TickTick vs. Any.do Summary
Who is TickTick for?
TickTick is a feature rich task management app that also integrates productivity features found in other apps: habit tracking, note taking, Eisenhower matrix, Pomodoro timers etc.
TickTick is ideal for people who need a generalist to-do app that can do many things at once and thus replace multiple other apps such as habit trackers or simple note apps.
Who is Any.do for?
Any.do is a powerful task management app with an intuitive user interface. The free version is primarily centered around managing a personal to-do list, so you won’t find features such as habit tracking, kanban boards etc.
The problems we’ve found with Any.do is that it tries so much to convert free users into paying users that the free version feels like a demo rather than a proper task management app.
The paid version of Any.do is great, but we think the free version might be too limited to compete with other popular task management apps.
Ease of use
TickTick ease of use
TickTick’s user interface is simple and straightforward, but is also very modular and easy to configure.
For example, you can customize the “Add task” button itself. You can change what features are available to customize the task: tags, convert to note, add image, set priority etc.
Similarly, you can also customize what features you want to use (or not use) in the bottom navigation bar: calendar view, Pomodoro timer, habit tracker, search function, countdown etc.
The modularity of TickTick is one of its greatest strengths, since you can make it as complex or as simple as you want.
However, this modularity can also make its interface appear cluttered and chaotic if you use all of its features.
Any.do ease of use
Any.do has a UI that is visually pleasing and mostly intuitive. Adding tasks is simple and straightforward and so is editing existing tasks.
A big thing we like is that Any.do lets you choose what is your default home screen when opening the app.
This means you can set your home screen to be either All Tasks, Calendar or My Day.
We like this, since some people prefer to see their tasks as a list, others prefer a calendar view.
Another thing we like about Any.Do is the “My Day” feature. My Day shows tasks that are scheduled for the current day only. Tasks from previous days are not included, and neither are those scheduled for tomorrow or later.
It’s a nice feature that removes clutter and lets you focus on what’s important today.
What we don’t like about Any.do’s UI is that it uses lots of animations when moving between screens. This makes the app feel slow compared to other task management apps.
Organization
TickTick organization
TickTick lets you organize tasks in the following ways:
- Lists: such as Work, Personal, Inbox.
- Sections: sub divisions of lists.
- Priority: From High to No Priority.
- Labels: custom labels you can attach to any task.
- Subtasks: for simplifying a task into smaller steps.
If you want to save information, you can choose to convert a task into a note. This lets you write quickly write down a lot of information. It’s not as advanced as Evernote or Google Keep, but it’s great for saving information in the same place as tasks.
You can also attach checklists to individual tasks or subtasks, so you can better visualize all the steps required to complete the to-do.
The extra flexibility the features provide is great, but it does take a while to train your eyes so you can immediately recognize what is a task, what is a checklist, and what is a note.
Overall, TickTick gives you lots of different ways to store your tasks and ideas, and then to organize each one into its own little corner.
Unfortunately, TickTick doesn’t have a search function or good filtering features. If you are an intensive user you have to properly organize and label your tasks, otherwise you risk having “orphan” tasks and projects that are hidden away and easy to forget.
Any.do organization
The free version of Any.do lets you organize tasks in three ways:
- Lists. Can be anything you want, such as Personal, Travel etc.
- Tags. Just 1 tag in the free version, while paid one offers many more.
- Subtasks, but a very limited version of subtasks.
Lists are the basic form of organization. You can create unlimited lists in the home section of Any.do, and navigate between lists from the same location.
Any.do also lets you add tags to your tasks so you can better view and filter them. The problem is that the free version of Any.do offers a single type of tag: “Priority”.
However, even in the paid versions, you cannot create your own custom tags. Instead, you can only choose between pre-defined tags.
Finally, Any.do allows you to create subtasks, but the subtask feature works more as a checklist rather than as true subtasks.
This is because Any.do subtasks don’t allow you to add reminders, descriptions, attachments, tags, labels etc.
Scheduling and reminders
TickTick scheduling and reminders
Ticktick’s reminder features lets you schedule reminders for both one-time tasks, or repeating tasks.
For repeating tasks, you can schedule them to repeat in any time configuration you want:
- Repeats every day, except on weekends.
- Repeat every week, but only Monday and Tuesday.
- Repeat every month on the first workday etc.
- First workday or last workday of the month.
- Second or third Wednesday of the month etc.
The paid version of TickTick adds more features such as:
- Constant Reminders. A reminder that stays active for 5 minutes (on Android) or non-stop (iOS) until manually stopped.
- Task duration for calendar view.
- Location reminders.
Any.do scheduling and reminders
Any.do lets you schedule task reminders for one-time tasks, or for repeating tasks.
The problem is the repeating tasks feature is quite limited in the free version of Any.do.
For example, Any.do lets you create repeating tasks only in the following configurations:
- Daily, but only at a certain hour.
- Weekly, but it only repeats a fixed time (such as Friday at 4PM). You can’t choose for the task to repeat on individual days, or exclude certain days.
- Monthly, but only on a certain date and time (for example, Monday at 2 PM).
The paid version gives you access to better scheduling features for repeating tasks, such as:
- Have the reminder trigger every X number of days, weeks or months.
- Have weekly reminders trigger on certain days of the week, such as Saturdays and Sundays etc.
Problem is that other free task management apps such Todoist or Google Tasks give you full flexibility to configure reminders on very specific days of the week or month.
