The best Todoist alternatives
Seven apps people move to when they leave Todoist, each with what it does well, what it costs, and what it gets wrong. Mindwtr is one of them, and it is ours — it goes first because it is the open-source pick, not because it wins every row. Its own catch section is as blunt as everyone else’s. Prices and limits below were checked against each product’s official pages on .
What you’ll give up leaving Todoist
Worth saying first, because most roundups skip it. Todoist’s natural-language capture is the most polished in the category — you type the date and the project and the priority in one line and it parses them. Its integrations directory spans thirteen categories and, in Todoist’s own words, lets you “integrate with thousands of other apps via our automation partners”, which no app on this list matches. It is a real team product: shared projects, task assignment, comment threads, and a Business tier built for delegating work. And it has had a large team polishing the same app for well over a decade, which shows in the small places you only notice when they are missing.
If any of those four things is why you use Todoist, the honest advice is to stay. Everything below is for the people with a specific reason to leave.
Why people look anyway
The free plan is narrow. Todoist’s free Beginner plan caps you at five active personal projects, three filter views, and one week of activity history, and reminders are where it bites hardest: automatic reminders for tasks with a date and time are free, but custom, time-based, location-based, and recurring reminders are Pro features. Reminders on your own terms are the line most people end up paying to cross: $7 per month or $60 per year for Pro, $10 per user per month or $96 per user per year for Business.
The rest is structural. Todoist is closed source, so you cannot read what it does or fork it if the terms change. Your tasks live on Todoist’s servers; the apps work offline, but its own help page notes you must be logged in first — “Without doing so, you can’t access or make changes to your tasks or projects.” And if you came to Todoist for GTD, you had to build GTD yourself: filters standing in for Next Actions, a label for Waiting For, a project you remember to treat as Someday, a recurring task reminding you to review. It works, until you rename a label.
Seven alternatives, seven dimensions
The dimensions that actually decide this for most people. Mindwtr loses the last row outright and ties the first with Microsoft To Do; a table that never loses isn’t a table. Prices are in the note below, in prose, because “cheap” and “free” mean different things per app.
Yes Partial No
| Capability | Mindwtr | TickTick | Things 3 | MS To Do | OmniFocus | Everdo | Nirvana |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Completely free, no paid tier | |||||||
| Open source | |||||||
| Works offline | |||||||
| No account required | |||||||
| Native Linux app | |||||||
| Full GTD method out of the box | |||||||
| Shared lists, task assignment |
Method. Checked against each product’s official pricing, download, and help pages. “Full GTD” requires first-class Inbox, Next, Waiting, Someday, Review, and sequential projects. “No” means official sources do not document the capability; “Partial” means only part is supported.
On price. Mindwtr is free software under AGPL-3.0 with no paid tier, funded by donations. Microsoft To Do is “free when you use your personal Microsoft Account”. TickTick Premium is US$49.99 per year, and its free plan is capped at 9 lists, 99 tasks per list, 19 checklist items per task, 2 task reminders, 5 habits, and 1 attachment per day. Things 3 is a one-time purchase per platform with no subscription — $49.99 for Mac, $19.99 for iPad, $9.99 for iPhone (the Apple Watch app is included) — plus a 15-day free trial. OmniFocus 4 is $74.99 (Standard) or $149.99 (Pro) as a one-time licence, or $99.99 per year by subscription, with web access bundled into the subscription or sold at $4.99 per month / $49.99 per year. Everdo’s free tier is capped at “Projects Up to 5” and “Areas of responsibility Up to 2”; Pro removes both for a one-time $99.99. Nirvana’s free plan covers “Basic projects & areas of focus”, while Pro adds “Unlimited projects”, “Unlimited areas”, and recurring to-dos at $3 per month billed annually at $36 per year. For reference, Todoist Pro is $7 per month or $60 per year and Business $10 per user per month or $96 per user per year, both effective December 10, 2025.
