The Best Employee Monitoring Software for 2024

Teramind is extremely secure software that can be deployed in an office or remotely through the cloud. It can monitor Windows, Windows Server, Mac, Citrix, VDI, VMware Horizon and terminal servers, and it’s our choice for firms or industries where security is paramount.

Each of Teramind’s three plans contain features to satisfy specific tracking needs. The Starter plan is the most basic option, suitable for standard monitoring. The User Activity Monitoring (UAM) plan is for businesses that need more comprehensive monitoring features, while the Data Loss Prevention (DLP) plan combines the features of the UAM plan with additional security.

Teramind can track employee behavior like website and application usage, email activity, online meetings, file transfers, web chats, social media activity, keystrokes, clipboard functions, and print jobs. You can block employees from engaging in certain activities and record their device activity on video and audio. It’s also possible to record only when violations occur, giving employers the option to build in some semblance of user privacy, a unique feature to Teramind that we particularly liked. Unlike many competitors, Teramind also gives you the ability to remotely control employee devices, which can be beneficial if you need to override an employee’s access to secure company information.

You can also access a plethora of reports, real-time alerts and policy management functions. If you want to test out the software before committing, you can take advantage of Teramind’s free live demo, which shows you around the system with sample employee data. Customer support is available by phone, email and live chat.

ActivTrak has all the features necessary to monitor your employees in a transparent way. For example, you can use the software to track not only how many hours employees work, but how engaged they are. ActivTrak can track how much time your employees engage in productive versus unproductive behavior and active versus passive (idle) behavior through mouse movements, keyboard activity (though not keystroke logging), and website and application usage. With workforce planning capabilities like the ActivTrak Headcount Planning dashboard, Workforce Capacity features and Impact Analysis tools, you can conveniently view metrics to rebalance employee workloads and resources and determine if staffing changes are successful. If you want to learn which locations your employees are most productive in (e.g., office vs. remote), then you can use ActivTrak’s Location Insights dashboard. This new tool shows you employee productivity broken down by user, location, time of day, and each week. The location data it provides can help you make informed staffing policies and determine office space requirements.

The software shows employee analytics like productivity, work efficiency, workload balance and tech usage. You can break these stats down by teams or individual users to identify top performers. Comparisons also help you identify which employees or teams have low levels of productivity or efficiency and may need help. Identifying key features like employee burnout addresses workload inefficiencies while improving employee engagement. With ActivTrak’s new integration with Google Workspace apps (e.g., Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Sheets and Slides), employees can view their own metrics on things like their average focus time, top attention-shift apps, days overworked, and more. Since ActivTrak also now has a calendar integration for Outlook and Google Calendar, employees get an accurate look at their digital and in-person activity. This data can help employees make informed decisions on how to break up their day best to increase productivity. If you are concerned about employees falling short of their goals, the ActivTrak Coach feature lets managers get at-a-glance highlights on pertinent negative employee activity trends like productivity decline, low utilization and high passive time. This data helps managers make informed decisions on how to best assist their employees.

BambooHR is cloud-based HR software that can be used for employee performance management. It’s not traditional employee monitoring software, but rather a comprehensive HR solution with various features to help small businesses hire and onboard employees, manage employee performance, track employee hours, administer employee benefits and run payroll. BambooHR has two paid plans (Essentials and Advantage), which both offer a seven-day free trial and no cancellation fees, that are charged on a per-employee basis with month-to-month agreements. There are add-on capabilities for payroll (with payroll permissions), time tracking (with group settings), performance management, and employee benefits administration. We like that the platform simplifies each of these processes, such as permitting users to add URLs to benefit plans, and accessing e-signatures and automated email notifications during benefits enrollment.

BambooHR’s software is intuitive and easy to use across desktop and mobile devices. Employees can access self-service capabilities with the mobile app, such as managing their time off, selecting and managing their employee benefits, completing on-the-go performance assessments, viewing company calendars, and accessing employee directories and organization charts with full reporting lines. Managers can access a variety of mobile functions as well, such as performance assessments, training management and approvals. For added security when using the platform, BambooHR offers two-step login authentication as well. If you have questions or issues with the software, you can easily connect with a support representative by phone, email or web chat.

