Why consider Todoist alternatives?
Todoist is one of the most popular to-do list apps around, but it's not the right fit for everyone. Three reasons keep coming up when people switch to something else.
Why people switch from Todoist
- Limited project management. Todoist handles individual tasks well, but managing real projects with timelines, dependencies, and team collaboration feels basic compared to tools like ClickUp, Trello, or proper project management software.
- Overkill for simple use cases. If you just need a shopping list, packing checklist, or daily reminders, Todoist's projects, labels, and filters can feel heavy. Plenty of people want something stripped back like Google Tasks or Microsoft To-Do.
- Slow pace of updates. Doist ships features every 2-3 months, while apps like TickTick or Motion push updates every few weeks. When you're missing basics like a built-in pomodoro timer or habit tracker, that gap adds up.
The right Todoist alternative depends on which of these three is the biggest dealbreaker. Each reason breaks down differently below.

Why Trust Our Software Reviews
We've been testing and reviewing productivity software since 2012. Tool Finder is built by Francesco D'Alessio, founder of one of YouTube's most-watched productivity channels (450,000+ subscribers) with 14+ years of hands-on experience reviewing task management apps, calendar tools, and the software covered in this article.
This isn't a listicle stitched together from product pages. Every tool below has been used in real workflows, and the trade-offs come from actual experience, not marketing copy.
How we test and review
- Hands-on for weeks, not minutes. Each tool gets used for real work, including onboarding, daily routines, and edge cases. Read the four-question testing framework we use on every tool.
- Honest about trade-offs. Negative reviews stay in even when there's an affiliate relationship, because credibility matters more than commission.
- 1,000+ tools tested. Across to-do apps, project management software, calendars, and beyond, since 2012.
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Bottom line
Motion if you want AI to run projects, schedule work, and process meeting notes for you. Todoist if you want manual control at a quarter of the price.
From AI calendar to full AI agent
Motion started life as an AI calendar app that auto-scheduled your day. It's evolved into something bigger: an AI agent that runs projects, manages meetings, takes notes, and assigns work, all with full context of your tasks, calendar, and team. Where Todoist hands you a clean list and leaves the planning to you, Motion tries to be the whole operating system around the work itself.
How the agent shows up day-to-day
The pitch is simple. You feed Motion your tasks, projects, and meetings, and it figures out when each thing actually happens. The agent reads meeting notes, picks up action items, drafts follow-ups, and slots new work into your week without you nudging it. It's less "here's a tidy inbox" and more "here's a week that's already planned for you."
Why 5-25 person teams pick it over Todoist
For agencies and teams in the 5-25 person range, this is where the gap with Todoist gets wide. Motion's project management is on a different level: real dependencies, deadline-aware scheduling, per-person capacity views, automatic load balancing when someone gets buried. Todoist's project view is a flat task list with sections. Motion looks like a proper project management tool with an AI assistant wired through it. For agencies specifically, it's worth comparing against project management software for creative agencies.
The price tradeoff
Motion's team plans start around $19 per user per month, with the agent tier pushing higher. Todoist Pro is $4 per person. For a 10-person agency that's roughly $2,300/year vs $480/year. Not a small difference. You're paying for the AI doing actual work, so if your team just needs a shared task list, Motion is overkill and Todoist wins on cost alone.
Try it for two weeks
The aggressive auto-scheduling takes getting used to. Motion moves things around when your day shifts, which feels great if you hate planning your own week and frustrating if you want manual control over every block. Two weeks of using it is usually enough to know if the AI clicks for you or doesn't. If it doesn't, our full Motion alternatives roundup covers the next-best options, and the Motion vs Todoist breakdown goes deeper on the side-by-side.
Pros & Cons vs Todoist
Pros vs Todoist
- AI agent assigns work, schedules meetings, and drafts follow-ups with full project context, not just task lists
- Project management on a different level: dependencies, capacity views, deadline-aware scheduling all wired together
- Built for 5-25 person teams (agencies especially), where Todoist's collab tops out at smaller teams
- Meeting notes, calendar, and tasks all live in one place with the AI tying them together
- Reshuffles the week automatically when priorities or meetings move
Cons vs Todoist
- ~5x the cost: $19/user/month vs Todoist Pro at $4, which multiplies fast across full team plans
- Overkill if you just need a personal or small-team task list
- Steeper onboarding than Todoist's "open the app and start typing"
- The AI moves things aggressively, which frustrates manual-control types
Bottom line
Akiflow if your tasks live across Todoist, ClickUp, Slack and Gmail and you want one place to time-block them all. Todoist if a single inbox already covers your work.
The orchestration layer for task chaos
Akiflow isn't really a task manager in the usual sense. It's an orchestration layer that sits on top of every task tool you already use. Most people's tasks don't live in one place: ClickUp for team work, Todoist for personal and family life, GitHub for engineering, Gmail for email-driven follow-ups. Akiflow pulls all of it into one time-blocked calendar so you can plan an actual day instead of jumping between five apps to figure out what to do next.
