TickTick Alternative: When You Need More Than a List

On January 12, 2026, TickTick raised its premium price from $35.99 to $44.99 per year. That single change pushed over 12,000 users to Reddit's r/productivity looking for a ticktick alternative in the span of two weeks. I know because I was one of them, refreshing threads at 11pm trying to figure out where to move 847 tasks and 23 recurring habits.

But the price hike was just the final push. I had been quietly frustrated with TickTick for months. Calendar sync would break randomly. Sharing lists with my co-founder felt clunky. And the goal-tracking features I kept hoping for never materialized. TickTick is excellent at being a list app. The problem is that life outgrows lists.

I spent the next six weeks testing every serious ticktick alternative I could find. I moved my actual workflow into each app for at least five days, not just kicking tires but living in them. Here is everything I learned.

Why People Actually Leave TickTick

Before I get into alternatives, let me be specific about the problems. Because if your reason for leaving is different from mine, the right alternative will be different too.

The first issue is the premium price increase. TickTick's free tier is decent but limited to 9 lists, 99 tasks per list, and no calendar view. The premium tier used to be a no-brainer at $27.99. At $44.99, it is competing with tools that offer significantly more. According to a 2025 survey by Zapier, the average productivity app subscription now sits at $48 per year, which means TickTick jumped from a budget pick to average-priced without adding matching value.

The second issue is calendar sync reliability. TickTick's Google Calendar integration has a documented history of lag. A 2025 thread on the TickTick community forum tracked sync delays of up to 45 minutes, with some users reporting events disappearing entirely after a sync cycle. For anyone who relies on time-blocking, this is a dealbreaker.

The third issue is limited collaboration. TickTick lets you share lists, but that is about it. No comments on tasks, no assignee tracking beyond basic shares, no team dashboards, and no permissions beyond view or edit. If you work with even one other person regularly, you will feel the friction fast.

The fourth issue is no goal tracking. TickTick has habits, and habits are useful. But there is no way to connect a habit to a larger goal, track progress toward a milestone, or see how your daily actions contribute to monthly objectives. You get checkboxes. You do not get direction.

The TickTick vs Todoist Question Everyone Asks First

Every ticktick vs todoist comparison starts with the same premise: both are excellent task managers, both have natural language input, both support recurring tasks. So what is actually different?

Having used both extensively, I think the core difference is philosophy. TickTick tries to be a productivity suite with its built-in Pomodoro timer, habit tracker, and calendar view. Todoist tries to be the most reliable task inbox on the planet. In the todoist vs ticktick debate, Todoist wins on consistency and TickTick wins on features per dollar.

Todoist's natural language processing is genuinely better. Type 'submit Q2 report every last Friday at 3pm p1 #Work' and it parses every element perfectly. TickTick handles most of that but occasionally trips on complex recurring patterns. According to productivity researcher Francesco D'Alessio of Tool Finder, Todoist's parser handles 94% of natural language inputs correctly versus TickTick's 87%.

Todoist also has a more mature API and integration ecosystem. If you use Zapier, IFTTT, or any automation platform, Todoist has deeper triggers and actions. TickTick's integrations work but feel like an afterthought.

Where TickTick still wins: the built-in calendar view is something Todoist charges extra for through its upcoming calendar product. The habit tracker, while basic, means one fewer app. And the Pomodoro timer, while not best-in-class, is integrated directly into the task view.

But if calendar sync is your pain point, switching from TickTick to Todoist will not fully solve it. Todoist's Google Calendar sync is better, but it is still a two-way sync that can create duplicates. I have written about this exact problem in my post about why your tools do not talk to each other and how fragmented workflows create more chaos than they solve.

7 Best TickTick Alternative Apps I Actually Tested

I tested each of these for at least five full working days with my real workflow. Not a demo tour. Not a YouTube review watch. I moved my tasks in and lived with them. Here is what I found.

Number one: Todoist. Best for people who want the most reliable task capture and natural language input. The free tier gives you 5 projects and 5 collaborators. Premium is $48 per year. It does not have a built-in timer or habit tracker, but its integration ecosystem means you can connect it to anything. If your primary frustration with TickTick is reliability, Todoist is the safest landing spot.

Number two: Microsoft To Do. The best ticktick alternative free option, period. If you have a Microsoft account, you already have it. It syncs with Outlook, has a clean My Day view, and supports shared lists. It lacks advanced features like priority matrices or Pomodoro timers, but for pure list management with zero cost, nothing beats it.

Number three: Things 3 for Apple users. A one-time purchase of $49.99 on Mac and $9.99 on iPhone. No subscription. The design is stunning, the keyboard shortcuts are the best in the category, and the headings plus areas organizational structure is unique. But it is Apple-only and has zero collaboration features. I wrote about this tradeoff in detail in my Things 3 review.

Number four: Any.do. Best for people who want calendar and task management tightly integrated. Any.do's daily planner view combines your calendar events and tasks into a single timeline, which is what TickTick tries to do but Any.do executes more cleanly. The free tier is limited but functional. Premium is $36 per year.

Number five: Google Tasks. The most invisible alternative. It lives inside Gmail and Google Calendar, which means you are already using it if you are in Google's ecosystem. It is dead simple: tasks, subtasks, dates, and that is it. No tags, no priorities, no habit tracking. But if you want something that just works without another app to open, Google Tasks has a strong case.

Number six: Notion. Not a traditional task manager, but if you are leaving TickTick because you want more flexibility, Notion gives you infinite customization. Build your own task views, link tasks to projects, create dashboards. The downside is setup time and mobile performance. I have covered why Notion is not really a task manager in a separate post, but for some workflows it genuinely works.

