How Täna compares with Todoist, Things 3, TickTick and the rest
We make Täna, so we're not neutral. We can still be fair. In November 2026 we went through eight of the best-known to-do apps and looked at how each one handles an ordinary day, from the first time you open it to the evening you forget about it. Where another app does it better, this page says so.
The short answer
Almost every to-do app works the same way. You fill it with tasks, and each morning you look at the list and decide what to do. The app keeps the list. The deciding is up to you.
Täna does the deciding. You write down what needs doing, it works out what fits today, and it shows you one task at a time with the reason it's next.
That won't suit everyone. If you want projects, labels and lists you share with your team, Todoist will serve you better. If you want the nicest-looking list on a Mac or an iPhone, get Things 3. If your calendar is wall-to-wall meetings and you want tasks squeezed in between them, look at Motion. If you're tired of planning your day before you can start it, try Täna.
At a glance
| Moment | Best of the others | Täna |
|---|---|---|
| Opening it for the first time | Structured | Ahead |
| Adding a task | Todoist | About even |
| Deciding what to do next | Motion | Ahead |
| Doing the work | Sunsama | About even |
| Finishing the day | Sunsama | Ahead |
| When you miss a day | Motion | Ahead |
| Looking back on the week | Sunsama, TickTick | Behind |
| Moving things around | Todoist, TickTick | About even |
| Repeating tasks and habits | Things 3, Todoist | About even |
| Goals | Amazing Marvin, Sunsama | Ahead |
Opening it for the first time
| Todoist | You make an account, answer a few questions about how you'll use it, and land on a list of suggested projects. |
|---|---|
| Apple Reminders | Opens on your lists, which are empty. Nothing tells you where to start. |
| Things 3 | No account needed. You get a Welcome project full of tutorial tasks to tick off. |
| TickTick | An account, then a tour, then your inbox. |
| Amazing Marvin | An account, then choosing "strategies" before anything else. The setup is known for taking a while. |
| Sunsama | An account, connecting your calendars, and picking times for your daily routines. Reviewers put it at around a quarter of an hour. |
| Motion | An account, a calendar connection and your card details. There's no free plan. |
| Structured | Opens on today's empty timeline. No account. |
| Täna | Opens on today, with no account, ready to write in. One field at the bottom asks what you want to get done, and the first thing you write becomes the next task, large, in the middle of the screen. Your tasks stay on your device until you choose to save them with an account. There's no tour and there are no sample tasks. |
Structured is as fast to the first task, because neither asks who you are, but it gives you nothing back for it. Täna hands back the one task to do next and says why. Most of the others want a setup session first, which is a lot to ask of someone who only wanted to write down "buy milk".
Adding a task
| Todoist | The best of the traditional apps at reading a sentence. It picks out dates, times, repeats, priority, project and labels, in more than twenty languages, and it can turn speech into tasks. |
|---|---|
| Apple Reminders | Picks up dates and times from what you type, works with Siri, and takes things shared from other apps. Lists and tags are set by hand. |
| Things 3 | Quick Entry from anywhere. It understands dates in plain language, but only in the date field. |
| TickTick | Dates and times from the sentence, voice input, and a date picker that's easy to use. |
| Amazing Marvin | Dates and time estimates from the sentence. Its day planner runs on those estimates. |
| Sunsama | A title, then a time estimate it insists on, then which day. |
| Motion | A form with a title, a duration, a deadline and a priority. It needs all four. |
| Structured | A title, a start time and a length, because the timeline needs them. |
| Täna | One sentence, in English or Estonian. "Dentist on Tuesday at 3pm, 30 min" becomes a 30-minute task on Tuesday afternoon. It also understands "not before", "by Friday", how much something matters, how often it repeats and "someday", and it shows what it understood under the field while you type. Add puts the task straight into the plan, with no form in between. There are no projects or labels. A goal is what gives a task its meaning. |
Todoist understands more languages and fills in more fields, and if you love tidy labels, that's a real advantage. Täna reads only what it needs to plan your day. Nothing you type quietly turns into a label you'll have to keep tidy later.