How it pulls everything into one calendar view
Connect Gmail, Slack, Asana, Trello, ClickUp, Linear, GitHub, Notion, Todoist, and 30+ other tools, then drag tasks from any of them into your day. The interface is keyboard-first: type "tomorrow 9am for 30 minutes" and you've scheduled a focused block. Tasks remain editable in their source app, so you're not migrating data, you're conducting it.
AI chat and the meeting scheduler
Akiflow now includes an AI assistant you can chat with about your tasks: ask it to reshuffle the rest of your week around a new commitment, summarise what you have on tomorrow, or suggest where to fit a 90-minute focus block. The built-in meeting scheduler also handles availability and link sharing without sending you back to Calendly. These aren't bolt-ons, they make the orchestration framing feel complete.
Where it sits next to Todoist
Akiflow doesn't replace Todoist, it runs alongside it. If you love Todoist's quick capture and natural language but lack a calendar layer, Akiflow adds the time-blocking and workload view without forcing you to switch. For people who use multiple task tools at once, it's probably the best place to centralise your day. If you want to compare it against similar tools, our Akiflow alternatives roundup covers the rest, and the full Akiflow vs Todoist comparison goes deeper on the workflow tradeoffs.
Pricing and the learning curve
The price is around $19 per user per month, roughly 5x Todoist Pro. The keyboard-first workflow takes a week or two to feel natural, and there's a real learning curve compared to Todoist's "open the app and start typing" simplicity. Worth it if you're already juggling more than one task tool. Probably not if Todoist alone covers your work.
Pros & Cons vs Todoist
Pros vs Todoist
- Time-blocked calendar view that Todoist doesn't have
- Pulls tasks from 30+ tools (Todoist, ClickUp, Gmail, Slack, Linear) into one view
- AI chat for rescheduling, summarising, and finding focus blocks across your week
- Built-in meeting scheduler removes the need for a separate Calendly-style tool
- Companion to Todoist rather than a forced replacement
Cons vs Todoist
- $19/month vs Todoist Pro at $4: roughly 5x the cost
- Real learning curve for the keyboard-driven workflow
- Overkill if Todoist alone already covers your task surface area
- Smaller plugin and template ecosystem than Todoist's mature one
Bottom line
Things 3 if you're Apple-only and want the most beautifully designed, goal-focused task manager going. Todoist if you need cross-platform or richer team collaboration.
The most beautifully made task manager on Apple
Things 3 is the closest tool on this list to Todoist in terms of how manual it is. There's no AI scheduling, no calendar that plans your week for you, no orchestration layer over other apps. It's just a task manager, but the most beautifully made one available, and only on Apple devices: Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch. For people who want a calm, opinionated daily flow without AI doing things on their behalf, Things 3 is hard to beat.
Areas vs Todoist projects
The signature feature is Areas. Where Todoist gives you projects (Work, Home, Errands), Things gives you Areas (Health, Career, Family) with a more goal-focused frame: each Area can hold projects with deadlines, outcomes, and headings inside them. The mental model leans toward life domains and outcomes rather than just task lists. It rewards a more reflective workflow, which is part of why it's stuck with so many long-term users.
Why people like Tiago Forte stick with it
Tiago Forte (the Building a Second Brain author) has talked publicly about using Things 3 to manage his workload, and he's not the only well-known knowledge worker who has stayed loyal to it. It's a regular pick in our GTD task management apps roundup for the same reasons. The app attracts people who think in projects-with-outcomes rather than tasks-to-tick. The Magic Plus button for quick capture, the Today and Upcoming views, and the keyboard navigation on macOS make daily use feel calmer than Todoist's denser interface.
How Todoist's milestones compare
Todoist has been catching up. The newer milestone feature in Todoist gets closer to the goal-focused thinking Things has had for years, letting you set a target date and outcome on a project. It's a real step forward, but it still feels added on top of the existing list-first model rather than baked in. For people who already think in outcomes, Things 3 still does this more naturally.
The Apple-only catch and pricing
There's no Windows, Android, or web version. If anyone on your team or in your household isn't on Apple, Things 3 is a non-starter. Pricing is one-time rather than subscription: $50 on Mac, $10 on iPhone, $20 on iPad. That's $80+ upfront across devices, but no monthly bill ever. The lack of cross-platform sync and team collaboration are the real tradeoffs against Todoist, not the price. For a deeper side-by-side, our Todoist vs Things 3 comparison covers it.
Pros & Cons vs Todoist
Pros vs Todoist
- Best-designed task manager on Apple, calmer to use day to day than Todoist
- Areas group work by life domain with outcomes, not just project labels
- One-time purchase, no ongoing subscription
- Faster keyboard navigation on macOS than Todoist's web app
- Magic Plus quick capture feels native to Apple in a way Todoist doesn't
Cons vs Todoist
- Apple-only: no Windows, Android, or web (Todoist runs everywhere)
- $80+ upfront across Mac, iPhone and iPad
- No team collaboration or shared projects at all
- Less flexible natural language input than Todoist's parser
Bottom line
Sunsama if you keep burning out and want a daily planner that respects your capacity. Todoist if speed and minimal ritual matter more than reflection.
