ActivTrak and Presify answer different questions. Per its public marketing, ActivTrak is a work intelligence platform for workforce and productivity analytics. ActivTrak gathers that activity data through an installed agent and integrations. Presify is a Microsoft Teams presence tracker that reads the presence Teams already has, with nothing to install: who is online, when, and for how long.
Presify keeps this comparison fair and at the category level. We will not put words in ActivTrak's mouth or quote a price for it, because ActivTrak's product and packaging are theirs to describe, and they change. We describe ActivTrak from its public marketing, say plainly what Presify does and does not do, and give you the criteria to check both.
What ActivTrak is, at the category level
According to its public marketing, ActivTrak is a work intelligence platform that helps leaders understand how work gets done across people, tools, and AI. Its listed features include application and website usage, productivity trends, and benchmarks. ActivTrak says it collects that data with a lightweight data collection agent plus integrations. Tools in this category typically analyze and classify activity to produce productivity reports across an organization.
Workforce analytics is a real category with real buyers. If you want org-wide productivity analytics, app and website tracking, and benchmarks for how work time is spent, a platform built for that is the right fit. ActivTrak is one of the established names in that category. Confirm the current feature set directly with the vendor, since this is the kind of thing that evolves.
What Presify is: a Microsoft Teams presence tracker
Presify tracks Microsoft Teams presence for your whole team and keeps the history, so you can see who's online, when, and for how long. Presify samples presence (available, away, busy, offline) through the Microsoft Graph presence API on a short, regular interval and stores each change. Teams itself shows only the current dot and keeps no history, so Presify keeps the record. We cover the underlying question in how to see Teams status history.
The presence record matters because the green dot shows one moment, not the whole story. Someone can stay green all day and barely be around: a mouse jiggler is enough to keep Teams showing Available. Someone who always looks yellow might be doing their best work at 11pm. With the history in front of you, your read on your team comes from the pattern, not a glance.
See the pattern.
A timeline per person and per team, online-time totals and trends, and every status change on a 24-hour day view, with up to a year of history depending on plan.
Spot presence that looks gamed.
Six automatic flags surface unusual presence patterns, and each one shows how it’s calculated. Four of them (unbroken Available, no idle time, robotic regularity, no activity variation) are the patterns a mouse jiggler or keep-alive script tends to leave. Two, overnight presence and weekend uniformity, mark unusual hours, which can just as easily be someone working late. All six run on Pro and up; Standard runs the Idle suppression flag, and Basic and the free trial run none.
Quick and light.
One read-only Microsoft sign-in, about five minutes, nothing installed on anyone's laptop. No screenshots, no keystrokes, no message content.
Ask your AI assistant.
A read-only connector built on the open Model Context Protocol (MCP) lets Claude, ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot (through Copilot Studio), and other MCP clients answer your questions in plain language. It is on every plan and covers presence history, online time, flags, and coverage (flag and coverage answers follow your plan). It sees only what the signed-in person can already see in Presify (a monitor sees only their own people) and can be revoked at any time. Connections are recorded in the audit log (viewable on Pro and up), and the AI assistants guide covers setup.
How do ActivTrak and Presify differ?
ActivTrak measures activity through a data collection agent, which is broad and comes with a rollout. Presify reads a single signal Teams already computes, so there is nothing to deploy, and it works on any device someone uses Teams on. The table frames the criteria. Check ActivTrak against the same rows directly with the vendor, since their details can change.
Workforce productivity analytics Category
A data collection agent plus integrations, per its public marketing.
Presify 0 installs
One read-only Microsoft sign-in
AvailableAwayBusyOffline
Teams presence states (available, away, busy, offline) over time. Nothing installed.
| Criterion | ActivTrak (category positioning) | Presify |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Work intelligence: workforce and productivity analytics, per its public marketing | Microsoft Teams presence tracker |
| Question it answers | How work time is spent across applications and websites | Who is online in Teams, when, and how much |
| What it analyzes | Activity such as application and website usage | Teams presence states (available, away, busy, offline) over time |
| Setup | A data collection agent plus integrations, per its public marketing | One read-only Microsoft sign-in, about five minutes, nothing installed |
| Presence that looks gamed | Check with vendor | Six automatic flags on Pro and up, each showing how it’s calculated; Standard runs one |
| Screenshots / keystrokes | Check with vendor | Never captured |
| Productivity scoring | Central to the category, per public marketing | None; presence is not productivity |
| Data scope | Check with vendor | Presence (status and activity), basic directory fields, and each person's Outlook time zone and working hours; never message, chat, file, or calendar content |
| Access control | Check with vendor | Role-based: owner on every plan; additional admins and scoped monitors on Pro and up |
| Audit and retention | Check with vendor | Append-only audit log of every state-changing action (viewable and exportable on Pro and up); plan-based retention; per-user and workspace-wide deletion built in |
| Data region | Check with vendor | Built and hosted in the US, tenant-isolated |
| Where tracked people can be | Check with vendor | Most countries except the EEA, the UK, Switzerland, and Canada; people whose Microsoft 365 directory location is set to one of those are excluded automatically |
We have intentionally left most of ActivTrak's cells as "check with vendor" rather than guessing. The point is not to characterize their product for them, but to give you the checklist so you can evaluate both honestly.
Who each is for
The two tools answer different questions, so the choice is mostly about which question is yours.
ActivTrak
ActivTrak is the right call when you want org-wide productivity analytics: how work time is spent across applications and websites, productivity benchmarking, and the broader workforce-analytics picture. If that is the job, a platform built for it will serve you better than Presify.
Presify
Presify is the right call when you want the everyday answer: who is online, when, and how much, and whether anyone's presence looks gamed. Setup takes about five minutes, from the signal Teams already has, with nothing to roll out, and the history builds from that day on. On every plan, you can also ask Claude, ChatGPT, or Microsoft Copilot about that history in plain language. For the full picture of that approach, see lightweight employee monitoring for Microsoft Teams.
Need screenshots, keystroke logging, app and URL tracking, or timesheets? Presify isn't that tool, and we would rather say so plainly than stretch to fit.
All comparisonsIs presence the same as productivity?
Presence isn't productivity. Presify gives you a directional read on when people are online and how much, and flags patterns worth a look.
What you do with it starts with a conversation, and a flag alone should never decide anything about a person.
Presify is built and hosted in the US. The people you track can be in most countries except the European Economic Area, the UK, Switzerland, and Canada. People whose Microsoft 365 directory location is set to one of those are excluded automatically. Guests are never tracked, and every state-changing action lands in an append-only audit log.
Wherever your people are, tell them their Teams presence is tracked before you start, and handle any consent or lawful basis local law requires. Some US states require advance written notice, and Presify includes a ready-to-adapt employee-notice template. More detail lives on our security page and in our FAQ.
Setup takes about five minutes.
One read-only Microsoft sign-in by a Microsoft 365 admin, nothing installed on anyone’s device. Presence is sampled on a short, regular interval, and the history builds from the moment you connect.
- Minute 0An admin connects Microsoft
- Minute 2Pick who to track
- Minute 5The history starts building
- Day 7Your first full week to read
If the everyday question is yours, see how Presify works or start with one Microsoft sign-in.
ActivTrak is a trademark of its respective owner. Presify is independent and not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by them.
Competitor details here reflect public information as of September 2026 and can change; confirm the current feature set with the vendor.