On the cells. Offline: TickTick’s help centre documents no offline mode, and Microsoft To Do is “Partial”: Microsoft documents an offline mode but warns unsynced changes are lost if you sign out, and tasks “are stored on Exchange Online servers”. Things stores the full database on each device (“You can use Things offline and still access your data”), and OmniFocus’s native apps work offline while OmniFocus for the Web needs a connection. Accounts: Things needs no account on a single device but “a free Things Cloud account is required” to sync; OmniFocus is “Partial” because the apps run locally but Omni’s sync service and web app require an Omni Account. Linux: TickTick and Everdo publish Linux desktop builds; Things, Microsoft To Do, OmniFocus, and Nirvana do not, though the last two are reachable in a Linux browser. Sharing: TickTick offers “Share lists with friends and colleagues, assign tasks”, and Microsoft To Do documents assigning tasks in shared lists; Mindwtr, Things, OmniFocus, Everdo, and Nirvana document no assignment. Sources: Mindwtr, TickTick plans, features, apps and help centre, Things pricing, getting Things and Things Cloud sync, Microsoft To Do, supported accounts, system requirements, syncing and assigning tasks, OmniFocus, the Omni Store and features, Everdo pricing, downloads and data sync, Nirvana pricing, Todoist pricing, offline mode, and integrations.
Mindwtr — the open-source pick
Free software under AGPL-3.0, with native apps for Linux, macOS, Windows, iOS, and Android. The Todoist habits carry over — quick capture with natural-language dates, projects and labels, recurring tasks, reminders, home-screen widgets, calendar views — and none of them sit behind a plan, because there is no plan. Underneath, your tasks are a SQLite file on your own disk with documented JSON and CSV export, there is no account to create, and nothing leaves the device until you turn on sync and say where to. It ships GTD as the app rather than as a filter recipe: Inbox processing, Next, Waiting and Someday lists, Areas above projects, sequential projects that surface only their next step, and a guided Weekly Review. Todoist exports import directly. Price: free, no paid tier, funded by donations.
The catch.
It is built for one person. No shared projects, no task assignment, no comment threads. If you delegate work, this is the wrong tool, and the table says so. There is no habit tracker and no pomodoro timer. Automation is a local API, a CLI, and MCP rather than a hosted integration marketplace, which suits tinkerers and does not suit anyone who wants a two-click Slack hookup. There is no browser extension. Sync works, but you have to pick and configure a route yourself — iCloud, Dropbox, WebDAV, a Syncthing folder, or your own server — instead of it being on by default. And it is a younger project than most on this list, without a decade of polish behind it.
Best for: someone managing their own commitments who wants full GTD, real Linux support, and source code they can read, and who is willing to set up sync once.
TickTick
The closest thing to a drop-in Todoist replacement, and the one that bundles the most. Lists, tags, filters, and natural-language input feel familiar within an hour, and on top of that sit a built-in pomodoro timer, a habit tracker, a calendar view, and an Eisenhower matrix — features you would otherwise run three apps for. It publishes desktop builds for Windows, macOS, and Linux alongside iOS, Android, the web, and browser extensions, and it shares lists and assigns tasks for small-team work. Premium is US$49.99 per year.
The catch.
The free plan is tighter than Todoist’s in practice: 9 lists, 99 tasks per list, 19 checklist items per task, 2 task reminders, 5 habits, and 1 attachment per day, with Filter, Timeline View, Task Duration, Integrations, and AI Features marked Premium-only. It is closed source, requires a TickTick account, and its help centre documents no offline mode — the data lives on their servers. GTD is something you arrange out of lists and tags; there is no built-in review flow, no Waiting For list, and no sequential projects.
Best for: someone who wants tasks, habits, and pomodoro in one paid app and doesn’t mind a subscription.
Things 3
The nicest-feeling task app on any Apple device, and the strongest argument that a to-do list can be a pleasure to use. Areas, projects, headings, Today and Upcoming, a quick-entry box that stays out of your way, and an interaction design that has won two Apple Design Awards. It stores the full database on each device so it works offline, and Things Cloud syncs between your Apple devices at no extra charge. Price: a one-time purchase per platform, no subscription — $49.99 for Mac, $19.99 for iPad, $9.99 for iPhone with the Watch app included — after a 15-day free trial.