Built for people who keep burning out
Sunsama is the most thoughtful daily planner on this list. It pulls tasks from Todoist, Asana, Trello, ClickUp, Gmail, and other apps, then walks you through a calm daily ritual: pick what you'll do today, time-box each item, review at the end of the day. The pitch overlaps with Akiflow, but Sunsama leans much harder into slow productivity and mindfulness rather than maximum throughput. If you regularly burn out from overcommitting, this one earns a serious look.
The capacity-aware planning angle
Sunsama's quietly unique feature is capacity awareness. As you plan your day it adds up your time-blocks against your available hours and warns you when you've overcommitted, before you've even started. None of the other tools on this list really do this well. Todoist happily lets you schedule 14 tasks for tomorrow and discover you'll never hit them. Sunsama tells you up front. It's a small thing that changes how you plan.
The journal and daily reflection layer
The end-of-day shutdown ritual prompts you to reflect: what got done, what didn't, what to move forward. Over time this builds a journal of your work that's actually useful when planning the next week or quarter. There's nothing similar in Todoist, where finishing your day means closing the app. For people invested in their own working rhythm, this layer is what justifies switching.
AI for the admin grind
Sunsama has added AI that handles the chore work of task management: drafting summaries, breaking large tasks into smaller ones, suggesting time estimates, and processing email-to-task. It's not the headline feature like in Motion, but it removes friction from the bits of planning that feel like admin rather than thinking.
Is the price worth it
Pricing is $20/month, ~5x Todoist Pro. That's a real ask. The case for paying it: if you treat productivity tooling as an investment in your health rather than just a list-keeper, Sunsama is one of the few tools that pays back. The case against: if you want fast capture and minimal friction, the deliberate ritual will feel slow. For more options in this space, the Sunsama alternatives roundup has the rest, and the Sunsama vs Todoist breakdown covers the swap in detail.
Pros & Cons vs Todoist
Pros vs Todoist
- Capacity-aware planning warns you before you overcommit, which Todoist never does
- Daily and weekly reflection rituals build a journal of how you actually work
- Pulls tasks from Todoist plus Asana, Trello, ClickUp, Gmail into one calm view
- Native time-blocking with calendar integration
- AI handles admin work like task summaries and time estimates
Cons vs Todoist
- $20/month, ~5x what Todoist Pro costs
- Ritual-driven workflow takes more time than Todoist's instant capture
- Not built for huge backlogs or fast inbox triage
- Mobile capture less snappy than Todoist's quick-add

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Bottom line
Trello if your team thinks visually and you want a Kanban board plugged into the wider Atlassian workspace. Todoist if you want fast personal capture, not a board for the team.
An Atlassian workspace, not just a Kanban board
Trello is part of the Atlassian family alongside Jira, Confluence, and Bitbucket, and that matters more than people realise. You're not just buying a Kanban tool, you're plugging into a wider workspace your team can grow into. For groups already using Jira or Confluence, Trello slots in cleanly in a way Todoist never can.
Built for visual thinkers
The card-and-column format is a different mental model from Todoist's lists. Add stickers, cover images, custom backgrounds, voting, and emoji reactions, and Trello starts feeling more like a shared canvas than a task tracker. For teams full of designers, marketers, or people who think in pipelines rather than checklists, the format clicks straight away. Todoist's clean list never quite gets there for collaborative work.
Where it fits: teams up to ~20 people
Trello hits its sweet spot with teams of around 5-20 people running campaigns, sprints, or content calendars together. Boards stay readable at that scale, automations through Butler take the busywork away, and Power-Ups extend the board with calendars, time tracking, and integrations. Beyond 20 people, you usually graduate to Jira or to heavier project management software.
Where Todoist still wins
For personal task management, Trello falls flat. A card with 50 sub-todos becomes unreadable, and there's no equivalent to Todoist's natural language input or filters for slicing across projects. If you're managing your own day, Todoist is built for it. Trello is built for the team next to you, not for the person at the keyboard.
Pricing and the free tier
The free tier is honestly generous: unlimited cards on up to 10 boards per workspace. Standard is $5 per user per month, Premium is $10. Cheaper than ClickUp, more expensive than Todoist on a per-user basis. If your team needs visual collaboration and you're already in Atlassian's orbit, the maths works out fast.
Pros & Cons vs Todoist
Pros vs Todoist
- Visual Kanban pipeline beats Todoist's lists for project work
- Plugs into the wider Atlassian workspace (Jira, Confluence, Bitbucket)
- Stickers, voting, and emoji reactions make boards feel social, not sterile
- Generous free tier with unlimited cards on up to 10 boards
- Built-in Butler automations for repetitive moves
Cons vs Todoist
- Clunky for personal task management at scale (cards with 50 sub-todos break down)
- $5-$10 per user per month for Standard or Premium
- Needs Power-Ups to match features Todoist has natively
- Mobile experience weaker than Todoist's quick-capture flow
Bottom line
Superlist if you build shared lists together with a small team and want notes alongside tasks. Todoist if it's just you and you want the most polished solo workflow.
Tasks plus notes, no calendar
Superlist comes from the team behind Wunderlist, and it shows in the design. It's not a calendar app or a time-blocking tool, on purpose. The pitch is simpler: tasks and notes, in one clean app, with collaboration baked in. For people who keep bouncing between Todoist and a notes app to capture context alongside checklists, Superlist is the rare tool that does both without compromise.
