OnWatch
Track AI API quotas across providers before limits hit—free, open-source, local-first.
OnWatch is a genuinely useful tool for developers juggling multiple AI API quotas. Its local-first, privacy-respecting design fills a gap that providers ignore. Recommended for power users and teams managing shared AI consumption. If you only use one provider, the native dashboard may suffice; but for multi-provider workflows, OnWatch's cross-provider headroom view and burn-rate projections are a clear upgrade.
Verified 14d ago · liveness 67/100 · cite: rightaichoice.com/tools/onwatch
- Developers using multiple AI APIs (Anthropic, Codex, Copilot, etc.)
- Teams managing shared AI quotas across several providers
- Power users of Claude Code and other CLI-based AI tools
- Individuals tracking personal API consumption with privacy focus
- Users needing cloud-hosted or multi-user management dashboards
- Those requiring native mobile apps for quota monitoring
- Enterprises requiring SSO, audit trails, or role-based access
We scan live Reddit threads, YouTube comments, X posts, G2 reviews and other communities — and hand you an honest verdict in under a minute.
- Honest verdict, not marketing
- Real pros & cons from real users
- Attributed quotes with receipts
3 free scans · no card needed
Skip OnWatch if you only use one AI provider, need cloud-hosted multi-user dashboards, require mobile monitoring, or demand enterprise-grade SSO/audit trails.
Alerts and multi-account support are in beta, so you may encounter bugs or incomplete functionality that require manual workarounds.
OnWatch is completely free and open source, with no hidden costs—ideal for individual developers and small teams. It undercuts commercial quota managers that charge per-seat or per-api-usage fees, while offering similar cross-provider visibility. If you need enterprise-grade features like SSO or cloud sync, you'll need to look elsewhere, but for local-first monitoring, it's a steal.
In short
OnWatch — Track AI API quotas across providers before limits hit—free, open-source, local-first. Best for Developers using multiple AI APIs (Anthropic, Codex, Copilot, etc.), Teams managing shared AI quotas across several providers, Power users of Claude Code and other CLI-based AI tools. Free to use.
What people actually say about OnWatch — is it worth it?
We ran a structured research pass across product reviews, community discussions, and post-purchase forum threads to surface the patterns vendors won't publish themselves. Below: the recurring strengths, the hidden costs people mention most, and the cohort that consistently regrets adopting this tool.
37 mentions across 5 sources (Hacker News, YouTube, Product Hunt, GitHub, Lemmy) · researched Aug 17, 2026.
Average across the 5 sources that answered — each source counts once, not each post.
- +Unified dashboard for 8 providers, ending dashboard-hopping
- +Very lightweight: under 50MB RAM, ideal for background daemon
- +Zero telemetry and local SQLite storage ensure privacy
- +Predictive burn-rate and reset countdowns help avoid overage
- +One-command install via curl, Homebrew, or PowerShell
- −Anthropic usage tracking unreliable in some cases (stalls)
- −No multi-account support for Codex, despite beta mention
- −Gemini CLI support missing, a popular provider for users
- −Alerts and menubar features still beta, potentially flaky
- −Limited provider coverage beyond eight—OpenCode gap
- • Setup time for multiple provider API tokens
- • Potential need to self-host for Docker users
Viability Score
How well maintained and how widely used is OnWatch? Built from what the vendor actually publishes (docs, changelog, tutorials, integrations, pricing), whether the site is live, and how much real users discuss it. How we calculate this
Last calculated: September 2026
How we score →Key Features
- Real-time quota tracking for 8 providers
- Cross-provider headroom comparison for routing work
- Burn rate forecasting and projections to next reset
- Live countdowns to each quota reset
- Historical trend charts (hourly, daily, weekly, 30-day)
- Anomaly detection for unexpected provider limit resets
- Email and push alerts (beta) with AES-256 encrypted credentials
- Multi-account support for Codex (beta)
- Session tracking and side-by-side session comparison
- Automatic reset cycle detection for Anthropic, Synthetic, Z.ai
- macOS menubar (beta)
- One-command install via curl, Homebrew, or PowerShell
- Docker support (distroless ~12MB and Alpine images)
- Local SQLite storage with zero telemetry
- Open source under GPL-3.0
About OnWatch
OnWatch is a free, open-source desktop daemon that monitors AI API quotas in real time across eight providers: Anthropic, Codex, Synthetic, Z.ai, GitHub Copilot, MiniMax, Gemini CLI, and Antigravity. It runs quietly in the background—under 50MB RAM—and serves a Material Design 3 dashboard at localhost:9211, so you always know your remaining headroom before you hit a wall. Built for developers and teams juggling multiple LLM APIs, OnWatch normalizes different quota types, reset cycles, and burn rates into one unified view. The dashboard shows historical trend charts (1h to 30d), live countdowns to each reset, and burn-rate projections that tell you if you'll run out before relief arrives. Anomaly detection catches unexpected limit resets—something provider dashboards miss entirely, like when OpenAI resets limits early. You can compare sessions side-by-side, track peak consumption per cycle, and use cross-provider routing to switch work to whichever provider still has capacity. Setup is one command on Mac, Linux, Windows, or Docker, with zero telemetry and all data stored locally in SQLite. Alerts are in beta, with SMTP email or browser push and AES-256 encrypted credentials. Multi-account support for Codex is also in beta. The project has over 330 GitHub stars, with contributors from Microsoft, Amazon, Salesforce, Red Hat, and Tailscale, signaling strong community trust. Compared to juggling each provider's native dashboard, OnWatch delivers a predictive, cross-provider view while keeping your usage data on your machine. It's positioned as a local-first alternative to cloud-hosted quota managers—privacy-focused, lightweight, and open source under GPL-3.0.
