Todoist vs Things 3: Platform Freedom or Mac Perfection?

Todoist has been around since 2007, built by a distributed team that needed task management across platforms. The design philosophy is pragmatic: work everywhere, integrate with everything, stay fast. It's not trying to be the most beautiful app - it's trying to be the most reliable and accessible. You can use it on your Mac, switch to your Android phone, log in on a Windows work computer, and everything syncs.

The interface is clean but utilitarian. Red for priority, labels for organization, projects for structure. It gets the job done without much personality. That's fine for most people.

Things 3 came from Cultured Code in 2017 after years of development. It's Mac/iOS only, and that exclusivity let them optimize every detail. The design is minimal and beautiful - animations are smooth, interactions feel natural, nothing clutters your view. It's intentionally simple. You have Today, Upcoming, Anytime, Someday, Projects, and Areas.

That's it. No overwhelming options or customization rabbit holes. The philosophy is 'get things done, don't manage your task manager.' People who use Things talk about it with unusual affection for productivity software. It just feels good to use.

Todoist's natural language input is its superpower. Type 'call mom every Sunday at 2pm starting next week p1' and it parses the recurrence, time, start date, and priority instantly. It handles complex patterns better than any competitor. Quick add works from keyboard shortcuts, browser extensions, email forwarding, voice assistants.

You can capture tasks from anywhere, which matters when ideas hit you randomly. The inbox collects everything, then you organize later. It's built for brain-dump workflows where you capture first, organize second.

Things 3 has Quick Entry (Command-Space by default) that pops up from anywhere on Mac. Type your task, set date with natural language (though less sophisticated than Todoist's), add tags, assign to project. It's fast and elegant. The when selector is particularly nice - click Today, Evening, This Weekend, Someday with visual feedback.

On iOS, you can add tasks from the share sheet or use Shortcuts automation. It's smooth but more manual than Todoist. You're more deliberate about when and where tasks go, which some people prefer.

Todoist uses projects, sections, labels, and filters. Projects can nest 4 levels deep. Labels let you tag tasks across projects (#work, #urgent, #waiting-for). Filters combine labels and projects with custom queries ('assigned to me & p1 & #work'). It's flexible but can get complex.

Power users love filters. Casual users find them overwhelming. The upcoming view shows tasks by date, today shows what's due. It's logical but requires learning the system. Once you grok it, you can slice your tasks many ways.

Things 3 uses Areas (big life categories like Work, Personal, Family) and Projects (specific outcomes). Tasks live in projects or areas, or sit in Anytime/Someday. Tags add dimensions without cluttering the hierarchy. The Today view shows scheduled tasks with a timeline. Upcoming shows what's coming this week.

It's beautifully simple. You don't need to learn complex filtering because the structure is intuitive. The limitation? If you need complex views or custom queries, Things doesn't offer them. It's simple by design, which is perfect for some, limiting for others.

Starting your day in Todoist means checking Today view, seeing what's due, maybe filtering by label or project. You complete tasks, add new ones, reschedule things that won't happen. The workflow is efficient but mechanical. There's no visual timeline, just a list of tasks.

Some people prefer this - it's focused and text-based. Others want more context about their day. The productivity insights show stats if you're into gamification. I personally don't care about streaks, but the karma points motivate some people.

Things 3's Today view is gorgeous. It shows a timeline with your calendar events and tasks integrated. You see your 10am meeting, then tasks scheduled for afterward. It gives spatial context to your day. Checking off tasks feels satisfying - the animation is smooth, completed tasks fade away.

The evening section suggests tasks for later. Someday is there for ideas. The whole experience feels thoughtful. You want to use it, which sounds trivial but matters. If opening your task manager makes you happy instead of stressed, you'll actually use it.

Todoist integrates with everything. Slack (create tasks from messages), Gmail (turn emails into tasks), Google Calendar (sync tasks), Zapier/Make (automate workflows), Alexa (voice add tasks), Apple Watch, and 70+ more. The API is solid, so developers build tons of community integrations.

If you live in a connected ecosystem where tasks come from multiple sources, Todoist's integration hub approach works. It's designed to be the center of your workflow, pulling from and pushing to other tools.

Things 3 barely integrates with anything. There's a URL scheme and Shortcuts support on iOS/Mac, but that's about it. No Slack integration, no Gmail plugin, no Zapier actions. This is intentional - Things wants to be a focused tool, not a hub.

You manually add tasks, which keeps the experience clean but means more manual work. For people wanting a simple, self-contained task manager without dependencies, this is a feature. For workflow automation fans, it's a dealbreaker.

Todoist's biggest advantage is platform freedom. Use it on Mac at home, Windows at work, Android phone, iPad, web browser - everything syncs. If you're not locked into one ecosystem, or if you anticipate switching platforms, Todoist future-proofs your task history.

You're never locked out of your tasks because of device choice. This flexibility matters more than people realize until they try to access their Things library from a Windows laptop and... can't.

Things 3 only works on Apple platforms. If you use Windows, Android, or Linux, you're out of luck. This is a conscious choice by Cultured Code - they optimize for one ecosystem instead of compromising for many. The benefit? Every interaction is native and polished. No web app that's slower than native.

No Android version that feels off. But the lock-in is real. If you ever leave Apple's ecosystem, you lose access to years of task history. Your data exports to plain text, but recreating your setup elsewhere is painful.