TickTick is one of the most popular task managers for good reason. It's genuinely excellent software. I used it for a long time before I built Taskaro, and I'm not going to pretend it's bad just because I now make a competitor.
But TickTick and Taskaro are built around very different philosophies. Understanding the difference will tell you which one you should actually use.
What TickTick Gets Right
The calendar integration is excellent. You can see tasks alongside real calendar events, which makes planning feel grounded instead of abstract. If you care about scheduling, this is a genuinely useful feature and TickTick does it well.
The habit tracker is built in. Daily streaks, checkboxes, consistency charts. If you're trying to build routines alongside managing tasks, having both in one place has obvious appeal. You don't have to switch between apps.
The Pomodoro timer is there if you want it. Focus mode, interval settings, session tracking. For people who live and breathe the Pomodoro technique, it's convenient to have it baked in rather than running a separate timer app.
Smart lists, tags, filters, multiple views. TickTick gives you a lot of tools to slice and organize your task data in different ways. If you have a complex personal or work system with lots of projects and categories, there's probably a configuration that works for you.
Where TickTick Gets Heavy
The problem isn't that TickTick has all these features. The problem is that they're always visible.
Every time you open the app, the sidebar shows you Habits, Inbox, Today, Tomorrow, Next 7 Days, Assigned to Me, and whatever smart lists you've created. Most of these compete for attention. Which one is your canonical list of what to actually do today?
Setting up the habit tracker takes real time. Creating habits, setting goals, deciding which days, choosing reminder times. That's before you've tracked a single habit. The Pomodoro timer needs configuring too. Session length, break length, long break intervals, notification settings.
These are all one-time setup costs, but they're costs. And every feature you set up is a feature you now have to maintain.
Six months after starting in TickTick, I had 14 habits (most of which I'd stopped doing), a Smart List called "Deep Work" that I'd built but rarely opened, and a growing sense that I was managing my task system more than I was managing my actual work.
What Taskaro Does Differently
Taskaro doesn't have a habit tracker. No smart lists. No inbox versus today split.
What it has: a kanban board, a calendar week view, a notes section, a contribution graph showing a year of task activity, and Focus Mode, a timer you start from a task on the board. That's the complete feature set.
Worth being clear, since this post is older than that feature: Taskaro does now have a focus timer. The difference from TickTick's is scope, not presence. TickTick's Pomodoro has work intervals, short and long breaks, and session statistics to configure. Taskaro's has a task, a duration, and a progress ring, with no interval system at all. If you want Pomodoro depth, TickTick genuinely wins here.
The kanban board is one click from the task list, with Todo, Done, Cancelled and Overdue columns. You can see everything that matters about your work in one glance. There's no question about which list to check. There's just the board.
The contribution graph is the one feature Taskaro has that TickTick doesn't: a visual record of your daily task completion. Like GitHub's streak grid, but for work. Not for habit tracking. Just for showing whether you've been consistently showing up.
The Price Comparison
TickTick Premium runs around $3.99 per month or $27.99 per year. Taskaro Pro is $3.49 per month, or $26.99 per year if you want the discount. No annual lock-in required.
On annual plans, you're looking at $27.99 for TickTick versus $26.99 for Taskaro. Close on price. The real difference is what you're paying for: TickTick charges for more features, Taskaro charges for fewer limits.
Both apps have free tiers, and both are tighter than they look. TickTick's free plan caps you at 9 lists of 99 tasks with 2 reminders each, and keeps the calendar and kanban views on Premium. Taskaro's free tier gives you 3 tasks per day, 3 notes, and 2 focus sessions a day. Enough to genuinely evaluate the workflow before paying, not enough to run a year on.
Side by Side
| Feature | TickTick | Taskaro |
|---|---|---|
| Built-in Pomodoro timer | Yes, highly configurable | Yes, Focus Mode, 25 min or custom up to 8 hrs |
| Habit tracker | Yes, full streaks and goals | No, a contribution graph instead |
| Kanban board | Yes, on Premium | Yes, free |
| Calendar view | Yes, with real event overlay, Premium | Week view, free, tasks only |
| Notes | Task notes and a note type | Flat notes section, no folders |
| Smart lists, tags, filters | Yes, extensive | No, deliberately |
| Platforms | Web, iOS, Android, Mac, Windows | Web and Android only |
| Free tier | 9 lists, 99 tasks each, 2 reminders | 3 tasks/day, 3 notes, 2 focus sessions/day |
| Paid plan | About $3.99/mo or $27.99/yr | $3.49/mo or $26.99/yr |
Who Each App Is Actually For
TickTick wins when you need:
- Integrated habit tracking alongside task management
- Calendar view with real calendar event overlay
- Configurable Pomodoro intervals and session statistics
- Deep customization with tags, smart lists, and filters
- iOS and desktop native apps
Taskaro wins when you need:
- A kanban board built in, with nothing to set up
- A contribution graph to track consistency over time
- A notes section that doesn't need folders or naming conventions
- Something you can open, update, and close in under a minute
- A lower monthly cost for solo use
The Honest Take
If habit tracking is important to your workflow, TickTick is the better choice. The habits feature is genuinely good and having it next to your tasks makes sense if that's how you think.
If you want to see your work as a board, track your consistency over time, and never spend time configuring a system, Taskaro is the better fit.
Neither app is objectively better. The question is which one matches the way you actually think about your day. If you have already decided to leave TickTick and want the wider field, the TickTick alternatives roundup covers the free options too.
Try Taskaro free and find out in a week whether the workflow fits. If you miss TickTick's feature depth, you'll know quickly. If you don't miss it, you just found a simpler home for your work.