Where it actually clicks: collaborative list-building
The strongest feature isn't the AI brain-dump or the rich notes, it's how naturally teams build lists together. Two or three people can edit the same list in real time, leave comments, mention each other, and watch progress live. Todoist's shared projects feel functional. Superlist's feel social, more like a Notion page that happens to be a checklist.
Free for households and tiny teams
Under 5 people, you can run both personal and team work for free, which makes Superlist a quiet bargain for couples, founders, and small shared to-do app use cases. Above 5, paid tiers start at $8 per user per month. The split-personality bit, where work life and personal life sit cleanly separated, is where it earns daily use.
Design that arguably beats Todoist
This is rare to say, but the interface is properly beautiful. Type, weight, motion, and white space are all considered. People who left Todoist because it started feeling cluttered tend to land here and stay. If craft of design matters as much as features, Superlist sits closer to Things 3 in feel, with collaboration on top.
Where it's still maturing
There's no proper calendar view yet. Recurring tasks aren't as flexible as Todoist's smart schedules. Natural language input doesn't go as deep. The app still has occasional polish gaps where Todoist's decade of maturity shows. Worth knowing before committing a big team project to it.
Pros & Cons vs Todoist
Pros vs Todoist
- Rich-text notes living alongside checklists; Todoist's notes feel basic
- Real-time collaborative list-building, more social than Todoist's shared projects
- Free for personal and team work under 5 people
- Design polish arguably ahead of Todoist's denser interface
- AI brain-dump that turns unstructured text into tasks
Cons vs Todoist
- No proper calendar view yet
- Recurring tasks less flexible than Todoist's smart schedules
- Newer app, occasional rough edges in reliability
- Natural language input not as deep as Todoist's parser
Bottom line
TickTick if you want the closest like-for-like Todoist swap with more features for less money. Todoist if polish matters more to you than feature count.
The most direct swap on this list
TickTick is the closest tool here to Todoist in shape and feel. Smart date parsing, recurring tasks, projects, labels, filters: everything you use in Todoist has a near-identical counterpart in TickTick. If you tried Todoist and liked the model but resented the price, this is usually the first switch people make.
More features bundled in
Where TickTick pulls ahead is the bundle. Built-in calendar, habit tracker, pomodoro timer, Eisenhower matrix, sticky notes, voice input. None of these feel like afterthoughts; the calendar in particular handles two-way sync with Google and Outlook out of the box. Todoist needs a stack of separate apps to match.
Polish is where Todoist stays ahead
Here's the honest tradeoff. Todoist has fewer features, but the ones it ships feel more robust and better designed. TickTick can occasionally feel busy, sync sometimes lags, and the UI is denser. Todoist's natural language parser is still the gold standard. You're buying breadth at the cost of polish, and that's a real call to make.
The pricing math
Premium is around $35.99 per year, roughly $3 per month. Todoist Pro is $4 per month or $48 per year. Over a year, that's about $12 in your pocket plus the habit tracker, calendar, and pomodoro timer thrown in. For most personal users, the maths makes the case on its own.
Who actually switches
The classic switcher already loves Todoist's model but wants more for less. They don't mind a slightly busier interface in exchange for the calendar and habit tracker. Heavy team users tend to stay on Todoist or move to ClickUp because TickTick's collaboration is lighter. Solo and small-household users get the best deal here. Our full Todoist vs TickTick comparison is the most-read deep-dive we've done, and the TickTick alternatives page covers the next options if you bounce off it.
Pros & Cons vs Todoist
Pros vs Todoist
- Cheaper at ~$3/mo (annual) vs Todoist Pro at $4/mo
- Built-in calendar, habit tracker, pomodoro timer, Eisenhower matrix
- Two-way sync with Google Calendar and Outlook out of the box
- Generous free tier covers most personal users
- Closest like-for-like Todoist swap on this list
Cons vs Todoist
- Busier UI than Todoist's cleaner aesthetic
- Feature density means more decisions to make day to day
- Smaller third-party integration ecosystem than Todoist
- Sync occasionally lags compared to Todoist's reliability
Bottom line
Any.do if you want a calmer app for groceries, family chores, and small-team errands with serious minimalist polish. Todoist if you need labels, filters, and power-user depth.
A calmer cousin of Todoist
Any.do is the friendlier, cleaner relative of Todoist. The whole app is built around the basics: capture, schedule, remind, share. There's no labels-and-filters power-user track. It's stripped back by design, and that's exactly what makes it work for the audience that finds Todoist a bit too much.
Best for groceries, families, and home life
The grocery list is the standout. Items auto-sort into categories (produce, dairy, frozen) so the shopping flow makes sense in the aisle. Couples and households share lists in seconds. The Daily Planner walks you through the day each morning rather than dropping you into a wall of tasks. For home life, this is the most quietly competent app on the list and a strong shared to-do app for couples.
Some small-team features go further than Todoist
For tiny teams (think 2-5 people running a side project, household, or freelance setup), Any.do has neat workspace features Todoist doesn't bother with: shared lists with assignments, a built-in calendar view, and a moments timer. It's not built for full agencies, but for the tier between "just me" and "real team," it sits in a useful gap.