Deciding what to do next
| Todoist | Today is a list sorted by time and priority. You pick. |
|---|---|
| Apple Reminders | Today is a list. You pick. |
| Things 3 | Today and This Evening. You pick, and you star what matters. |
| TickTick | Today, plus a priority matrix if you set one up. You pick. |
| Amazing Marvin | Lots of ways to choose, including a planner, a focus view and a jar that picks a task at random. You still pick the method. |
| Sunsama | Each morning you build the day from your backlog and estimate every task. It warns you when you've taken on too much. |
| Motion | Puts every task on your calendar by deadline and priority, around your meetings, and moves them when the meetings move. |
| Structured | You lay the day out on the timeline yourself. |
| Täna | Works out the whole plan from your tasks: their dates, how long they take, how much a day can hold and what's in your calendar. It plans again whenever something changes and never asks you to approve it. The next task sits alone in the middle of the screen with the reason it's next. Open any task and it tells you why it's on that day. Drag it to another day and it stays there. |
Everyone else hands you the list and wishes you luck. Motion is the only other app here that decides for you, and before it will, it wants a duration, a deadline and a priority for every task. Then it fills your calendar to the minute. Täna plans from a sentence and shows you one thing.
Doing the work
| Todoist | Tick it off for a small animation and some Karma points. Notes, subtasks and attachments on the task. |
|---|---|
| Apple Reminders | Tick. Notes, subtasks, a link and a location. |
| Things 3 | Tick, with the most satisfying animation of the lot. Notes and checklists. |
| TickTick | Tick, or start a Pomodoro timer with background sounds. Notes, subtasks and attachments. |
| Amazing Marvin | Tick, with timers and a Pomodoro. It records how long things took. |
| Sunsama | A focus mode with a timer that records how long a task really took, next to your estimate. |
| Motion | A block on your calendar. Tick when it's done. |
| Structured | The timeline, with a line showing where you are now. Tick. Subtasks and notes. |
| Täna | A big ring. Tick it and gold leaf falls, then the next task rises into place. If hours go by without a tick, Täna puts your own words about why the task matters under it. Turn on "Time my tasks" and a play button starts the task, the ring turns gold and the time stays in sight while you're elsewhere, and the tick keeps how long it took, with a step either way to correct it. It stays off until you want it. |
Sunsama and Täna both learn how long things really take. In Sunsama the timer is part of the routine from day one. In Täna it's off until you turn it on, and then it's just a play button and the tick you were going to press anyway. There's no focus mode to sit in.
Finishing the day
| Todoist | "You're all done for today", a picture and your Karma score. |
|---|---|
| Apple Reminders | The Today list is empty. |
| Things 3 | Today is empty. Finished tasks go to the Logbook. |
| TickTick | The list is empty, and the statistics page has a number for you. |
| Amazing Marvin | An end-of-day review, if you've turned it on. |
| Sunsama | A shutdown routine at a set time. You go over what got done, move what didn't and write a short note. Some reviewers say it starts to feel like a chore after a few weeks. |
| Motion | Nothing in particular. Tomorrow is already on your calendar. |
| Structured | The timeline runs out. |
| Täna | Gold leaf falls across the whole screen and it says "All done". Your streak and the day's ticks sit quietly at the bottom. It doesn't ask you anything until the next morning. |
Sunsama is the only other app that treats the end of the day as a moment, and it gives you homework: review, reschedule, write a note. Täna gives you the moment and lets you go.
When you miss a day
| Todoist | Overdue tasks in red, a count, a Reschedule button, and an email saying your streak is at risk. |
|---|---|
| Apple Reminders | Overdue in red. |
| Things 3 | Yesterday's tasks stay in Today, with their dates in red. |
| TickTick | An Overdue section, and a way to postpone everything at once. |
| Amazing Marvin | Moves unfinished tasks over to today. |
| Sunsama | The morning starts with going through yesterday's leftovers one by one. |
| Motion | Plans everything again around what's left, and warns you when a deadline can't be met. |
| Structured | Moves what you missed, on the paid plan. |
| Täna | Asks one question in the morning: how did yesterday go? You tick what got done, and whatever was left is already on today. Nothing turns red and nothing is counted against you. A day where you got something done still keeps your streak going, and your answer teaches Täna how much fits in a day. |
This is where to-do apps are at their worst. Skip a day and the next morning you get red text, a number and, from Todoist, an email about your streak. Motion does better: it moves things for you and warns you about deadlines. Täna asks how yesterday went, and today is already sorted.
Looking back on the week
| Todoist | Karma, with a weekly chart of finished tasks and a daily target. |
|---|---|
| Apple Reminders | Nothing. |
| Things 3 | The Logbook, day by day. |
| TickTick | Statistics with a score, completion rates, focus hours and a heat map. |
| Amazing Marvin | A weekly review, if you've turned it on. |
| Sunsama | A weekly review where you set goals on Sunday and check them on Friday, with a short journal. |
| Motion | Nothing. |
| Structured | Nothing. |
| Täna | Your streak, and the history of each repeating task: a year of days with the ones you did in gold. A page for the whole week is on its way. |
Sunsama and TickTick do more here, and for now that's simply true. Täna's week page, with what got done, how long it took and which goals it served, isn't on the web yet.