The Essentials and Advantage plans both include standard HR features to help you manage your team, such as employee records, benefits tracking and enrollment, workflows and approvals, document storage, reporting, and email alerts.

Businesses looking for software that can also help with hiring and onboarding will want the Advantage plan’s applicant tracking system, onboarding and offboarding features, e-signature capabilities, audit trails, and training tracking. To further streamline this onboarding process, new hires can now mark their own training items as complete within the platform to track their training status. The Employee Net Promoter Score system is great for identifying employee engagement and opportunities for improvement.

Hubstaff is our choice as the best monitoring software for employee productivity management. It can be difficult to know how productive every employee is, especially remote workers. To alleviate this problem, Hubstaff has non-invasive features that allow you to accurately track employee time and user activity, improving your team’s overall productivity.

Hubstaff is flexible software capable of supporting various industries, devices and worker types, including remote workers, freelancers and field service personnel. Hubstaff supports Windows, Mac, Linux and Chrome, as well as iOS and Android devices. There’s a free plan, three affordable paid plans, and a customized enterprise plan, making it a viable option for businesses of all sizes. All paid plans have a two-user minimum, and you can test the software during a 14-day free trial; there is also a 30-day money-back guarantee. You can cancel, upgrade or downgrade your plan at any time.

Hubstaff focuses on tracking employee time and improving productivity, while maintaining employee privacy. It uses mouse and keyboard activity levels to gauge how active your employees are; instead of tracking the exact information they type (keylogging), Hubstaff assigns a true or false value to the activity to indicate productivity. It can take screenshots at regular intervals, but employees can delete screenshots containing sensitive information (e.g., banking information or medical details).

SentryPC offers several affordable plans for its cloud-hosted monitoring software to fit even the tightest budgets. A Basic plan starts at just $69.95 per year for one license with the option to add on additional licenses for $29.95 each. It has an array of plan sizes, with the largest plan permitting 1,000 licenses for $9,995 per year – that’s less than $10 per license per year. Even its inexpensive plans include everything you need to monitor your team successfully. You can view an online demo of the software before purchasing, which lets you browse sample data and reports to get a feel for the software.

SentryPC can be used to track Windows and Mac devices, and they recently released compatibility for Android devices as well. After you install the SentryPC software on the devices you want to monitor, you can view the tracking data from any device with web access. You can track employees’ activity, such as mouse movements and clicks, and keyboard presses. You can also track when they log in and out each day, what they download or print, when they change or reset passwords, and when they install and uninstall applications. For each of these events, the software logs the activity details and the associated IP address, and it includes a time stamp.

You can set maximum employee hours and track employee behavior such as the websites and applications they use, the programs they access, the games they play, and their keystrokes. If you’re interested in tracking employee location, you can set geofences for any user; this allows you to track when an employee’s computer enters or exits a virtually fenced-in area. You can also take screenshots of user activity, while Windows devices can record even more actions, like file activity, chats, and portable drive usage.

This monitoring software allows extensive content filters. You can set restrictions on certain apps, websites, games, chats and keywords for each employee. You can block or allow these activities as needed, and you’ll receive an alert when an employee tries to access a blocked activity. If you need assistance with SentryPC, you can contact customer support, but only through an online inquiry.

InterGuard has many tracking and security features that are ideal for keeping a (virtual) eye on employees from afar, ensuring they’re productive and safe. It can be deployed on Windows, Mac, terminal servers, Chromebooks, and iOS and Android devices, giving unique pan-device coverage.

InterGuard offers cloud-hosted software for larger organizations. Annual and monthly plans are available. The software is great at tracking when employees are online and active, when they log on and off, when they are on break, and how much of their day is spent being active versus idle. You can even use geolocation to track field service workers.

InterGuard can monitor website and application usage, social media activity, email, programs, files, chats, print jobs, and keystrokes. You can block employees from unproductive or harmful websites and applications, and program the software to send you alerts when suspicious activity occurs. These security measures make it great for remote workforces. In addition to the standard monitoring features, you can access InterGuard’s data loss prevention software, which has endpoint lockdown and data retrieval features. That means you can instantly retrieve company data and lock down a device if an employee leaves the company. You can also block and report email and USB activity.

