TickTick vs Todoist: Which Wins in 2026?

In the TickTick vs Todoist matchup, the choice comes down to one trade-off across 8 core features. Pick TickTick if you want a calendar, a Pomodoro timer, and a habit tracker bundled into one free app. Pick Todoist if you want the cleanest task capture and the best natural-language input. TickTick's free tier is the more generous of the two. Todoist stays focused on tasks alone, and does that one job with more polish. The rest of this guide breaks down each feature so you can match the app to how you actually work.

Last updated: July 2026.

Both apps are excellent. Neither is a mistake. They just solve the problem from opposite directions. TickTick packs many tools into one place. Todoist does fewer things, but does them with more polish.

A quick way to decide is to ask what kind of person you are. Some people want one app that handles everything in a single window. They like having a calendar, a focus timer, and a habit list a tap away. Other people want a calm, quiet tool that does just one thing. They get annoyed by extra buttons they never press. There is no wrong answer here. The right pick is the one that fits how your brain likes to work.

If you came here because both apps advertise a built-in habit tracker, skip ahead to the habit-tracking section. That sub-feature is where this comparison gets interesting. It is also where most reviews go shallow, so it is worth a close look.

TickTick vs Todoist at a glance

Here's the verdict-first table. Skim it, then read the deep dives on whichever rows matter most to you. Prices reflect each company's published annual plans as of mid-2026.

The pattern is clear at a glance. TickTick is the all-in-one Swiss Army knife. Todoist is the precision tool. Now let's look at where each choice actually pays off, one feature at a time.

Task capture: how fast you can empty your head

The whole point of a to-do app is to catch a task before it slips your mind. You want to type the thought fast, then get back to your day. This is where the two apps feel most different in daily use.

Todoist's natural-language parsing is its signature strength. Type "call dentist every other Tuesday at 3pm starting next week." Todoist reads that sentence and sets the recurrence, the time, and the start date for you. You never open a single menu. Fast, flexible capture like this is the feature long-time users miss most when they try another app.

The 2026 Todoist Assist suite pushes this even further. Ramble is a voice-to-task tool that turns spoken words into clean, structured tasks. It works across dozens of languages. Email Assist can pull action items out of a message, and Filter Assist turns a plain sentence into a saved search. None of that is essential, but it makes a fast tool feel even faster.

TickTick handles natural language too, but its parsing is more literal. It can trip on complex recurrence rules that Todoist handles in one line. Where TickTick claws back ground is the sheer breadth of capture. Voice input, email forwarding, and a quick-add widget all funnel into the same inbox.

So which matters for you? If your tasks are mostly simple, like "buy milk" or "email Sam," you won't notice the parsing gap at all. Both apps catch those in a second. If you live in recurring, conditional scheduling, Todoist's engine is the better tool by a clear margin.

TickTick bundles calendar, Pomodoro, and habit tracking into one app; Todoist keeps the surface focused on tasks.

There's a deeper philosophy difference underneath the parsing. Todoist stays focused on tasks and the structure around them, without piling on tools that compete for your attention. That restraint is a feature for some people. For others it feels like a missing toolbox. TickTick makes the opposite bet. It gives you more surfaces, more views, and more tools one tap away. You will feel that difference within five minutes of opening each app.

Interface and daily feel

Numbers and feature lists only tell half the story. The bigger question is which app you will actually enjoy opening every morning.

Todoist feels calm. The screen shows your tasks and little else. There is a small splash of color, a clean font, and lots of white space. Nothing fights for your attention. For people who get overwhelmed easily, that quiet is the whole point. You open the app, see today's list, and close it again.

TickTick feels busy in a good way for some, and a cluttered way for others. The bottom bar holds tasks, a calendar, a Pomodoro tab, and a habit tab. You can switch between four columns to see several projects at once. There are more menus, more settings, and more themes. Power users love that depth. Minimalists sometimes find it noisy.

Here is a simple test. Picture your phone home screen. Do you keep one tidy folder, or a grid of apps you tweak often? If you like a clean, sparse setup, Todoist will feel like home. If you enjoy customizing and having options nearby, TickTick will suit you better. Neither answer is smarter than the other.

Calendar and time-blocking

If you plan your week by dragging tasks onto a calendar, this section may decide the whole comparison for you.

TickTick ships a full calendar built right in. You get day, week, month, and timeline views. You can drag a task onto a time slot and color-code it by project. All of that is part of the free experience, not a paid add-on. On the paid plan you can two-way sync with Google Calendar, Outlook, or Apple Calendar. That turns TickTick into a light time-blocking tool you never have to leave.

Time-blocking matters because it forces you to be honest about your day. A list of 20 tasks fits on paper. It does not fit in eight waking hours. When you drag each task onto a real time slot, you see what is actually possible. TickTick makes that habit easy because the calendar lives next to your tasks.