Made for minimalists
The interface is stupidly beautiful for fans of minimalist apps. White space, typography, motion all get the same care as Things 3, just with the cross-platform reach Things doesn't have. If you live on Android or Windows but want that Apple-quality calm, Any.do is one of the few apps that actually delivers it.
Pricing is slightly above Todoist
Premium runs $4.99 per month, roughly a dollar more than Todoist Pro. The free tier shows ads and recurring tasks need a paid plan. For groceries, family chores, and a minimalist daily flow, the slight premium is reasonable. For deep task management with labels and filters, you'd get more from Todoist or TickTick at the same price. The Any.do vs Todoist breakdown goes feature-by-feature.
Pros & Cons vs Todoist
Pros vs Todoist
- Cleaner and easier to onboard than Todoist
- Smart grocery list with auto-category sorting (best in class)
- Daily Planner walks you through tasks each morning
- Built-in calendar view; Todoist needs a separate calendar app
- Beautiful minimalist design across Mac, Windows, iOS and Android
Cons vs Todoist
- Free tier shows ads; Todoist's free tier is ad-free
- Recurring tasks gated behind the $4.99/mo paid plan
- No labels or filters: two of Todoist's flagship features
- Slightly more expensive for noticeably fewer power features
Bottom line
ClickUp if you want endless customization and AI agents doing real work for a growing team. Todoist if you just need a clean personal list, not a work platform.
Not really a to-do app any more
ClickUp stopped being a to-do list app a long time ago. It's now a full work platform: tasks, docs, goals, time tracking, whiteboards, dashboards, automations, and AI agents that take work off your plate. Comparing it to Todoist is like comparing a kitchen to a chef's knife. They overlap on one feature and they're built for completely different jobs.
Customization deeper than anything else here
You can configure ClickUp into nearly any workflow: custom statuses, custom fields, custom views (list, board, Gantt, mind map, timeline, calendar). For teams that have outgrown rigid templates, the appeal is huge. It also means a real onboarding investment. Where Todoist is "open and start typing," ClickUp is "spend a week setting it up properly."
AI agents that do the work
The newer ClickUp angle is agents: AI you can configure to triage incoming tasks, summarise project status, draft updates for stakeholders, and assign work to the right person automatically. It's quietly changing the concept of what a task tool even is. The list is no longer just a list, it's a workflow with assistants attached. Todoist has nothing comparable on this side.
Built for teams that are scaling
ClickUp is at its best when a team is growing past the point where shared Todoist projects start feeling thin. Marketing pods, ops teams, and 10-50 person startups tend to land here as they scale. Personal users almost never need it. Our project management software guide covers the closest alternatives if ClickUp feels like too much, and the ClickUp alternatives page goes deeper on each.
The pricing and slowness tradeoff
$7 per user per month for unlimited features is fair given the surface area, but it adds up at team size. The other warning is performance: ClickUp can feel sluggish on older machines because each screen loads a lot. Both are real and worth weighing before a team migration away from Todoist.
Pros & Cons vs Todoist
Pros vs Todoist
- Multiple task views (list, board, calendar, Gantt, timeline, mind map)
- Native docs, time tracking, goals, and deep automations
- AI agents that triage, summarise, and assign work for you
- Generous free tier with unlimited tasks and members
- Replaces several tools at once for teams scaling beyond personal lists
Cons vs Todoist
- Steep learning curve compared with Todoist's instant capture
- Can feel sluggish on older machines
- $7/user/month adds up for solo users used to Todoist Pro
- Overkill for personal task management
Bottom line
monday.com if you want a robust team workspace where AI agents act as colleagues. Todoist if a 3-user minimum and visual boards are more than you need.
A team workspace, not a task list
monday.com is built from the ground up for teams to coordinate work visually across people, deadlines, and statuses. Status columns ("Working on it," "Done," "Stuck") drive the actual workflow rather than sitting as labels. Todoist is a personal task tool that scales down to small collaboration. monday is the opposite shape: a workspace that scales up to whole departments.
AI agents as team members
monday is leaning hard into AI agents that act like colleagues, not just assistants. They can pick up tasks, push status updates, draft replies, and own routine work end-to-end. The framing is "extra team members on the board," which is a meaningfully different bet than Todoist's pure human-task model. For ops-heavy teams, this is the headline feature people are buying into right now.
Where the robustness shows
Multiple views (Kanban, Gantt, calendar, timeline), 200+ integrations (Slack, Outlook, Gmail, Zoom), automations for repetitive moves, dashboards that aggregate across boards. None of this matters for personal use. All of it matters when 15 people need a shared source of truth across marketing, ops, and product. The robustness is the entire pitch.
The 3-user minimum changes who it's for
Pricing starts at $9 per user per month with a hard 3-user minimum. That's roughly $324 a year minimum, which immediately rules out solo users. Compared to Todoist Pro at $4 per person with no minimum, the gap is huge. monday isn't trying to win solo workflows, and the pricing is honest about it.
When monday actually makes sense
Best for small-to-medium teams already juggling Slack, email, and a hodgepodge of project tools who want one platform that handles tasks, comms, and reporting. If you're solo or a couple of people, Todoist or TickTick covers it. If you're a 10-50 person team where every initiative spans departments, monday earns its place. Browse our project management software guide for the closest alternatives.