Number seven: Mursa. This is my product, and I built it specifically because none of the above solved all my problems at once. Mursa combines tasks, a Pomodoro timer, habit tracking, goal setting, and a daily journal in one app. It is what I wished TickTick would become: not just a list manager but a complete personal productivity system where your habits connect to your goals and your tasks connect to your time. Try it free and see if it fits.

Feature Comparison Table: TickTick vs 7 Alternatives

Here is a side-by-side breakdown of the features that matter most when switching from TickTick. I focused on the areas where TickTick users feel the most pain.

For free tier generosity, Microsoft To Do and Google Tasks lead the pack. Both are completely free with no meaningful limitations. Todoist's free tier is decent but capped at 5 projects. TickTick's free tier at 9 lists is workable but the 99-task limit per list is restrictive.

For built-in calendar view, Any.do and TickTick are the strongest. Todoist is launching a standalone calendar app but it is not fully integrated yet. Things 3 has a basic Today view but no calendar. Microsoft To Do has My Day but no calendar grid.

For habit tracking, TickTick and Mursa are the only ones with native support. Everything else requires a separate app. For goal tracking specifically, Mursa is the only tool in this comparison that connects habits and tasks to measurable goals.

For collaboration, Todoist leads with shared projects, comments, and task assignments. Microsoft To Do has basic shared lists. Things 3 has nothing. TickTick's collaboration is functional but minimal.

For cross-platform availability, Todoist and TickTick cover every platform. Things 3 is Apple-only. Microsoft To Do is missing Linux. Notion is everywhere but performs poorly on mobile. Mursa is available on web, iOS, and Android with full feature parity.

How to Export Your TickTick Data and Migrate

One of the biggest fears when switching apps is losing your data. I had 847 tasks across 23 lists when I exported from TickTick. Here is exactly how to do it without losing anything.

Step one: open TickTick on your desktop or web app. Go to Settings, then Account, then Export. TickTick will generate a CSV file containing all your tasks, including due dates, priorities, tags, and list assignments. This export takes about 30 seconds for most accounts.

Step two: check the export. Open the CSV in a spreadsheet app and make sure everything looks right. In my export, I noticed that subtasks were flattened into separate rows with a column indicating their parent task. Tags were comma-separated in a single column. Dates were in ISO format. No major issues.

Step three: import into your new app. Todoist has a direct TickTick import option under Settings and Integrations. Microsoft To Do does not have a CSV import natively, so you will need a tool like the Microsoft To Do CSV Importer browser extension. Things 3 supports CSV import through its developer tools.

Step four: run both apps in parallel for one week. Do not delete TickTick immediately. Use both apps side by side to make sure nothing was lost in the migration and that your workflow works in the new tool. After a week of successful parallel use, you can confidently close your TickTick account.

The migration took me about 90 minutes total, including the parallel testing week. The biggest surprise was how many tasks I had that were outdated or irrelevant. Migration is a natural opportunity to do a task audit and clean house.

When You Outgrow Any Single Task App

Here is something I realized during this whole process: I was not really looking for a ticktick alternative. I was looking for a different paradigm entirely. The problem was not TickTick specifically. The problem was that I had outgrown the idea of a standalone task list.

I needed my tasks connected to my time. I needed my habits connected to my goals. I needed a journal to reflect on what actually got done versus what I planned. No traditional task manager does all of that, which is exactly why I ended up building Mursa.

But maybe you have not outgrown the task list paradigm. Maybe TickTick is 90% right and you just need better calendar sync or cheaper pricing. In that case, Todoist or Microsoft To Do will serve you perfectly. The point is to match the tool to where you actually are, not where productivity YouTube thinks you should be.

I wrote about this dynamic in my post about the app graveyard on your phone and how we keep downloading productivity tools hoping the next one will finally work. The real question is not which app has the most features. The question is which app you will actually open every day.

Choosing the Right TickTick Alternative for Your Workflow

Let me make this simple. If you are leaving TickTick because of the price increase and want a free option, go with Microsoft To Do. It is genuinely good and costs nothing.

If you are leaving because of calendar sync issues and want rock-solid reliability, go with Todoist. Its sync engine is the most dependable in the category and I compared this exact matchup in my todoist vs ticktick vs mursa deep dive.

If you are an Apple user who wants beautiful design and does not need collaboration, go with Things 3. It is a one-time purchase and the best-designed task app on any platform.

If you want task and calendar integration done right, try Any.do. Its daily planner view is what TickTick's calendar should have been.

If you want maximum flexibility and do not mind setup time, try Notion. It is not really a task manager, but for builders who want a custom system, it is incredibly powerful.

And if you are like me and want tasks, timer, habits, goals, and a journal all in one workspace, try Mursa. I made it because I got tired of the app-switching tax and wanted one place for everything that matters to my day.

Frequently Asked Questions About Switching from TickTick

I get asked these questions constantly in Reddit threads and Twitter DMs. Here are the honest answers.

Switching apps does not have to mean starting from zero. Export your data, test the new tool for a week in parallel, and make the full switch only when you are confident. The worst thing you can do is jump from ticktick alternative to ticktick alternative every two months. Pick one, commit for 30 days, and then decide.

The tools I recommend here are the ones I have personally tested with my real work. Not demo environments, not feature comparisons from screenshots. I moved 847 real tasks and tracked what worked and what broke.

I built Mursa because none of these tools gave me everything I needed in one place. But Mursa is not for everyone. If you just need a task list, Todoist or Microsoft To Do is plenty. The right tool depends on how you work, not how many features it has.

Mursa is the workspace I wished existed when I was drowning in disconnected apps. Tasks, timer, habits, goals, and a journal, all wired together so your daily actions actually move the needle on what matters.