Things vs Todoist: Apple Beauty vs Cross-Platform Power

Things and Todoist are the two task managers readers ask me about more than any others. They serve adjacent but distinct users, and the honest answer to "which should I use" depends almost entirely on your platform situation and how you feel about subscriptions.

What they are

Things 3. Apple-only task manager from Cultured Code. One-time purchase: $49.99 Mac, $9.99 iPhone, $19.99 iPad. Personal use only; no collaboration. First shipped in 2017; largely unchanged since.

Todoist. Cross-platform task manager. Subscription pricing: Free tier, Pro $5/month, Business $8/user/month. Shared projects and team collaboration supported. Available on iOS, Android, Mac, Windows, Linux, Web.

Where Things wins

Design. Things is the most considered-looking task manager in any comparison. Typography, animation, and interaction design are in a different league. For users who spend hours in their task manager, this matters.

One-time purchase. ~$80 for Mac + iPhone + iPad, once. Todoist Pro is $48/year. Things pays for itself inside two years and stops costing anything.

Restraint. Things has fewer features than Todoist. This is intentional and it is the product. Today view, Quick Entry, and the Areas/Projects hierarchy cover GTD cleanly without sprawl.

Reliability. Things Cloud sync is flawless. I have never lost a task. The product is stable in the way consumer software rarely is anymore.

No ongoing commitment. Buy once, own forever. If Cultured Code disappeared tomorrow, your Things apps would keep working.

Where Todoist wins

Cross-platform. Every feature works on every platform. iOS, Android, Windows, Mac, Linux, Web. If you're ever not on an Apple device, Todoist is the only real option.

Natural-language input. Todoist's date parser is best-in-category. Things has natural-language parsing but Todoist's handles compound dates and recurrences better.

Collaboration. Shared projects, task assignment, team comments. Things doesn't do any of this.

Integrations. Gmail, Slack, Google Calendar, Zapier, IFTTT, hundreds more. Things has limited integrations; Todoist has the category's deepest.

Filters. Todoist's filter syntax lets you build saved views with custom criteria. Things offers tags and areas but nothing as flexible.

What they cost over 5 years

Things: ~$80 one-time. Total 5-year cost: $80.

Todoist Pro: $48/year. Total 5-year cost: $240.

The math favors Things dramatically if you stay on Apple and don't need collaboration.

Who should pick Things

• Apple-only solo users
• Users who value design and restraint
• Users tired of subscription creep
• GTD practitioners who want a clean implementation

Who should pick Todoist

• Cross-platform users
• Teams or couples sharing tasks
• Users who want deep integrations
• Users who need powerful filters and views

A note on switching

Migration in either direction is painful. Both apps export tasks but the structure (projects, tags, scheduling) doesn't round-trip cleanly. Pick carefully; stay for a while.

Bottom line

If you're Apple-only and solo: Things. If you're cross-platform or collaborative: Todoist. Don't overthink this — both tools are genuinely good, and the biggest mistake most users make is spending weeks evaluating when the right answer could have been picked in five minutes based on platform alone.