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Comparison · PM
Harvest vs Leantime
A side-by-side editorial comparison of Harvest and Leantime — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Harvest vs Leantime: at a glance
What is Harvest?
Harvest fills in the back office: time off, payroll and contractor payouts
Harvest's redesign has given way to operational features. The Fall 2026 update lists Time Off with accrual rules and approvals, dark mode, a Gusto payroll integration, contractor expense reimbursements paid through Stripe, and recurring or milestone billing on Fixed Fee projects. Reimbursements are limited to eligible US contractors and USD accounts in this first release.
What is Leantime?
Leantime swaps role ranks for real permissions and syncs with your calendar app.
Leantime moved from 3.10 to 3.14 between October and 10 November. v3.14.0 replaces role-rank checks with specific permission checks across projects, timesheets, users, API keys, to-dos, milestones and sprints, and opens the calendar to plugins; a new CalDAV plugin syncs both ways with Nextcloud, Radicale and Apple Calendar. Earlier releases added mobile push, per-project modules, global search and self-updating plugins.
Harvest vs Leantime: editorial side-by-side
Harvest
0.0PM
Harvest fills in the back office: time off, payroll and contractor payouts
◆ Current state
Harvest's redesign has given way to operational features. The Fall 2026 update lists Time Off with accrual rules and approvals, dark mode, a Gusto payroll integration, contractor expense reimbursements paid through Stripe, and recurring or milestone billing on Fixed Fee projects. Reimbursements are limited to eligible US contractors and USD accounts in this first release.
◆ Where it's heading
The spring repositioning around profitability is now being extended into the money flows around a project. Time off, payroll hand-off and contractor payouts take Harvest from recording hours toward the administrative work that follows them, and Fixed Fee billing ties that work back to margin reporting. The in-season digests have become the clearest view of this, since the changelog itself carries few other entries.
◆ Prediction
Harvest says more locales and currencies are coming for reimbursements, so that is the most concrete next step. Features the post lists as in beta are the other likely arrivals in the next digest.
Leantime
5.0PM
Leantime swaps role ranks for real permissions and syncs with your calendar app.
◆ Current state
Leantime moved from 3.10 to 3.14 between October and 10 November. v3.14.0 replaces role-rank checks with specific permission checks across projects, timesheets, users, API keys, to-dos, milestones and sprints, and opens the calendar to plugins; a new CalDAV plugin syncs both ways with Nextcloud, Radicale and Apple Calendar. Earlier releases added mobile push, per-project modules, global search and self-updating plugins.
◆ Where it's heading
The release cadence is roughly one feature version every two weeks, split between finer access control and a plugin marketplace that carries more functionality. Core changes increasingly exist to give plugins stable hooks, as the calendar rework shows.
◆ Prediction
Expect more marketplace plugins built on the new calendar and permission hooks, and further permission work extending to the remaining modules.
Alternatives to Harvest and Leantime
Other PM products tracked by Sparkpulse, ranked by recent ship velocity. Each card links to a full editorial trajectory and lets you pivot into a head-to-head comparison with either Harvest or Leantime.
Asana
Asana lets Division admins run their own custom roles, on top Enterprise plans only.
NocoBase
NocoBase's v3 beta lets apps ship their own CLI, separate from Agents.
Productboard
Productboard's v2 documents API now keeps plain web addresses and emoji as ordinary text.
Hive
Hive turns reporting into a planning tool: shared inputs, grouped values, per-person drill-downs.
Tracecat
Tracecat 1.5 alpha patches add sub-cases and lock down agent sandboxes.
See all Harvest alternatives → · See all Leantime alternatives →
Recent activity from Harvest and Leantime
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 3d agoLeantimev3.14.0: per-permission access checks and a CalDAV sync plugin
- 14d agoLeantimev3.13.2: digest changes, OIDC PKCE, marketplace install reporting
- 14d agoLeantimev3.13.1: clearer plugin install errors
- 14d agoLeantimev3.13.0: mobile push, per-project modules, Laravel 12
- 29d agoLeantimev3.12.0: self-updating plugins and a shared interface library
- 1mo agoLeantimev3.11.0: global search across the workspace
- 1mo agoHarvestHarvest ships Time Off, dark mode, Gusto payroll and payouts
- 4mo agoHarvestIn Season: The latest from Harvest, Summer 2026
- 6mo agoHarvestInside the new Harvest
- 6mo agoHarvestA fresh Harvest
- 6mo agoHarvestA fresh Harvest
- 7mo agoHarvestIndustry leader award (PR, not a release)
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Harvest and Leantime?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. Leantime is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 5.0 vs 0.0), with 0 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.
Is Harvest better than Leantime?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. Leantime is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 5.0 vs 0.0), with 0 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other PM products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to Harvest?
Top Harvest alternatives in PM are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Harvest alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/harvest for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to Leantime?
Top Leantime alternatives in PM are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Leantime alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/leantime for the full list with editorial commentary on each.