Authorlytica vs TrackBear: clean tracker meets writing companion.

What TrackBear is

TrackBear is a focused writing-progress tracker maintained by dispatchrabbi on GitHub. The hosted version lives at trackbear.app; the open-source version runs on Node and Postgres via Docker. It is free to use, free to self-host, contains no advertising, and explicitly does not use AI. The team's positioning is "no-frills, no nonsense."

You can track word counts, chapters, pages, scenes, lines, or time. Each project has a goal and a deadline. The dashboard shows streaks, progress charts, and a clean data view. If you want to write in public, you can opt into shared leaderboards with friends. That's the core. It does it well.

What Authorlytica is

Authorlytica is also a writing tracker, but the surface area is wider. The same daily logging is there: words, pages, or lines, streaks, deadlines, charts. On top of that, Authorlytica generates a weekly recap every Monday, a monthly Rewind at month-end, and a full annual Wrapped every December, all automatically. It scores you across five writing-identity dimensions (Speed, Mass, Consistency, Dedication, Longevity) into a Writer Profile Radar. It tags each session with a mood, so you can see where the writing was happiest. It has a friends feed, kudos, comments, and a nudge system.

The tradeoff: Authorlytica is not open-source, and the free plan caps at three active projects (Premium goes to ten). TrackBear is unlimited on projects, full stop.

Side-by-side

Where TrackBear is the right call

• You want self-hosting. Authorlytica is a hosted SaaS. If you need the data on your own server, TrackBear is the only one of the two that can do that.
• You want unlimited projects without paying. The 3-project cap on Authorlytica's free plan is real. If you write across half a dozen WIPs at once, TrackBear is more honest about giving that to you for free.
• You want minimum surface area. TrackBear's UI is intentionally bare. There is no leaderboard nudge, no Writer Profile, no Rewind. If you want a tracker that does one job, it is exactly that.
• Open-source matters to you. You can read TrackBear's code, fork it, contribute. Authorlytica is closed-source.

Where Authorlytica is the right call

• You want the interpretation layer. TrackBear shows you the numbers. Authorlytica writes the story those numbers tell. The Rewind, the Writer Profile, the mood patterns: that is the part TrackBear deliberately does not do.
• You want gamification that sticks. Achievements, XP, levels, personal records. TrackBear has streaks; Authorlytica has streaks plus a Common-to-Legendary achievement system writers actually chase.
• You want a community feed. Friends, kudos, nudges. TrackBear's "social" is opt-in leaderboards. Authorlytica's social layer is more present.
• You want to write in multiple units across projects. Both support words / pages / lines, but Authorlytica also tracks editing sessions separately, which TrackBear does not.

Can you use both?

Technically yes, and a few writers do, but it is friction. The honest answer: pick one and stick with it. TrackBear for clean, minimal, free-forever, self-hostable. Authorlytica for the wider companion experience with the Rewind and Profile layers. Both export to CSV, so switching later is a non-event if your preference changes.

The honest take

TrackBear is the best free, no-strings tracker in the space. If your goal is "log the words, see the streak, finish the book," TrackBear is excellent and we recommend it without reservation. Authorlytica's competitive case is not that we count better, it is that we surface patterns and identity TrackBear chooses to leave out. If that part sounds useful, the free plan is the cheapest possible way to find out.

Read next: The best writing tracker in 2026: a complete guide.