Akiflow vs Sunsama: Which Daily Planner Wins in 2026?

Akiflow is basically a command center for people who use way too many productivity tools. It pulls tasks from everywhere - Asana, Todoist, Linear, Slack, you name it - and lets you plan your day in one unified calendar view. The Zapier integration is the real flex here: 3,000+ apps.

Need to pull tasks from some obscure project management tool your company insists on using? Probably works. They ship features fast too - last year they added meeting scheduling links and this 'slots' concept for grouping tasks. Honestly feels like they're building whatever power users ask for on Twitter.

Sunsama took a completely different path. Instead of cramming in every feature possible, they ask you to slow down. The weekly planning ritual makes you set objectives before diving into tasks. Daily reflection at the end prompts you to review what actually got done and why things didn't.

It's mindfulness meets productivity - which sounds cheesy but works if you're prone to overcommitting. The focus mode timer that persists across apps is legitimately clever. Start timing a task in Sunsama, switch to Slack to respond to something, timer keeps running. Small detail, big quality-of-life improvement.

This is where Akiflow dominates. The Zapier connection alone puts it in a different league - 3,000+ apps you can pull tasks from. Native support for Linear and Microsoft To-Do gives it an edge for dev teams and Microsoft shops. Meeting scheduling links (think Calendly but built-in) save you from yet another subscription.

If your workflow involves a dozen different tools and you're sick of switching between them, Akiflow consolidates everything. The trade-off? It can feel overwhelming. There's so much you can connect that figuring out what you should connect takes thought.

Sunsama covers the major players - Asana, Todoist, Trello, Jira, Gmail, Slack - but that's about it. No Zapier means if your tool isn't on their list, you're out of luck. For most people this is fine.

If you're using standard productivity apps, Sunsama connects to them. But if you're deep in a niche ecosystem or your company uses weird proprietary stuff, you'll hit limits. They seem more interested in perfecting the core experience than expanding integrations, which honestly might be the right call for their target audience.

Akiflow assumes you know what you're doing and just need the tools to execute. There's no hand-holding, no guided rituals. You pull in your tasks, drag them onto your calendar, group related stuff into slots, and get to work. The slots feature is weirdly satisfying - instead of cluttering your calendar with 10 separate 'email' tasks, you create an 'email batch' slot and drop them all in.

Keeps things visual without being overwhelming. If you're already good at planning and just need better tools to implement, this approach works. If you need structure, it might feel like being handed a Formula 1 car without driving lessons.

Sunsama guides you through it. Sunday night (or whenever you want), it prompts you to set weekly objectives. Each morning, daily planning asks you to allocate those objectives across your day. Evening shutdown walks you through reflection.

It's structured in a way that prevents the 'plan 40 hours of work into an 8-hour day' trap we all fall into. The auto-scheduling feature will even place tasks for you based on duration estimates and available calendar gaps. I was skeptical of this at first - seemed gimmicky - but after using it for a month I started trusting it. Sometimes it puts focus work at 2pm when I'd rather do it at 9am, but having something scheduled beats staring at an overwhelming task list.

Akiflow's focus story is about consolidation. Instead of jumping between Asana and Todoist and Slack and your calendar, everything lives in one view. The command bar (Cmd+K) lets you search across all connected tools instantly. Need to find that task Steve mentioned last week? Search, done.

Time blocking is smooth - drag tasks onto your calendar, adjust duration, move them around when plans change. It's fast and feels responsive. What it doesn't have: timers, focus mode, or any of that 'we'll help you concentrate' stuff. They assume if you're organized enough to use their app, you can handle focus yourself.

The focus mode timer is genuinely one of Sunsama's best features. Click a task, start the timer, and it tracks time even when you switch to other apps. On macOS it's basically system-level - pretty impressive technically. They show you how much time you've spent on different objectives, which can be brutal but useful.

The daily planning capacity limit helps too - it won't let you schedule 12 hours of tasks in an 8-hour day without making you acknowledge you're overcommitting. Auto-scheduling tries to be smart about energy levels, putting focus work earlier in the day. It's not perfect (everyone's energy patterns differ) but the intent is good.

Akiflow is $34/month or $19/month if you pay annually ($228/year). Not cheap. They offer a 7-day trial which honestly isn't long enough to fully evaluate - took me at least two weeks to really understand if it fit my workflow. No free tier, so you're committing money to even try it properly.

The annual discount is substantial (44% off) but $228 upfront is a chunk of change. For context, that's more than Todoist Pro and TickTick Premium combined. You're paying for the integration breadth and power-user features. Whether that's worth it depends entirely on how complex your tool stack is.

Sunsama runs $20/month or $16/month annual ($192/year). Still expensive but slightly more palatable. They give you 14 days to trial, which is actually enough time to go through a couple weekly planning cycles and see if the methodology clicks. Annual saves you $36 compared to monthly, which is less aggressive than Akiflow's discount.

The pricing positions it as a premium tool for professionals who can afford to invest in productivity. Honestly both apps are priced for people whose time is worth enough that paying $200/year to save a few hours is an obvious trade. If you're a student or just getting started, there are way cheaper options.

The mobile apps work but feel like afterthoughts. You can view your schedule, check off tasks, add new ones. But the experience is clearly optimized for desktop. Makes sense given how much functionality is packed in - hard to translate that to a 6-inch screen without overwhelming people.

Quick capture works fine for brain dumps, but if you're trying to do serious planning on mobile, it's clunky. People on Reddit complain about this pretty regularly. Akiflow's response seems to be 'we're focused on making the desktop experience amazing first' which is honest but doesn't help if you need mobile functionality.

Sunsama mobile is read-only. You can view your plan, see what's scheduled, check things off your list. But you can't plan your day, can't time-block, can't do weekly objectives. It's basically a read-only companion to the desktop app.

This drives some people crazy - I've seen multiple threads of people begging for full mobile editing. Sunsama's take is that daily planning should be done mindfully at your desk, not rushed on your phone. Philosophically consistent with their approach, but frustrating if you travel a lot or want to plan during your commute. If mobile is critical for you, both apps are honestly disappointing.