The catch.
It is Apple-only: Mac, iPhone, iPad, Watch, and Vision, with no Windows, Android, Linux, or web version, so a single work PC ends the conversation. You pay per platform, so a Mac-and-iPhone setup is roughly $60 before you add an iPad. It is closed source. And for GTD it is deliberately incomplete — there is no Waiting For list, no sequential projects, and no built-in weekly review; people rebuild those with tags and a repeating to-do, the same DIY assembly they left Todoist to escape.
Best for: someone entirely inside the Apple ecosystem who would rather pay once for something beautiful than subscribe.
Microsoft To Do
The other app here with no paid tier, and the only one that is free because a much larger company is paying for it. It is “free when you use your personal Microsoft Account”, runs on iOS, Android, Windows, macOS, and the web, shares lists and assigns tasks to the people you share with, and folds into Outlook Tasks and Microsoft 365 without any setup. If your workplace already runs on Microsoft, the tasks you make here show up where your colleagues already look.
The catch.
It is a list app, not a system: no Waiting For, no Someday, no Areas, no sequential projects, no review — nothing to build GTD out of. It is closed source, it requires a Microsoft account, and there is no Linux app. Your tasks “are stored on Exchange Online servers”; offline use works, but unsynced changes are lost if you sign out. Free here means free inside Microsoft’s account system, not free as in yours to keep.
Best for: someone whose work already runs on Microsoft 365 and who wants shared lists at no cost.
OmniFocus
The most complete GTD implementation money can buy, and the one GTD veterans name first. Projects and folders, defer dates so items stay hidden until they are actionable, tags standing in for contexts, a built-in Review feature that “will periodically remind you to go through your projects and actions and make sure everything is on track”, and custom perspectives in the Pro tier for slicing the database however your week actually works. The native apps run offline, and you can sync to your own WebDAV server. Price: $74.99 (Standard) or $149.99 (Pro) one-time, or $99.99 per year.
The catch.
Apple platforms only — Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Vision Pro — with Android and PC users pointed at OmniFocus for the Web, which needs a connection and costs $4.99 per month or $49.99 per year unless it comes with the subscription. Omni also documents that “customers who sync OmniFocus using their own server can’t currently view or edit their data in OmniFocus for the Web”, so self-hosted sync and web access are mutually exclusive. It is closed source, the sync service and web app require an Omni Account, it is the most expensive app on this page, and its learning curve is real.
Best for: a committed GTD practitioner on Apple hardware who wants every mechanism the method describes and will pay for it.
Everdo
A local-first GTD app for people who want their data on their own machine without giving up structure. Inbox, Next, Waiting, Scheduled, and Someday are first-class, projects can be sequential, areas of responsibility sit above them, and the whole thing works offline because the database is local. Desktop builds cover Windows, macOS, and Linux, mobile apps exist, and there is a “Send to Everdo” extension for Chrome and Firefox. Free local network sync is self-hosted from one of your own desktops; syncing over the internet uses the Encrypted Sync Service, which is end-to-end encrypted. Price: a one-time $99.99 for Pro.
The catch.
The free tier is capped at “Projects Up to 5” and “Areas of responsibility Up to 2” — tighter than Todoist’s free plan — so Pro is effectively the product. Everdo’s source code is not published, so local-first here means your data is local, not that you can read the code holding it. Internet sync needs an account and “a small subscription fee” ($1.66 per month) on top of the one-time licence. There is no team functionality at all.
Best for: someone who wants strict GTD on their own disk, on Linux included, and prefers paying once to renting.