Pros & Cons vs Todoist
Pros vs Todoist
- AI agents that act as team members, owning routine work end-to-end
- Custom workflows and statuses for cross-team coordination
- Multiple views: Kanban, Gantt, calendar, timeline
- 200+ integrations including Slack, Outlook, Gmail, Zoom
- Dashboards that aggregate data across boards
Cons vs Todoist
- 3-user minimum at $9/user/month: not for solo users
- Overkill for personal task lists Todoist handles in seconds
- Onboarding takes longer than Todoist's instant capture
- Mobile experience weaker than Todoist's
Bottom line
Microsoft To-Do if you live in Microsoft 365 and want a free, no-frills shared task app that turns flagged Outlook emails into tasks. Todoist if you need labels, filters, and natural language.
The deepest free path into Microsoft 365
Microsoft To-Do is the free task app that ships with any Microsoft account. If you're already in Outlook, Teams, OneDrive, or 365, it's the most natural way to deepen your use of that ecosystem without paying for another tool. Todoist is excellent on its own, but it never plugs into Microsoft as cleanly as something built by the same team.
Built for sharing lists at school and work
The free tier supports sharing lists with anyone who has a Microsoft account, free or paid. That makes it a quiet favourite in education and college settings, and inside companies running on Microsoft 365. Group projects, household chores, team errands, study revision, all work without anyone paying. Todoist's free tier lets you collaborate too, but caps assignments and projects more aggressively for shared work.
Nothing flash, and that's the point
The interface is kept simple, on purpose. Lists, smart lists (Important, Planned, Assigned to Me), due dates, reminders, sub-tasks. No labels. No filters. No natural language input. For people who looked at Todoist and felt overwhelmed, To-Do is the easy option. The My Day view shows everything at a glance with suggestions for what to tackle next, which works surprisingly well for people who want a daily nudge without the planning ritual.
The standout: Outlook tasks and flagged emails
Where To-Do actually beats Todoist is Outlook integration. Flagged emails appear directly in your task list, no copying or forwarding required. Outlook tasks sync both ways. Microsoft Planner items show up too. Google Tasks has the same tight email-to-task integration on the Google side, but Todoist's only equivalent is a special email address you forward to, which is clumsy by comparison. For inbox-driven workers, this one feature carries the app.
Where it falls short of Todoist
No labels. No filters. Recurring task rules are basic. There's no natural language input, so you can't type "every Tuesday at 9am" and have it parse cleanly. If you depend on Todoist's projects-and-filters workflow, To-Do is a strict downgrade. If you live in Microsoft 365 and your task workflow is dead simple, it's the easiest free switch on this list. The Todoist vs Microsoft To-Do comparison covers the trade-offs if you're on the fence.
Pros & Cons vs Todoist
Pros vs Todoist
- Free with any Microsoft account; Todoist Pro is $4/mo
- Outlook flagged emails become tasks automatically (Todoist needs an email-forward workaround)
- Tight two-way sync with Outlook tasks and Microsoft Planner
- Free shared lists make it ideal for schools, college, and Microsoft 365 workplaces
- My Day with suggestions gives a clean at-a-glance daily view
Cons vs Todoist
- No labels or filters at all
- No natural language input (Todoist's parser is the gold standard)
- Limited recurring task rules
- Strictly a downgrade if you rely on Todoist's projects-and-filters workflow
Bottom line
Blitzit if you're on macOS and want a fun, timer-driven task app that turns each task into a focused sprint. Todoist if you don't need a built-in timer, just a clean list.
macOS-first task management with a timer
Blitzit is a focus-driven task app made primarily for macOS users. The core loop is simple: pick a task, hit start, work until the timer ends or you finish. The app stays out of your way during work and counts what you actually completed. Todoist is faster for capture, but doesn't ship with anything close to a built-in timer.
Combining task management with timer-based workflows
Where most apps treat tasks and timers as separate concerns, Blitzit fuses them. Every task is a timed sprint by default, with customisable lengths, distraction blocking, and daily progress tracking. For people whose problem isn't capturing tasks but actually starting them, this is more useful than another pomodoro timer tab in the browser. The whole app is a focus app first and a list second.
Connections to other apps, lightly (à la Akiflow)
Blitzit has been deepening its connections to other apps in a way that's reminiscent of Akiflow: pulling tasks from other tools so you can run sprints against work that already lives elsewhere. The integration list is narrower than Akiflow's, but it's enough that you don't have to retype tasks from Todoist or Notion. Lighter orchestration, tighter focus loop.
The fun macOS experience
The big thing isn't the integrations or even the timer, it's the feel. Blitzit is properly fun to use on macOS in a way Todoist isn't trying to be. Animations, sound design, the menu bar timer, all add up to a tool that makes starting work feel less like a chore. For people who bounce off serious productivity apps on Mac, that fun factor matters more than any feature list.
Best paired with Todoist, not used instead
Blitzit isn't a full Todoist replacement. There are no labels, no complex projects, no team collaboration. What it does is solve the "I have a list but can't focus" problem better than most. Pair it with Todoist for capture and Blitzit for execution, and the daily output adds up. Pricing leans freemium with one-time deal options, generally cheaper than paying Todoist Pro forever.
