Task Managers Compared: Todoist, Things, and TickTick Head to Head

I have moved my task list between these three apps more times than I would like to admit, usually during some optimistic weekend when I decide my whole system needs a reset. What I have learned is that Todoist, Things, and TickTick are all genuinely good, and the differences that matter are not in the feature checklists. They show up in the small friction points you hit fifty times a day: how fast you can capture a stray thought, how reviewing your week feels, and whether reminders actually fire when you need them.

The quick verdict#

If you want the short version before we get into the weeds:

• Todoist is the safe, flexible choice, especially if you live across Windows, Mac, Android, and the web.
• Things is the most pleasant to use day to day, but it is Apple-only and deliberately opinionated.
• TickTick is the best value, folding a calendar, habit tracker, and focus timer into one app.

None of them will fix a broken workflow. But each one nudges you toward a particular way of working, and picking the app whose grain matches yours is more than half the battle.

Capture speed: the thing you do most#

The single most important job of a task manager is getting an idea out of your head before it evaporates. If capture is slow or fiddly, you stop trusting the system, and a task manager you do not trust is just a graveyard.

Todoist#

Todoist's global quick-add is its best feature. You hit a keyboard shortcut, a box appears, and you type in plain language: "Email Priya about the budget tomorrow at 9am p1 #Work". It parses the date, the priority, and the project as you type, highlighting each piece so you can see what it understood. After a week your fingers learn the syntax and capture becomes almost frictionless. The natural-language parsing is the most reliable I have used, and it works the same on every platform.

Things#

Things leans on a feature it calls the Magic Plus, plus a system-wide capture shortcut that drops a task into your inbox without pulling you out of whatever you were doing. On the Mac, hitting the quick-entry hotkey while you have an email or webpage open can attach a link back to it, which is genuinely useful. Things does less natural-language parsing than Todoist, so you set dates through a small calendar picker rather than by typing them. It is a touch slower, but the interface is so calm that I rarely mind.

TickTick#

TickTick sits between the two. It supports natural-language dates, has a quick-add widget on mobile, and adds two capture tricks the others lack: voice input that transcribes a spoken task, and email-to-inbox so you can forward things straight into your list. If you capture a lot from your phone while walking around, TickTick's mobile capture is the most forgiving of the three.

Organizing work: projects, areas, and tags#

Once tasks are in, you need somewhere to put them. This is where the three apps show their personalities most clearly.

Todoist uses projects with nestable sub-projects, plus labels and filters. The filter system is the real power tool here: you can build a saved view like "everything due this week that is priority 1 and not in my someday project" and pin it to the sidebar. It takes some learning, but if you think in queries, Todoist rewards you.

Things uses a gentler hierarchy of Areas and Projects, with headings inside projects to group steps. There are no nested sub-projects and the tag system is lightweight by design. Instead of building complex filters, you lean on the built-in Today, Upcoming, Anytime, and Someday lists. It is less configurable, and that is the point: Things makes the decision for you so you spend less time tuning your setup and more time doing the work.

TickTick offers lists with folders, tags, and smart lists that behave much like Todoist filters. It also has a Kanban board view for any list, which is handy if you like moving cards between columns for a small project. TickTick generally gives you a knob for everything, which is either liberating or a rabbit hole depending on your temperament.

Reviewing and planning your week#

A task manager is only as good as your habit of looking at it. The weekly and daily review is where I find real differences.

Things has quietly the best review experience. The Today list separates timed calendar events from tasks, the Upcoming view lays out the coming days like a gentle agenda, and dragging tasks between days feels tactile and clear. I plan my week faster in Things than anywhere else, mostly because nothing on screen is competing for my attention.

Todoist's review lives in its Upcoming calendar-style view and its filters. It is powerful and fast, but busier. If you have built a lot of labels and filters, the sidebar can start to feel like a control panel. That is fine when you want control and slightly noisy when you just want to see today.

TickTick has a genuine advantage here: a built-in calendar that overlays your tasks and, if you connect it, your actual calendar events. Seeing deadlines next to meetings in one view is something the other two only approximate. For people who plan around a packed schedule, that overlay alone can be the deciding factor.

Reminders that actually fire#

Reminders are where trust is won or lost. A few honest caveats:

1. Todoist puts reminders behind its paid tier. On the free plan you get due dates but not time-based push notifications, which surprises people. When enabled, they are reliable across devices.
2. Things has solid local reminders and, more recently, natural-language reminder entry. Because it is Apple-native, its notifications behave predictably on iPhone and Mac, though there is nothing for you if you carry an Android phone.
3. TickTick is the most generous, offering multiple reminders per task, location-based reminders, and annoyingly persistent alerts that keep nudging until you deal with them. If you routinely dismiss notifications and forget, that persistence is a feature.

The practical lesson: if reminders are central to how you work, check exactly what each plan includes before you commit, because this is the area where the free and paid lines are drawn most aggressively.

Platforms and the Apple question#

This is often the deciding factor, so let me be blunt about it.

Things is Apple-only. Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and that is the entire world. There is no web app, no Windows client, no Android version, and there almost certainly never will be. If any part of your life runs on Windows or Android, Things is off the table no matter how much you like it. The apps are also sold separately per platform as one-time purchases rather than a subscription, so buying in means paying for each device family once.

Todoist and TickTick both go everywhere: Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, web, and browser extensions. If you switch devices often, or share tasks with people on different systems, this reach matters more than any single feature. Both use a subscription model for their upgraded tiers.

What the extras are worth#

TickTick throws in the most:

• A Pomodoro focus timer with white-noise sounds
• A dedicated habit tracker
• The calendar view mentioned above

Bundling these means one fewer app to manage, and if you were going to pay for a separate habit tracker or timer anyway, TickTick's value is hard to beat. The risk is that a jack-of-all-trades app can feel slightly less polished in each individual area than a focused tool.

Todoist's extras lean productive rather than flashy: a Karma points system that gamifies completing tasks, useful integrations with calendars and automation tools, and shared projects that work well for small teams. Things adds almost nothing beyond task management, and treats that restraint as the product.

So which one should you pick?#

Here is how I would decide, quickly:

• Choose Things if you are all-in on Apple, you value calm over configurability, and you would rather your app make decisions for you. It is the one I reach for when I want to think, not tinker.
• Choose Todoist if you use mixed platforms, collaborate with others, or think in filters and queries. It is the most broadly safe recommendation I can give.
• Choose TickTick if you want the most in one package, especially the calendar overlay, habits, and timer, and you do not mind a busier interface to get them.

The honest truth is that any of these will serve you well for years. The apps are not the bottleneck; your habit of capturing everything and reviewing regularly is. So do not agonize. Pick the one whose capture flow and weekly review feel natural in your hands, commit for a month before you judge it, and resist the weekend urge to migrate again. The best task manager is the one you actually open.