Behind the Verdict
OnWatch stands out by addressing a pain point that AI providers themselves often neglect: quota visibility across multiple APIs. For developers who regularly switch between Anthropic, Codex, Copilot, and others, keeping track of separate limits and reset cycles is a constant mental load. OnWatch consolidates this into a single dashboard, showing live countdowns and burn-rate projections that help you plan heavy usage before hitting a wall. The local-first design is a major strength. All data stays on your machine in SQLite, with zero telemetry—a sharp contrast to cloud-hosted alternatives. This appeals to privacy-conscious developers and teams. The one-command install across platforms and Docker support lower the barrier to entry. However, OnWatch is not for everyone. If you rely on a single AI provider, the native dashboard likely suffices. The tool also lacks cloud multi-user management, SSO, audit trails, and role-based access, making it unsuitable for enterprises with strict compliance needs. Mobile apps are absent, so you can't monitor quotas on the go. Alerts and multi-account support are still in beta, indicating some rough edges. Yet for its intended audience—power users and teams juggling multiple AI APIs—OnWatch delivers a practical, privacy-respecting solution that no provider offers natively.
Researching OnWatch? Get your full AI stack in 60 seconds.
Free, no signup — tell us your goal and get tools matched to your budget & existing stack.
Real-world workflow fit
Concrete scenarios for the personas OnWatch actually fits — and what changes day-one when you adopt it.
You juggle client projects, switching between Anthropic's Claude and GitHub Copilot. You need to know your remaining quota before starting a large refactor.
Outcome: Install OnWatch, add your provider credentials, and view a single dashboard showing live remaining quota for both. Burn-rate projections tell you if you'll hit limits before your deadline, so you can plan breaks or switch providers early.
Your team uses Anthropic, Synthetic, and MiniMax for various tasks. You want to ensure no one exhausts the shared quota during peak development sprints.
Outcome: Set Up OnWatch on a shared machine, track all providers in one place, and configure email alerts for 80% utilization. Team members check the dashboard to route work to providers with headroom, avoiding unexpected outages and budget overruns.
You contribute to projects that use Gemini CLI and Codex, and you need to track your personal API usage across these tools.
Outcome: OnWatch auto-detects Gemini CLI and Codex credentials, providing per-model tracking and session insights. You see which projects consume the most quota and adjust your workflow to stay within free tiers, all without sending data to the cloud.
Use Cases
- Track remaining quota for Anthropic Claude Code across 5-hour and 7-day windows
- Monitor hourly search limits on Synthetic and avoid service interruptions
- Compare headroom across multiple AI providers to route work efficiently
- Detect when providers reset quotas and plan heavy usage accordingly
- Visualize burn rates over the last 6 hours to prevent overuse
- Run as a background daemon on Mac or Linux with one-command install
Models Under the Hood
as of 2026-09-09
Limitations
- OnWatch is a local-first, open-source tool that tracks AI API quota usage across multiple providers.
- It supports one-command install on Mac, Linux, and Windows via curl, Homebrew, or PowerShell, and offers a macOS menubar (beta).
- Data is stored locally in SQLite with zero telemetry, and the tool provides real-time quota tracking, anomaly detection, and burn rate monitoring.
- Some features such as email/push alerts and multi-account support are in beta.
as of 2026-08-31
Verification history
We have re-verified OnWatch 7 times since . Each pass re-reads the vendor's own pages and re-checks every listed field against that evidence; passes where nothing had changed are marked as such.