Pros & Cons vs Todoist
Pros vs Todoist
- Built-in sprint timer turns each task into a focused work session; Todoist has nothing comparable
- Properly fun macOS experience that makes starting work feel easier
- Distraction blocking built in
- Pulls tasks from other apps (Todoist included), so it sits on top of your stack
- Daily progress tracking out of the box
Cons vs Todoist
- Not a full Todoist replacement (no labels, complex projects, or recurrences)
- No team collaboration or shared projects
- Mac-first; Windows and mobile presence weaker than Todoist's polished apps
- Best paired with Todoist, not used instead of it
Bottom line
Lunatask if you want end-to-end encrypted tasks alongside habits, mood tracking, and a journal in one calm app. Todoist if privacy and reflection aren't your top priorities.
End-to-end encryption from the start
Lunatask takes privacy seriously in a way most task apps don't even pretend to. Your data is encrypted on your device before it leaves, which means even Lunatask can't read it. Todoist uses standard transport encryption but stores your data in plaintext on their servers. For people who think of their task list as personal data (medical, family, sensitive work), this is a real differentiator and the headline reason people switch.
Habits, mood tracking, and a journal in one place
Beyond tasks, Lunatask bundles in habit tracking, mood logging, and a built-in journal. None of these feel bolted on. They share the same data model and the same calm interface. You can connect a habit to a goal, a journal entry to a project, and see the whole picture in one app rather than three. Todoist stays focused on tasks by design, which is its strength, but means a stack of separate apps for everything else.
A more structured Notion alternative
A growing number of users frame Lunatask as a structured alternative to Notion (see our full Notion alternatives roundup for more): less freeform, more opinionated, but with the same idea of a single home for your work, habits, and reflection. Where Notion gives you a blank canvas, Lunatask gives you a pre-built shape that already knows what tasks, habits, and journal entries are. For people who lose hours configuring Notion templates, the trade is worth it.
What you give up for the privacy
The trade-off for the encryption stack is a smaller team building it, which means slower feature releases and a less polished UI than Todoist's mature apps. There's no team collaboration, no shared projects, no real-time sync between people. This is a personal tool by design. If your task workflow is collaborative, this isn't the right pick.
Pricing and the data exit
The free tier covers personal use. Paid plans start at $5 per month, comparable to Todoist Pro. Data exports easily as JSON if you ever want to leave, which fits the privacy philosophy: no lock-in, no scraping, no surprise terms changes. For privacy-conscious solo users who also want habits and journaling, Lunatask is one of the few tools that takes all three seriously.
Pros & Cons vs Todoist
Pros vs Todoist
- End-to-end encryption; Todoist doesn't offer this at all
- Built-in habits, journal, mood tracker, and pomodoro timer
- Structured alternative to Notion for personal task and life management
- No ads, telemetry, or third-party trackers
- Easy JSON data export if you want to move on later
Cons vs Todoist
- Slower release cadence than Todoist's regular shipping
- Less polished UI than Todoist's mature apps
- No team collaboration or shared projects
- Smaller community and integration ecosystem
Bottom line
Timestripe if you've never gelled with task apps and want a planner that zooms out to weeks, years, and decades. Todoist if your problem is the daily details, not the bigger picture.
The ultimate planner for goal-first thinkers
Timestripe isn't really a task manager in the same shape as Todoist. It's a planner built for people who think in goals, not in to-dos. Where Todoist sits in the weeds of "what's next on the list," Timestripe forces you to zoom out and look at why any of it matters in the first place. Different category of tool, different audience.
The zoom-out principle
The whole app is built around time horizons: today, week, month, year, decade, and lifetime. Each task or goal lives at the appropriate horizon, and the views are designed to help you move between them. The point isn't to capture more work, it's to keep the "why am I doing this" question alive while you're doing it. Few task tools even attempt this.
Like Sunsama, but at a longer wavelength
The philosophy overlap with Sunsama is real. Both nudge you toward intentional planning rather than maximum throughput. The difference is the wavelength. Sunsama wants you intentional about today. Timestripe wants you intentional about the next decade. Used together they cover the full range, but most people pick one based on whether their gap is daily or directional.
An odd tool, no doubt
It's worth being upfront: Timestripe is, no doubt, odd. The horizon model takes time to click, and the interface looks unlike anything else in the productivity space. People who want to dump tasks and forget them will bounce off it fast. People who feel Todoist captures the daily but loses the bigger picture tend to stick with it for years.
When it's the right call
Best for people who never quite gelled with traditional task management apps. If checklists feel pointless and you want a 30,000-foot view tool that helps you actually plan a life rather than triage an inbox, Timestripe might be the one that finally clicks. Not a Todoist replacement, more a parallel planning layer that sits above whatever you use for daily capture. Pricing is free for limited features, $5/month for the full app.
