftActivity is a cloud-based employee monitoring solution with time tracking and reporting capabilities. With the ability to see real-time snapshots, SoftActivity also offers high-level activity monitoring that separates it from other tools on the market.

Features

• Time tracking
• Activity reports
• Keystroke logging
• Email and file monitoring
• Real-time screenshots

Reasons to buy

The biggest advantage of SoftActivity is its extensive ability to collect employee data. It can also notify managers of all employee activity, including logon, logoff, and idle times. If this level of control is a requirement for you, SoftActivity is a great option.

Reasons to avoid

SoftActivity is a one-time purchase. However, it starts at a staggering $239.97 for just three people. This price tag alone might turn smaller businesses away. They also don’t list integrations in any of their materials, so there’s no guarantee that you can implement SoftActivity into your existing tech stack.

Further, SoftActivity doesn’t have a refund policy on their website, which means you might end up with significant financial losses if you decide to switch to a different tool later on.

Pricing

• One year: $​​239.97
• Two years: $308.97
• Three years: $368.97

4. ActivTrak

ActivTrak offers employee monitoring features with an emphasis on performance data and analytics. It also provides metrics like the number of productive hours worked by each employee and location-based productivity data.

Features

• Time tracking
• Location tracking
• Productivity reports
• Advanced workforce analytics
• Website blocking with alarms

Reasons to buy

As mentioned above, ActivTrak’s extensive analytics tools and customization give you a complete view of your team’s productivity. Whether you want to see the average productivity of specific teams or the workload capacity of your employees, ActivTrak has features for them.

Reasons to avoid

ActivTrak is well-equipped with workforce analytics capabilities but lacks workforce management tools like PTO management, invoicing, and payroll. That said, ActivTrak is a good choice if you need advanced analytics, but you’ll need another app for administrative tasks like leave tracking and paying team members.

Pricing

• Freemium: $0
• Advanced: $9 per user/month (annually)
• Premium: $15 per user/month (annually)

You can also contact sales for enterprise pricing options.

5. Monitask

Monitask tracks your employees’ clock-in and clock-out times and working hours to better understand your organization’s time usage. The app’s activity monitoring feature helps you see productive or unproductive apps so you can identify employee strengths or areas for improvement.

Features

• Time tracking
• Activity monitoring
• Screenshots
• Project budgeting
• Reporting
• Invoicing

Reasons to buy

With a monthly plan starting at $5.99/month per user, Monitask is one of the more affordable options on this list. You’ll also get time tracking, activity monitoring, and reporting features with this plan. This friendly option is great for smaller businesses that need only core desktop monitoring capabilities.

Reasons to avoid

Monitask doesn’t have budgeting, invoicing, or payroll capabilities, which makes it a less-than-ideal option if you regularly work with clients or freelancers. And because it doesn’t have mobile apps, there’s no way to track field employees.

Pricing

• Pro: $5.99 per user/month
• Business: $8.99 per user/month
• Enterprise: Contact sales

6. VeriClock

VeriClock is a time management and attendance tracking tool that accurately tracks time to tasks and projects. With VeriClock, employees can clock in via the web, mobile app, SMS, or a phone call.

Features

• Time tracking
• Multiple clock-in methods
• Location tracking
• Timesheets with signature requests

Reasons to buy

VeriClock is specifically designed to ensure employees are where they need to be when they need to be. With multiple ways to clock in, a location tracking functionality, and real-time alerts, VeriClock ensures that all time entries and timesheets are correct.

Reasons to avoid

VeriClock can track when and where employees work, but that’s the full extent of its employee monitoring capabilities. You can’t access activity data like app and URL usage or more advanced metrics like focus time and productivity trends.

Pricing

• $10 per month account fee plus $5 per user

7. DeskTime

DeskTime uses time and activity tracking to identify employees who are performing well or might be struggling. It also lets you track how much you’re spending on different projects, helping you make better resource management decisions.

Features

• Time tracking
• Activity monitoring
• Document title tracking
• Reporting
• Shift scheduling

Reasons to buy

DeskTime offers a balanced desktop monitoring suite — with its core time tracking, activity monitoring, and reporting capabilities, you can reliably gauge whether your team is doing well or needs assistance.

Reasons to avoid

Similar to Monitask, DeskTime lacks project budgeting, payroll, and invoicing. In other words, it will do well as an internal desktop monitoring platform but not much else.

Pricing

• Pro: $7 per user/month
• Premium: $10 per user/month
• Enterprise: $10 per user/month

8. Teramind

As one of the most extensive desktop monitoring tools on the market, many companies rely on Teramind for desktop monitoring and — to an extent — security purposes. It also offers an array of features, from basic monitoring functions like time tracking to advanced ones like remote desktop control and email monitoring.

Features

• Time tracking
• Application, email, instant messaging, and social media monitoring
• Keystroke logging
• Real-time screen monitoring and recording
• Network monitoring
• Remote desktop control

Reasons to buy

Teramind has one of the most comprehensive employee monitoring tools available. While other employee monitoring apps are built to measure productivity or simplify billing and payroll, Teramind is designed to monitor every aspect of work to ensure high workplace security. If you need complete monitoring capabilities over team members, Teramind will also do that well.

Reasons to avoid

While Teramind is certainly not lacking in employee monitoring features, it’s more invasive than most other alternatives. For instance, its real-time screen recording and remote desktop control features essentially give employers total control over any employee’s device.

Teramind’s most basic plan is more expensive than other apps: $15/user per month with a minimum requirement of five users, amounting to $75.

Pricing

• Teramind Starter: $11.25 (1 seat per month)
• Teramind UAM: $22.50 (1 seat per month)
• Teramind DLP: $26.25 (1 seat per month)

Teramind also offers enterprise pricing.

Conclusion

Employee monitoring software is excellent for helping you ensure your team is performing as well as they can be. That said, we’d also like to stress the importance of monitoring software’s role in identifying when team members need help or are at risk of burnout, fatigue, or other workplace issues.

The most important thing, however, is to communicate with your employees before deploying desktop monitoring software. These tools have benefits, but only if you’re transparent with your team about your intentions behind using them.