Moving things around
| Todoist | Upcoming by day, drag to move, and filters for anything. A calendar layout on paid plans. |
|---|---|
| Apple Reminders | Scheduled, by day. Drag to move. |
| Things 3 | Upcoming, Anytime and Someday. Drag between them. |
| TickTick | A full calendar with your tasks on it. Drag to move. |
| Amazing Marvin | A weekly planner. Drag tasks onto days. |
| Sunsama | The week in columns. Drag between days. |
| Motion | Your calendar and your projects. Change a priority and the schedule moves. |
| Structured | The day as a timeline, and a month of coloured blocks. |
| Täna | Swipe to any day or open the calendar. Under today you'll find the rest of the day, the days after and "someday". Every task can tell you why it's where it is. Drag one onto another day and it stays there, and says "You put it here." |
Every app here can show you next week and let you drag things around, so this one is about even. None of the others can tell you why a task is on the day it's on.
Repeating tasks and habits
| Todoist | Repeats from the sentence, including repeating from when you last finished. |
|---|---|
| Apple Reminders | Repeat rules with custom intervals. |
| Things 3 | Reworked in 2026, with repeats from when you finished and changes to a single one. |
| TickTick | Detailed rules, skipping one, and habits as a separate feature with streaks. |
| Amazing Marvin | Repeats that carry over when you miss them. |
| Sunsama | Repeating tasks and routines. |
| Motion | Repeating tasks on their own schedule. |
| Structured | Repeats on the paid plan. |
| Täna | Repeats every few days, on set weekdays, monthly, or a while after you last did it, all from the sentence. "Water the plants every 3 days" is enough. You can skip one. A repeating task can have a target, like three times a week, and shows how close you are. Its history is a year of days with the done ones in gold, so you don't need a separate habit tracker. |
Things 3 and Todoist handle the rules just as well. The difference is what you see afterwards: a year of days with the done ones in gold, which is most of what a habit tracker does anyway.
Goals
| Todoist | Daily and weekly task counts for Karma, and projects for structure. |
|---|---|
| Apple Reminders | None. Just lists. |
| Things 3 | Areas and projects. Structure rather than meaning. |
| TickTick | Habit goals and projects. |
| Amazing Marvin | Goals with progress and linked tasks. |
| Sunsama | Weekly objectives, set in the review and shown while you plan. |
| Motion | Projects with deadlines. |
| Structured | None. |
| Täna | A goal is why a task matters, in your own words. It can be for a week, for a quarter or ongoing, and it can have a target. It never changes the plan. It shows up as the reason under the next task, and if you turn it on, a planning task comes up on Sundays and at the end of each quarter. |
Amazing Marvin and Sunsama also tie tasks to goals and track your progress, but the goal lives on another screen. In Täna it turns up right under the task, at the moment you're deciding whether to bother.
Which one should you choose?
- Todoist if you want projects, labels, filters and shared lists, and you like being the one who decides.
- Apple Reminders if your needs are simple and you're on an iPhone. It's free, it's already on your phone, and it's better than it used to be.
- Things 3 if you want a beautifully made list on Apple devices, and sorting things into areas and projects sounds relaxing rather than tiring.
- TickTick if you want habits, a focus timer, a calendar and statistics in one app, and you don't mind an app with a lot going on.
- Amazing Marvin if you like building your own system and tinkering with it.
- Sunsama if you want a guided routine every morning and evening, and you don't mind the time it takes.
- Motion if your working day is full of meetings and you want tasks fitted into the gaps.
- Structured if you think in hours and like seeing your day as a timeline.
- Täna if you'd rather not plan at all. Open it, see the one thing to do now and why, do it, and get on with your day.
Täna runs in your browser, in English and Estonian. Apps for iPhone, iPad, Mac and Android are on their way.
Where this comes from
We read each app's own pages and recent reviews in November 2026. Prices change often and reviews disagree about them, so they're left out.
- Apple Reminders: what's new in iOS 26, 9to5Mac
- Things 3: the repeating to-do overhaul, MacRumors; release notes, Cultured Code
- TickTick: reviews, Capterra
- Amazing Marvin: planning ahead, Marvin help centre
- Sunsama: review, July 2026, Asian Efficiency
- Motion: review, 2026, Morgen; reviews, G2
- Structured: App Store page
- Todoist: Todoist Assist reviews, G2