- — re-verified summary, description, our verdict, our analysis, pricing model, pricing tiers, features, integrations, who it suits, who should skip it
- — re-verified summary, description, our verdict, our analysis, pricing model, pricing tiers, features, integrations, who it suits, who should skip it
- — re-checked, vendor evidence unchanged
- — re-checked, vendor evidence unchanged
- — re-checked, vendor evidence unchanged
- — re-verified summary, description, our verdict, our analysis, pricing model, pricing tiers, features, integrations, who it suits, who should skip it
Showing the 6 most recent of 7 verification passes.
Free to cite with attribution — this page re-verifies continuously.
12-month cost
Project the real annual outlay, including the implied monthly cost when only an annual tier is published.
Vendor list price only. Add-on usage, seat overages, and contract minimums are surfaced under Hidden costs & gotchas.
Plans compared
For each published OnWatch tier: who it actually fits, and what it adds vs. the previous tier. Cross-reference the cost calculator above for projected annual outlay.
Free & Open Source
$0
Ideal for
Individual developers and small teams that want a no-cost, privacy-focused way to monitor AI API quotas across multiple providers.
What this tier adds
Starting tier: includes all core features—real-time tracking for 8 providers, burn rate forecasting, anomaly detection, and local storage—with zero cost.
Where the pricing makes sense
The company stage and team size where OnWatch's pricing actually pencils out — and where peers do it cheaper.
OnWatch is completely free and open source, with no hidden costs—ideal for individual developers and small teams. It undercuts commercial quota managers that charge per-seat or per-api-usage fees, while offering similar cross-provider visibility. If you need enterprise-grade features like SSO or cloud sync, you'll need to look elsewhere, but for local-first monitoring, it's a steal.
Setup time & first value
How long it actually takes to get something useful out of OnWatch — broken out by persona, not the marketing-page minute.
Installation is one command on Mac, Linux, Windows, or Docker—typically under 2 minutes. After installing, add your provider credentials via the dashboard or CLI; auto-detection is available for some providers like Gemini CLI and Antigravity. Once configured, you'll see live quota data within 60 seconds, as the agent polls every 60s.
Switching to or from OnWatch
How to bring data in from common predecessors and how to get it back out — written for the switcher, not the buyer.
- →From native provider dashboards: OnWatch consolidates data from Anthropic, Codex, Copilot, etc., into one local dashboard—just add your credentials. No data migration needed; it starts pulling from the API immediately.
- ↗To cloud-hosted quota managers: Export your SQLite database (local file) and manually transfer any data if needed; OnWatch doesn't offer built-in export to other tools.
Integrations
Resources & Guides
Tutorials & Learning
YouTube returned 6 videos for “OnWatch”, and we withheld 6: 6 could not be judged, because “OnWatch” is a single word that other videos use for other things. We are showing none, because we could not prove any of them are about OnWatch.
Official links
Tools that pair well with OnWatch
Common stack mates teams adopt alongside OnWatch, with the specific reason each pairing earns its keep.
Featured Head-to-Head Comparisons
Onwatch vs Spider Cloud
Spider Cloud is the better choice for developers building AI agents that need reliable, low-cost web data extraction, especially with its new Browser AI commands and 1,000+ scraper examples. OnWatch is uniquely valuable for heavy API users juggling multiple AI provider quotas, but it's a niche tool. For most AI workflows, Spider Cloud's Rust engine and broad integrations make it more versatile.
Onwatch vs Temporal Ai
OnWatch and Temporal AI solve fundamentally different problems. OnWatch is a lightweight, free quota monitor for developers using multiple AI APIs, ideal for avoiding unexpected limits. Temporal AI is a powerful, paid-friendly durable execution platform for building reliable AI agents and workflows that survive failures. Choose OnWatch for quota visibility; choose Temporal for orchestration robustness.
Onwatch vs Screenplayiq
Choose OnWatch if you're a developer juggling multiple AI API quotas and need lightweight, local tracking. Pick ScreenplayIQ if you're a screenwriter or producer who wants data-driven feedback on script marketability and box office potential. They solve completely different problems and are not direct competitors.
Alternatives to OnWatch
View all
ToolSpend
Track, forecast, and optimize AI spend across OpenAI, Google AI, Azure, and Bedrock.
Opik (Comet)
Open-source AI observability for agent tracing, LLM-as-a-judge evals, and coding agent cost tracking
Arize Phoenix
Open-source LLM observability and evals for building reliable agents
Frequently Asked Questions
Best-of guides
Used OnWatch? Help shape our editorial sentiment research.