Todoist
Shares rank 4 of 14 task managers by recommenders
Recommended for syncing tasks without self-hosting, and for fitting how some ADHD brains work. Common caveats: closed source, cloud subscription, and limited expressiveness.
Recommended for syncing tasks without self-hosting, and for fitting how some ADHD brains work. Common caveats: closed source, cloud subscription, and limited expressiveness.
20 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 13
- criticize it
- 7
- approval share
- 65%
Recommended in 7 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 13 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 1.8 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 7 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Works well for my brain
“something about Todoist worked better for my brain”
Comment from 14 Jan 2026 in “ADHD. How do you manage the constant stream of thoughts and ideas?” “Todoist tickles my brain just right for that.”
Comment from 18 Feb 2026 in “I Use Obsidian” No syncing or server upkeep
“electing to choose Todoist instead of org-mode for my todo list means I no longer have to worry about syncing”
Comment from 14 May 2026 in “The Emacsification of Software” “rather pay the $4-5/mo or whatever to not have to use unpolished apps and sync server”
Comment from 19 Oct 2026 in “I no longer care to work on any Ruby gems so I've archived all my repositories”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Limited in what it can express
“I've dropped todoist-like things since they're limited in what they can express”
Comment from 30 Jan 2026 in “Ask HN: Do you also "hoard" notes/links but struggle to turn them into actions?” “even something like Todoist which is fairly minimal was semi-problematic”
Comment from 12 Feb 2026 in “"Nothing" is the secret to structuring your work”
Other task managers people recommend
The four most recommended other task managers, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Beads by Steve Yegge | 79 | 55 | 59% | 11 | 3 mo4 owners | — |
| Apple Reminders | 15 | 16 | 48% | 11 | — | — |
| Paca | 14 | 2 | 88% | 2 | — | — |
| TodoistThis page | 13 | 7 | 65% | 7 | — | — |
| Agent Kanban | 13 | 1 | 93% | 5 | — | Approved |
What people said
17 of the 21 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“rather pay the $4-5/mo or whatever to not have to use unpolished apps and sync server”
“use todoist if you want to USE it”
“Ideas get routed to Things or todoist.”
“electing to choose Todoist instead of org-mode for my todo list means I no longer have to worry about syncing”
“They all solve one piece of the puzzle but nothing tied it all together.”
“attaching an LLM with my raindrop.io and Todoist credentials to cron is fun”
“All are OK for most users, but none was GREAT for me.”
“Todoist tickles my brain just right for that.”
“£100 Todoist subscription”
“even something like Todoist which is fairly minimal was semi-problematic”
“it's closed source and cloud/subscription based”
“I've dropped todoist-like things since they're limited in what they can express”
“All abandoned within weeks.”
“Todoist has changed things for me drastically.”
“something about Todoist worked better for my brain”
“they're powerful, but I was spending more time organizing than doing”
“the additional features in todoist fills in the right data in the right columns, which is notable”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.