The software dashboard is intuitive, with six different view types (chart, user, alert log, data, reports and notifications, and search) to accommodate different types of users.

Veriato is comprehensive employee monitoring and insider threat detection software for Macs, PCs and Android devices. Its advanced capabilities are especially useful for large enterprises that want complete insight into employee behavior. For example, Veriato helps you track workplace productivity, detect insider threats, conduct employee and forensic investigations, maintain legal compliance, and prevent data loss.

Veriato has three employee monitoring plans: Cerebral, Vision and custom plans for large organizations. The plans vary in hosting method (cloud or on-premises), the target size of business (small, midsize or large), and features (employee monitoring and insider threat detection). Pricing varies as well, so contact a Veriato representative for a custom quote.

Veriato has a learning curve, as there are a lot of monitoring features and capabilities. You can track user activity and status for both in-office and remote workers, including document and network activities. You can monitor employee behavior through the applications they use, the websites they visit, the searches they run and the emails they send.

Crucially, Veriato offers employee disengagement analysis to determine how engaged your employees are. This can support focused mentoring, retraining or engagement by managers, preemptively reducing the risk of resignation and the costs of recruitment.

You can block specific URLs and filter websites, take screenshots, and log employee keystrokes. Additional insider threat detection features include risk scoring, user and entity behavior analytics, and printing and USB device usage. Veriato offers a variety of helpful security alerts for anomalies, policy violations and specific keywords.

Controlio offers cloud-based and on-premises employee monitoring software that tracks and records employees’ PC activity in real time. Smaller businesses are typically better suited for the cloud option, whereas larger organizations can choose between on-premises and AWS cloud options.

Controlio is easy to implement and access. All it requires is a one-time software installation on the PC you want to track, and then you can view that PC’s activity from any device. Since the data is stored in the cloud, you can view activity from the web-based dashboard no matter where you are. This is ideal for managers who need to check in on employee behavior when they are away from the office. Controlio lets you create individual monitoring profiles so that you can see an employee’s entire activity in one organized location. You can use Controlio in stealth or tray icon mode, giving you full control over how you monitor employees.

One of Controlio’s best features is its ability to track screen activity in real time. If you want to review past activity, you can watch previously recorded video footage of an employee’s computer behavior as well. The software also offers keylogging in case you need further visibility into employee activity.

Controlio can track employee attendance, monitor web and application usage, store up to six months of data (unlimited storage for the on-premises and AWS cloud plans), record file usage, and generate productivity scores. You can set web filters so that employees don’t access unproductive or risky websites, and establish behavior rules and alerts for when an employee attempts an unacceptable action.

The recently rebranded Insightful is an ideal monitoring solution for employers that want to track their employees’ activity while retaining employee privacy and giving staff control over what’s recorded. It can support office employees, remote workers and enterprises. Every Insightful account includes two-factor authentication, an API and live support. Enterprise accounts can also include features like on-premises deployment, role-based access, audit logs and dedicated account managers.

Because Insightful has both visible and stealth modes, you can use it to monitor company- and employee-owned Mac and Windows devices. The software runs in visible mode on employee-owned devices, meaning the employee clocks in and out to run it. On company-owned devices, you have the choice between stealth mode (the software runs invisibly in the background) and visible mode, the latter of which gives employees more control over exposure of their data.

You can contact an Insightful representative for a custom quote on enterprise accounts. It offers monthly and yearly time-tracking plans and automatic time-mapping plans, with the ability to add on features like second-by-second raw data, manual screenshots, higher screenshot limits and alerts.

Insightful has standard features like real-time activity monitoring, productivity tracking, and app and website monitoring. It streamlines this type of monitoring by offering organization-level productivity labeling – a tool that allows administrators to assign activities as productive or unproductive in bulk. Team managers can also handle productivity labeling on a smaller scale if needed. These features are great for ensuring your employees are on task and productive.