Todoist vs Things 3: Which Is the Best To-Do App for Productivity?
Todoist and Things 3 are two of the best task managers available. Here's how they compare — and which one is actually worth your money.
Let's start with the myth: the perfect to-do app will finally make you productive.
It won't. The app isn't the problem. You probably already know how to write down tasks. The problem is the system behind the app — what you capture, when you review it, how you decide what to work on next, and how you handle the gap between "things I said I'd do" and "things I can actually do today."
That said: the right to-do app makes your system easier to maintain. And Todoist and Things 3 are genuinely the two best individual task managers available right now. They just make different trade-offs — and those trade-offs matter a lot depending on how you work.
Here's the honest breakdown.
Todoist: The Cross-Platform Workhorse
Todoist has been around since 2007. It's one of the most mature task managers available, and its maturity shows in all the right places: it's fast, reliable, and works identically across every platform you'll ever use.
Todoist's strengths:
Cross-platform, everywhere. Todoist runs on macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS, Android, Apple Watch, Wear OS, and in every major browser. If you switch between a Mac at home and Windows at work, or you use an Android phone, Todoist follows you without friction.
Natural language input. Type "submit quarterly report every first Monday at 9am" and Todoist parses it correctly — recurring task, specific time, set. This makes quick capture fast enough that you'll actually use it.
Generous free tier. Five active projects, up to 5 collaborators per project, and basic features are all free. For many individual users, this is enough forever.
80+ integrations. Google Calendar, Gmail, Slack, Zapier, Notion, Alexa, IFTTT — Todoist connects to the tools you're already using. If you want your Slack messages to become Todoist tasks with one click, that works.
Collaboration. Share projects, assign tasks, leave comments. Todoist is a capable lightweight team tool — useful for small teams or for freelancers sharing task lists with clients.
Karma system. Todoist has a built-in gamification layer that tracks your completion streaks and gives you a productivity score. It sounds gimmicky; for a lot of people it genuinely helps.
Price: Free (5 active projects). Pro: $4/month billed annually ($5/month billed monthly). Business: $6/user/month.
Things 3: The Apple Ecosystem Masterpiece
Things 3 was built by Cultured Code, a small German software company that has been working on the app since 2007. They release major updates infrequently, but when they do, they're thoughtful. Things 3 is widely considered the most beautifully designed task manager ever made.
Things 3's strengths:
Apple ecosystem excellence. Things 3 is a native app — not a web wrapper, not a cross-platform framework. It's built entirely for Apple platforms, and it shows. The animations are fluid, the keyboard shortcuts are deep, the Apple Watch app is best-in-class, and the Shortcuts integration is comprehensive. If you live in Apple's world, Things 3 feels like it was made specifically for you.
Beautiful, distraction-free UI. Every design decision in Things 3 is intentional. There are no cluttered sidebars, no feature-creep panels, no settings menus with 40 options. You see your tasks. You do your tasks. The app gets out of the way.
Areas, Projects, and To-Dos hierarchy. Things 3 uses a three-level structure: Areas (broad life domains like "Work" or "Health"), Projects (specific goals with a completion state), and To-Dos (individual tasks). This maps well to GTD and most modern productivity frameworks.
Upcoming view. The Upcoming view shows you today's tasks alongside tasks scheduled for the coming days — a natural daily planning surface that most task managers handle poorly. Things 3's implementation is clean and genuinely useful.
Privacy. Things 3 stores your data on your device, syncing via Things Cloud (an encrypted peer-to-peer sync that doesn't store your task data on Cultured Code's servers). If privacy matters to you, Things 3 is essentially the only major task manager that takes it seriously.
One-time purchase. No subscription. You buy it once and own it.
Price: Mac app: $49.99 one-time. iPhone app: $9.99 one-time. iPad app: $19.99 one-time. Total for all three: $79.97, owned forever.