Todoist's calendar layout arrives on the paid plan and leans on integrations. It treats the calendar as a view of your tasks. It is not a planning canvas you build on. The view is clean and useful, but it is more of a window than a workspace. If time-blocking is central to how you work, TickTick gives you more out of the box.

For a deeper look at building that routine, our guide to choosing a time-blocking app covers what to prioritize. And how to plan your day walks through the daily ritual step by step.

The video above walks through both apps side by side if you'd rather see the interfaces in motion before committing to a trial.

The built-in habit tracker and Pomodoro timer

Here's the section most reviews skip past, and probably the real reason you're comparing these two apps. Both bundle productivity extras that plain task managers leave out.

TickTick includes a Pomodoro timer with focus statistics. It also includes a habit tracker with streaks and reminders. Both live inside the same app you already use for tasks. Todoist offers neither one. To get them, you would reach for a separate Pomodoro app and a separate habit tracker. On paper, that makes TickTick the clear winner for anyone who wants tasks, focus sessions, and habits in one window.

The Pomodoro side holds up well. A Pomodoro is a 25-minute focus block followed by a short break. TickTick lets you start one straight from a task, then shows your focus stats over time. If you want to try the method before picking an app, you can use our free Pomodoro timer to see if the rhythm fits you. The habit side is where the bundle gets weaker, and that is worth a careful look.

A bolt-on habit checkbox versus a dedicated tracker's streak heatmap and progress view.

But there's a catch worth naming honestly. A habit is not a task. A task is a one-time job you finish and tick off. A habit is a behavior you repeat until it runs on autopilot. Those are different goals, and they need different tools.

The science backs this up. Phillippa Lally's team at University College London tracked how long new habits take to form. The answer was a median of 66 days, not the popular 21-day figure. Some habits took far longer. That means the feature you really need is long-run feedback. You want a streak heatmap, count-based tracking, and charts that show your pattern over months. A simple daily checkbox does not give you that.

James Clear makes the same point in Atomic Habits. His rule is "never miss twice." Missing one day is fine. Missing two in a row is how a habit dies. That rule only works if your tool makes the chain easy to see at a glance. When the streak is visible, you protect it. When it is buried, you forget it.

TickTick's habit feature is fine for a quick "did I do it today" checkbox. But it is a bolt-on, and it shows. The free tier caps you at five habits. Count-based tracking is limited, so logging eight glasses of water is clunky. There is no rich streak heatmap to make a 66-day chain feel real. Todoist does not even try to track habits. So if habit tracking is the reason you're comparing these apps, the honest answer is simple. Neither bundled feature is built for the job.

That's the gap a dedicated tracker fills. An app like HabitBox focuses only on recurring behaviors. It gives you a calendar heatmap that turns your streak into a chain you don't want to break. It supports count-based habits for things you measure, like water, pages, or pushups. And it surfaces clean analytics on your real completion rate. You can see which habits stick and which keep slipping.

The setup that tends to last is a pair, not a single app. Use a task manager for one-off to-dos. Use a dedicated habit tracker for daily routines. Each tool does one job well, instead of one tool doing both jobs halfway. If you want help weighing the dedicated options, our roundup of the best habit tracker app compares them head to head.

Collaboration and sharing

If you only manage your own tasks, you can skip this section. But if you share lists with a partner, a flatmate, or a small team, it matters a lot.

Todoist is the stronger team tool by a wide margin. You can share a project, assign a task to a specific person, and leave comments on each item. It is built to scale from a personal list up to a busy team workspace. The handoffs feel clean, and nobody has to ask who owns what.

TickTick can share lists too, but its team features are lighter. The free tier limits you to one extra member per list. Sharing works for a grocery list with your partner. It strains under a real project with several people and moving parts. For couples and casual sharing, TickTick is enough. For work teams, Todoist pulls ahead.

Integrations and your wider tool stack

Most of us don't live in a single app. We bounce between email, a calendar, a chat tool, and a few others. The question is how well your to-do app plugs into that web.

Todoist wins on raw reach here. It connects to 80-plus third-party apps and services. That list covers Slack, Gmail, Google Calendar, Alexa, and a long tail of automation tools. If your workflow depends on tasks flowing in from other apps, Todoist gives you more wires to work with.

TickTick supports a solid set of integrations too, just a smaller one. It hooks into Gmail, Outlook, Slack, and Alexa, among others. For most people that covers the basics. But power users who chain many tools together will hit Todoist's wider library and stay there.

Pricing and free tiers

Both apps are usable for free. They just draw the free-versus-paid line in different places, and the gap is worth understanding before you commit.

