Best Google Timeline Alternatives in 2026 (Ranked)

Google Timeline is, for most practical purposes, dead. The web version is gone, the data lives on your phone now, and people are still discovering that years of their location history vanished in the transition. If you're reading this, you probably already know all that.

So what are the actual options in 2026? I went through the most popular alternatives, ranked them by how well they replace what Google Timeline used to do, and tried to be honest about the trade-offs — including the ones that apply to my own project.

1. Dawarich

Yeah, I'm putting my own project first. I built it, I'm biased, deal with it.

Dawarich is a self-hosted, open-source location history tracker. You run it on your own server (or use Dawarich Cloud if you don't want to bother with Docker), and it stores all your location data in your own database. Nobody else sees it.

What makes it a solid Timeline replacement:

• Imports all Google Timeline export formats — Records.json, Semantic Location History, phone exports, all of it
• Interactive map with your full history, filterable by date
• Trips (manual creation from your tracked points) and statistics (distance, countries visited, etc.)
• Supports GPX, GeoJSON, KML, and a bunch of other formats via the import/export system
• Real-time tracking from OwnTracks, Overland, or the Dawarich mobile apps
• Photo integration with Immich and PhotoPrism (it pulls geodata from your photo library, not the other way around)

The downsides: you need to host it yourself or pay for Cloud (starting at €50/yr for Lite, or €120/yr / €18/mo for the full plan, 7-day free trial). The self-hosted setup requires Docker and a bit of patience. It's not a "download from the App Store and forget" kind of thing.

If you're coming from Google and just want to see your exported data on a map without committing to anything, try the free Timeline Visualizer first. It runs entirely in your browser, nothing gets uploaded anywhere.

For a more detailed comparison: Dawarich vs Google Timeline.

2. OwnTracks

OwnTracks is the OG of self-hosted location tracking. It's been around forever, it's open source, and it does one thing well: recording where you are and sending that data to your own server.

The good:

• Mature, well-tested mobile apps (iOS and Android)
• MQTT or HTTP — your choice
• Very lightweight on the server side
• Large community

The not-so-good:

• No built-in web UI for viewing your history. You get the data, but visualizing it is a separate problem.
• No import from Google Timeline out of the box
• The Recorder component stores data but doesn't do much with it
• If you want maps, statistics, trips — you need to build that yourself or use something else as a frontend

OwnTracks is great as a data source. Dawarich actually supports OwnTracks as a tracking app, so you can use OwnTracks on your phone and Dawarich as the backend with the nice UI. Best of both worlds. For more on how they compare: Dawarich vs OwnTracks.

3. Traccar

Traccar started as a GPS fleet tracking platform, but a lot of self-hosters use it for personal location tracking too.

Strengths:

• Supports a ridiculous number of GPS devices and protocols
• Has a decent web interface with real-time tracking
• Self-hosted, open source
• Active development

Weaknesses:

• The UI is very much "fleet management" — it works, but it feels like you're monitoring delivery trucks
• No Google Timeline import
• History browsing is functional but bare-bones compared to what Timeline offered
• It's designed for tracking assets, not for "where have I been over the last 5 years"

If you already have Traccar running for other reasons, it can work as a Timeline replacement in a pinch. But it wasn't built for personal location history and it shows.

4. Strava / Komoot / Other Activity Trackers

These aren't really Timeline alternatives, but I keep seeing them recommended, so let's be clear about what they are.

Strava and Komoot track your activities — runs, bike rides, hikes. They're excellent at that. But they don't do continuous background location tracking. You have to manually start and stop recording. Nobody is going to hit "Start Activity" every time they leave the house.

They're great for what they do. They're just not a replacement for always-on location history. If you only care about tracking workouts and outdoor activities, sure, use them. If you want to know where you had lunch three Tuesdays ago, they won't help.

For a deeper look at the Strava comparison specifically: Dawarich vs Strava.

5. Arc / Life360

Arc was genuinely good — automatic trip detection, place recognition, nice UI. Then it kind of stalled. The developer is one person, and updates have been sporadic. It's iOS-only and there's no web version. Your data lives on your phone, which is exactly the problem Google created.

Life360 is a family tracking app that's been repeatedly caught selling precise user location data to data brokers. If your definition of "Timeline alternative" includes your family members seeing where you are at all times and third-party advertisers knowing too, go for it. Otherwise, probably not.

6. Google Timeline (what's left of it)

I'm including this because technically it still exists. On your phone. With limited history. And no web access.

If you're fine with Google's new limitations — data on-device only, no desktop browsing, limited retention — then you don't need an alternative. But if you're reading a blog post titled "Best Google Timeline Alternatives," I'm guessing you're not fine with it.

The Honest Summary

App	Self-hosted	Google Import	Web UI	Continuous Tracking	Open Source
Dawarich	Yes (+ Cloud)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
OwnTracks	Yes	No	Minimal	Yes	Yes
Traccar	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Strava/Komoot	No	No	Yes	No	No
Arc	No	No	No	Yes	No
Google Timeline	No	N/A	No (mobile only)	Yes	No

If you want the closest thing to what Google Timeline used to be — a complete history of everywhere you've been, on a map, accessible from a browser — there honestly aren't that many options. Most of the "alternatives" people recommend are either activity trackers, fleet management tools, or data collectors without a frontend.

Dawarich is the one I built because nothing else did what I needed. If your exported Google data is sitting in a folder somewhere gathering dust, at least run it through the Timeline Visualizer and see what you've got. It takes 30 seconds and everything stays in your browser.

Cheers!