Pricing in Practice
| Todoist | Things 3 | |
|---|---|---|
| Model | Freemium / subscription | One-time purchase |
| Entry cost | Free (limited) or $4/month | $9.99 (iPhone) + $49.99 (Mac) + $19.99 (iPad) |
| Long-term cost | $48/year for Pro | $79.97, then free forever |
| Break-even point | Things 3 pays for itself after ~20 months vs Todoist Pro | — |
The math on Things 3 is actually favorable over a multi-year time horizon — but requires a bigger upfront investment. If you're not sure you'll stick with it, that $80 commitment is a real barrier.
Platform Lock-In: The Critical Difference
This is the most important thing to understand about Things 3:
Things 3 is Apple-only. There is no Windows app, no Android app, no web interface. If you ever switch to Android or a Windows PC — which many people do — you lose access to your task history. Your data isn't easily exportable to other apps.
If you use exclusively Apple devices and expect to for the foreseeable future: this isn't a problem.
If there's any chance you'll switch platforms: this is a dealbreaker. Todoist is the right call.
Workflow Fit
Todoist is a better fit for:
- Freelancers who work across multiple devices or operating systems
- Anyone who needs integrations (especially with Google Workspace, Slack, or Zapier)
- Teams or collaborators sharing task lists
- Users who want a free-tier option before committing
- GTD practitioners who want more flexibility in their workflow structure
Things 3 is a better fit for:
- Students and professionals fully committed to Apple devices
- Anyone who finds feature-heavy apps overwhelming
- GTD practitioners who want a clean, opinionated implementation
- Users who prefer one-time purchases to ongoing subscriptions
- People who take privacy seriously and don't want task data on third-party servers
The Verdict
| If you... | Use... |
|---|---|
| Use Windows, Android, or Linux | Todoist |
| Want integrations with Slack, Gmail, Zapier | Todoist |
| Need collaboration or task sharing | Todoist |
| Live entirely in Apple ecosystem | Things 3 |
| Want beautiful, distraction-free design | Things 3 |
| Prefer to buy once and own forever | Things 3 |
| Value data privacy | Things 3 |
| Want a free starting option | Todoist |
Todoist if you want cross-platform flexibility and integrations. Things 3 if you're deep in the Apple ecosystem and want a beautiful, distraction-free task manager.
Neither is objectively better. They serve different users with different priorities. The people who are most disappointed by their choice are the ones who picked based on recommendations without considering platform fit and their actual relationship with software features.
The System Behind the App
The best to-do app still requires a system behind it. Capturing tasks is easy. Having a reliable weekly review is hard. Knowing how to break large goals into actionable next steps takes practice. Maintaining the discipline to work from your task list — rather than whatever feels urgent in the moment — is a skill.
The Ultimate Productivity Kit ($17) gives you the productivity framework that makes any task manager work — weekly review templates, goal-to-task breakdown systems, time blocking guides, and focus protocols. The app is the container. The framework is what fills it.
Grab the Ultimate Productivity Kit →
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Can I try Things 3 before paying?
Yes — Things 3 offers a free trial with full functionality. On iPhone and iPad, you can download the app and use all features for a limited number of days. On Mac, the trial period is 15 days. This is long enough to get a real sense of whether the workflow fits you before committing.
Q: Does Todoist work with Google Calendar?
Yes — Todoist has a two-way Google Calendar sync that shows your scheduled Todoist tasks on your calendar and lets you see your calendar events in Todoist's Today and Upcoming views. This is one of Todoist's clearest advantages over Things 3, which has no native Google Calendar integration.
Q: Is Things 3 worth $80 if I already pay for Notion?
It depends on how you use Notion. If Notion is your task manager, you might not need Things 3 at all — though many people find Notion too heavy for daily task capture and prefer a dedicated task app alongside their Notion workspace. If you want a fast, frictionless place to capture and process tasks while using Notion for project documentation and knowledge management, Things 3 is an excellent complement. The $80 one-time cost pays for itself if you stick with it for 2+ years versus a Todoist Pro subscription.
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