I put four task-app widgets on the same home screen for a week, Google Tasks, Todoist, TickTick, and Taskaro's new one, to see which one actually earns its spot there. A widget only has one job, really: make it faster to capture or check something than opening the app would be. Here's how each one does on that specific job, not a full app review.
Google Tasks: Best for Assistant Integration
Google Tasks' widget is a clean scrollable list with a quick-add button pinned to the bottom, and its real advantage isn't the widget itself, it's everything around it, Google Assistant voice capture, Gmail integration, Calendar sync. If you're already deep in the Google ecosystem, tasks arrive in the list from half a dozen directions before you ever touch the widget.
Todoist: Best for Customization
Todoist's widget lets you pick which view it shows, today, upcoming, or a specific project, along with a quick-add shortcut. That flexibility is genuinely useful if you have a specific project you check constantly. It's also the most configuration a widget on this list asks of you before it's useful, which is a real cost for something meant to save time, not spend it on setup.
TickTick: Best for Seeing the Whole List
TickTick's widget is closer to a mini app than a capture tool, your task list rendered directly on the home screen, checkable without opening anything. For a status check, "what's actually on my plate today", it's the most information-dense option here. That density is also its tradeoff: more to render, more to visually parse, and not the fastest thing to use if all you want is to add one task.
Taskaro: Best for Pure Capture Speed
Taskaro ships two separate widgets instead of one combined one, a task quick-add and a notes quick-add, and neither shows your existing list at all. That's a narrower job than what Google Tasks, Todoist, or TickTick's widgets attempt, and it's on purpose: a widget that only captures has less to render and fewer taps between you and a saved task. The tradeoff is real too, you can't check your list or mark something done from the widget, only add to it.
The Comparison, Compressed
- Best if you live in the Google ecosystem: Google Tasks
- Best for a configurable, project-specific view: Todoist
- Best for checking your whole list from the home screen: TickTick
- Best for the fastest possible capture, tasks and notes both: Taskaro
Being Honest About the Gap
Taskaro's widgets are the newest here and it shows in scope, no list view, no voice capture, no calendar sync. If what you actually want from a widget is a status check rather than a capture tool, TickTick or Google Tasks are doing more for you right now. I'd rather say that directly than oversell two single-purpose widgets as a full replacement for what the others do.
The Honest Take
Every widget here is answering a slightly different question: what's on my list, what's in this specific project, or just get this thought out of my head right now. Pick based on which question you actually ask your phone most often, not which widget looks the most complete sitting on the home screen.