Nirvana
The quiet, long-running GTD web app, and the one that asks least of you. Its free plan already includes “Inbox, Next, Waiting, Scheduled & Someday lists”, basic projects and areas of focus, notes and checklists, tags and contexts, sync across devices, and email capture — which is more real GTD structure than most paid apps ship. The interface is deliberately plain: no boards, no gamification, nothing to configure before you can start. Pro adds “Unlimited projects”, “Unlimited areas”, and recurring to-dos at $3 per month, billed annually at $36 per year.
The catch.
It is a hosted service first: an account is required, your data lives on Nirvana’s servers, and the help pages document no offline mode. Recurring to-dos — table stakes almost everywhere else — are behind Pro, and so are unlimited projects and areas. It is closed source, there is no Linux desktop app, and development moves slowly compared with the commercial apps on this list. It has no collaboration features.
Best for: someone who wants unadorned GTD in a browser and is happy for it to be hosted.
How to choose
Find yourself in one of these. The right answer is often not the open-source one, and this page is only useful if it says so.
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You need to delegate work
Stay on Todoist, or use Microsoft To Do if your workplace already runs on Microsoft 365. Shared projects, assignment, and comment threads are the reason Todoist costs money, and none of the single-person apps here replace them. Mindwtr, Things, OmniFocus, Everdo, and Nirvana are all wrong for this.
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You’re all-Apple and happy to pay once
Things 3. One-time purchases per platform, no subscription, the best-feeling interface in the category, and it works offline. Accept that you’ll rebuild Waiting For and the weekly review yourself, and that a single Windows or Android device breaks it.
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You want deep GTD on Apple hardware
OmniFocus. Defer dates, sequential projects, a built-in Review, and Pro perspectives cover more of the method than anything else sold. It is the most expensive option here and Apple-only, and both facts are worth it if GTD is how you actually work.
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You want free, open source, and GTD everywhere
Mindwtr. Full GTD out of the box, native Linux alongside macOS, Windows, iOS, and Android, no account, no paid tier, and your data on your own disk. Set aside ten minutes to pick a sync route, and don’t expect a habit tracker or shared projects.
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You want pomodoro and habits bundled in
TickTick. The habit tracker, pomodoro timer, and calendar are built in and well made, which is a real reason to pay US$49.99 a year rather than run three apps. Know that the free plan is narrow and offline isn’t documented.
Common questions
What is the best free Todoist alternative?
Two are free outright rather than free-tier: Mindwtr, which is free software under AGPL-3.0 with no paid tier at all, and Microsoft To Do, which is free with a personal Microsoft account. Mindwtr gives you full GTD, Linux, offline, and no account; Microsoft To Do gives you shared lists and Outlook integration. Everything else on this page has a paid tier or a purchase price. There is more detail on what “free” actually means.
Can I move my Todoist data out?
Yes. Todoist exports a project as CSV from its project menu under Manage data, or a full backup ZIP containing one CSV per active project. Mindwtr imports those directly — projects, sections, subtasks as checklist items, labels as tags, descriptions, priorities, and resolvable due dates — via the Todoist import guide. Most other apps on this list accept CSV in some form; check each one before you commit.
Is there an open-source Todoist alternative?
On this list, Mindwtr is the only one — TickTick, Things, Microsoft To Do, OmniFocus, Everdo, and Nirvana are all closed source, including the local-first ones. Outside this list there are other good open-source task managers worth a look — Vikunja, Super Productivity, and Tasks.org on Android among them — each with its own priorities. We left them out of the table because this page is about the apps people most often land on when they leave Todoist, not because they aren’t worth your time.
Should I just stay on Todoist?
Often, yes. If you delegate work, if your workflow depends on its integrations, or if you are already paying for Pro and happy, leaving costs you more than it saves. Switch when a specific thing is wrong — a reminder you can’t set without paying, a platform that isn’t supported, or data you want on your own disk.
Keep reading
If Mindwtr is the one you’re weighing, the Mindwtr versus Todoist head-to-head goes row by row on that single pair, including the migration steps. The wider sourced matrix — all seven of these apps in one table — is on how Mindwtr compares. And if price is the whole reason you are here, the best free task manager takes apart what each app means by “free”.