Pros & Cons vs Todoist
Pros vs Todoist
- Time-horizon views (today, week, month, year, decade, lifetime) you won't find elsewhere
- Forces "why am I doing this" thinking that Todoist isn't designed for
- Daily reflection prompts to close the loop on long-term goals
- Climbs feature for projects spanning multiple horizons
- Often the first tool that clicks for people who never gelled with task apps
Cons vs Todoist
- Unusual horizon model takes time to learn vs Todoist's familiar list view
- Not designed for fast capture or huge backlogs
- $5/month for the full app, similar to Todoist Pro
- Less mobile capture polish than Todoist
Bottom line
Structured if you want a beautiful daily timeline with AI voice planning, perfect for everyday casual use. Todoist if you live in projects and filters more than in a single visual day.
The best all-round casual task app
Most apps on this list pick a side: power users, agencies, privacy fans, deep work. Structured doesn't really pick one. It's the all-rounder, designed for people who just want a calm, beautiful place to plan their day without learning a system. For everyday casual users who tried Todoist and found it more app than they needed, this is usually the first one that clicks.
Your day on a single timeline
The signature view is a vertical timeline that lays your day out as time blocks rather than a stack of list items. Drag tasks around, slot in meetings, see the gaps. It's time-blocking made visual without forcing you to learn the discipline first. Todoist's list shows you what's there. Structured's timeline shows you when it actually fits.
AI voice planning showcases time-blocking
The newer angle is AI voice planning. You speak your tasks and rough times into the app, and it lays out your day as a fully time-blocked schedule for you. It's the cleanest demo of time-blocking software in action you'll find right now, and it lowers the barrier from "I should plan my day" to "I'll just talk for 30 seconds and let the app do it." Nothing in Todoist comes close.
Built for mums, stay-at-home dads, and minimalists
Structured's audience isn't agency teams or productivity power users. It's everyday people. Mums coordinating school runs, stay-at-home dads juggling errands and kids, anyone who wants an aesthetic app rather than a serious tool, minimalists who like calm interfaces. If "mad serious productivity" puts you off, Structured is doing the opposite work, and doing it well.
Pricing and the platform mix
The free tier is properly generous. Pro is $4.99/month for AI voice planning, full calendar sync, and the rest of the features. Available on iOS, Mac, iPad, and now Android. The Apple-first heritage shows in how polished those apps are; Android is still maturing. For casual planners who want something gorgeous to open every morning, this is the one.
Pros & Cons vs Todoist
Pros vs Todoist
- Visual day timeline; Todoist is list-only
- AI voice planning lays out a time-blocked day from a 30-second spoken brief
- Aesthetic, calm interface that everyday users actually enjoy opening
- Drag-and-drop scheduling against your calendar
- Calendar sync with Google, Outlook and Apple
Cons vs Todoist
- No projects, labels or filters (Todoist's strengths)
- Best paired with a calendar app, not a full project tool
- Apple-first; Android added later and still maturing
- $4.99/month Pro for the full feature set including AI voice planning
Bottom line
Google Tasks if you live in Gmail and Google Calendar and want a one-click task layer with drag-and-drop email-to-task. Todoist if you need labels, filters, and natural language depth.
Built for the Google ecosystem
Google Tasks isn't a standalone product, it lives inside Gmail, Google Calendar, and Workspace. If you spend your day in those apps, that's not a limitation, it's the whole appeal. Todoist sits on top of your tools. Google Tasks sits inside them, one click away, no app-switching, no extension, no extra browser tab.
One click from Google Calendar
For people who use Google Calendar day in and day out, this is the standout angle. Tasks sit in the same sidebar as your meetings, sync automatically, and show up on the calendar grid on their due date. There's no "now go open the task app" friction. Todoist has decent calendar integration, but it's never quite as native as something built by Google for Google.
Kanban boards finally arrived
The newer addition is Kanban-style boards alongside the classic list view, which makes Google Tasks actually useful for planning small projects. It still doesn't compete with Trello or ClickUp for serious project work, but for weekly planning and personal pipelines it's a real upgrade over the old list-only experience.
Drag and drop Gmail emails into tasks
The standout feature is dragging emails from Gmail directly into your task list. Replies to send, follow-ups, action items, all become trackable tasks without leaving your inbox. Todoist's only equivalent is a special email-forwarding address, which is much clumsier in practice. For inbox-heavy workers, this single capability tends to carry the app on its own.
Mobile app stays basic, on purpose
The mobile app is stripped back on purpose. It's good for capturing tasks on the go and ticking them off, not for running complex projects. No labels, no filters, no natural language input. If your workflow leans simple and Google-native, that's perfectly fine. If you depend on Todoist's projects-and-filters depth, this is a strict downgrade. Free with any Google account, which is the other big sell. If even Google Tasks feels too thin, our Google Tasks alternatives page covers what to step up to.
Pros & Cons vs Todoist
Pros vs Todoist
- Free with any Google account
- One click away from Google Calendar with no extra app to open
- Drag-and-drop Gmail emails straight into tasks (Todoist needs a forwarding workaround)
- New Kanban boards make weekly planning actually usable
- Mobile app works offline for capture on the go
Cons vs Todoist
- No labels, filters, or proper projects beyond simple lists
- No natural language input
- Recurring tasks limited to basic patterns
- Mobile experience is intentionally basic, not for power users
