TickTick's free tier is the more generous one for solo users. You get unlimited tasks, up to nine lists, the built-in calendar view, the Pomodoro timer, and up to five habits. None of that costs a cent. You only hit the paywall when you need more than nine lists, want two-way calendar sync, or want richer sharing. Premium is a single, simple tier at $35.99 per year, which is about $3.99 per month.

Todoist's free plan also gives you unlimited tasks. But it caps you at five active projects and five collaborators, with limited reminders. The paid Pro tier runs roughly $48 to $60 per year, depending on billing and current promotions. That is a clear step up in cost from TickTick. You are paying for polish, deeper integrations, and the strong natural-language and AI capture. You are not paying for a calendar or a timer, because Todoist does not include those at all.

The blunt version is easy to remember. TickTick gives you more features for less money. Todoist gives you a more refined experience for more money. Which one is "worth it" depends on a single question: do you value breadth or polish?

Who should choose TickTick

Pick TickTick if any of these sound like you. You want a calendar, a Pomodoro timer, and a habit tracker in one app, and you don't want to juggle three separate tools. You're a student or on a tight budget, since the free tier covers a lot and Premium is cheap. You plan your week by time-blocking on a built-in calendar. You simply prefer "more tools, one window" over a bare, minimal screen.

TickTick rewards people who like having options a tap away. The trade-off is a slightly busier interface, and most TickTick fans are happy to make that trade.

Who should choose Todoist

Pick Todoist if you live in fast, complex task capture and want the parsing to just work. You collaborate on shared projects and need clean task assignment and comments. You value a calm, focused screen over a feature buffet. You rely on a wide set of integrations with the other tools in your stack. And you are fine reaching for separate apps for focus sessions and habits.

Todoist rewards people who want their to-do app to do one thing: manage tasks. It does that with as little friction and visual noise as possible. If you're still weighing the field, our list of Todoist alternatives covers the other contenders worth a look.

Switching between them without losing data

Worried about getting stuck? You shouldn't be. Both apps make it easy to try one, then move to the other if it doesn't click.

Both TickTick and Todoist let you import and export your tasks. You can pull your list out as a file and bring it into the other app in a few minutes. So you are never truly locked in. The smart move is to install both for a week. Run your real tasks through each one. The app you keep reaching for is your answer, not the one that looks best in a review.

One tip makes the test fairer. Don't set up either app for hours before you try it. Just add today's real tasks and see how each one feels. The right app should fade into the background and let you work. If you find yourself fighting the interface, that is useful data too.

The verdict in one line

If you remember nothing else, remember this. TickTick is the better all-in-one app, and the better deal. Todoist is the better pure task manager, and the calmer place to work. Both are strong, so you really can't lose. Just match the app to the row in the table that matters most to you, and trust that pick.

And if habit tracking is the thread that pulled you into this comparison, treat it as its own decision. The best habit results come from a tool built for habits, not a checkbox tucked inside a task app.

TickTick vs Todoist FAQ

Is TickTick better than Todoist?

Neither is universally better — they optimize for different things. TickTick is better if you want a calendar, Pomodoro timer, and habit tracker bundled into one affordable app. Todoist is better if you want the cleanest interface, strongest natural-language task capture, and stronger collaboration. For most solo users on a budget, TickTick's free tier delivers more; for people who live in complex task management, Todoist's polish wins.

Is TickTick free?

Yes. TickTick has a capable free tier that includes unlimited tasks, up to nine lists, the built-in calendar view, the Pomodoro timer, and up to five habits. You only need Premium ($35.99/year) for more than nine lists, two-way calendar sync, or richer collaboration. It's one of the more generous free tiers among task managers.

Does Todoist have habit tracking?

No, Todoist has no built-in habit tracker. You can fake it by creating a recurring task, but that gives you a checkbox, not the streak heatmap, count-based tracking, or long-run analytics that genuine habit formation needs. Since UCL research shows habits take a median of 66 days to become automatic, most people pair Todoist with a dedicated habit tracker like HabitBox rather than forcing tasks to do the job.

Which has a Pomodoro timer, TickTick or Todoist?

TickTick has a built-in Pomodoro timer with focus statistics; Todoist does not. If you rely on focus sessions, TickTick lets you start a Pomodoro right from a task without leaving the app. With Todoist you'd use a separate Pomodoro app or a standalone timer alongside it.

Which is better for students, TickTick or Todoist?

TickTick is usually the better fit for students. Its free tier covers task management, a calendar for class schedules, the Pomodoro timer for study sessions, and basic habit tracking — all without paying. Todoist is excellent but charges for some of what students need most, and its strengths in collaboration and integrations matter less for solo coursework. For tight budgets, TickTick delivers more value.

If habit tracking turned out to be the real reason you're comparing these apps, a dedicated tool will serve you better than either bolt-on. HabitBox keeps your task manager focused on tasks while giving your recurring routines the streak view and analytics they need — try it free.