Calendar and other integrations
TickTick calendar and other integrations
Unfortunately, TickTick calendar integrations are only available on the paid version of the app.
This means the free version of TickTick doesn’t let you add new tasks and to-do’s on your Google, Outlook or iCloud calendar.
You can however allow TickTick to read and display events from your calendars inside the app.
Besides the calendars, TickTick also supports a handful of other major integrations such as: Notion, Gmail, Outlook and IFTTT.
Any.do calendar and other integrations
Any.do has very basic calendar integration features. In essence, Any.do only displays events that currently exist on your Google, Outlook or Apple calendar, but it cannot create events on either of those calendars.
This isn’t necessarily a problem if you use decide to use Any.do as your main calendar or task list app.
However, using both Any.do and Google Calendar at the same time, for example, isn’t very pleasant, since tasks you add to Any.do don’t show up in Google Calendar.
In this case, you would have to add tasks into Google Calendar so they appear in Any.do as well. At that point however, you’re just using 2 apps to do the same thing.
The paid version of Any.do also offers integrations with Zapier for a variety of tasks, as well as Slack and WhatsApp plugins.
AI Features and Integrations
TickTick AI Features and Integrations
TickTick doesn’t natively support any integrations with AI/LLMs such as ChatGPT.
You might be able to improvise something using various tools such as IFTTT, but it’s not guaranteed it will work properly.
TickTick also has a very basic implementation of natural language processing. In theory, this feature should let you save tasks by writing them, and then having the app figure out the title, date, repeat times etc.
However, TickTick’s implementation is slow and doesn’t work that well, which is probably why the feature is turned off by default.
Any.do AI features and integrations
The AI features of Any.do are not available on the free version of the app, and instead requires a paid subscription.
However, if you do have a paid subscription, you can use these AI features both on the desktop and mobile versions of the app.
This is a great, because other popular task management apps such as Todoist, Microsoft To Do or TickTick don’t have AI integrations within the mobile apps.
Even Google Tasks doesn’t have a button or feature where Gemini can directly create or analyze tasks. Instead, you’ll have to go into the Gemini app and ask it there to interact with your Google Tasks app.
Finally, Any.do also has some basic natural language processing. This feature lets you create reminders by simply writing them instead of pressing buttons.
For example, if you write “Call Monica tomorrow at 7 PM”, it will automatically create a reminder for tomorrow at 7 PM.
This feature is only available for English, French, German, Spanish, Hebrew, Portuguese, Chinese, Italian, Korean and Arabic.
Special or unique features
TickTick special or unique features
TickTick is a generalist to-do app that combines many different kinds of features into a single package. Out of all these features, these are the ones we like the most:
- Customization. In our experience, TickTick is the most modular and customizable to-do app on the market. You can make it as simple or as complex as you want.
- Notes and checklists. Great for users who want to add more context and information to their tasks.
- Various tools such as: Eisenhower matrix, habit tracking, Pomodoro focus timer, etc. TickTick is great for people that use these features, since it removes the need for installing multiple apps.
Any.do special or unique features
Any.do has many little interesting features built within the app, even in the free version. Our favorites are:
- The “My Day” section. This section is great since it immediately focuses your attention on tasks that need to be completed today, without the clutter of yesterday or tomorrow.
- The design and simplicity. Overall, we like Any.do’s design and visual appeal. Some features and settings can be a bit confusing, but overall, it’s easy to use and pleasant to look at.
- The Moment feature. This is a simple screen that shows you, one by one, all the tasks you have scheduled for today. You can then choose what to do for each of these tasks: Mark as done, delete, reschedule for later (tomorrow, in 2 days, next week) or add reminders to it for today. We like it, it helps your mind focus on what’s important for today.
Cross-platform compatibility
TickTick cross-platform compatibility
TickTick is available for download on the following platforms:
- Desktop/laptops: Windows and macOS.
- Mobile: Android and iOS.
- Other: Android and iOS smartwatches.
TickTick also has a web version for both mobile and desktop.
Any.do cross-platform compatibility
Any.do is available to download on all major operating systems: Windows, macOS, Android, iOS. It’s also available for Android and Apple smartwatches.
You can also use Any.do directly from the web browser.
Collaboration and sharing
TickTick collaboration and sharing
TickTick offers a basic form of collaboration, where two or more users can work together to complete tasks found within a list.
Users can assign tasks to other users, and even comment on tasks to provide more information.
This is about the extent of TickTick’s collaboration features. In our opinion, they are sufficient for sharing tasks with family and friends, or even small work projects.
Any.do collaboration and sharing
Unfortunately, the free version of Any.do doesn’t have any collaboration features.
You’ll need to subscribe to the $10 a month Family plan to gain access to collaboration features for up to 4 people.
For businesses, you’ll need the Teams plan, which is $8 per month, per user.
Pricing
TickTick pricing
The paid version of TickTick has a single subscription plan:
- Premium: $4 per month / $36 yearly ($3 per month).
The paid version of TickTick unlocks numerous features:
- More calendar views (monthly/weekly/day/3-day).
- Integrations with calendars from Google, Outlook, iCal etc.
- Notion integration.
- More attachments per day (99 vs 1 in free).
- More tasks per list.
- Etc.
Any.do pricing
Any.do has 3 different paid subscription plans:
- Personal: $8 per month / $60 yearly ($5 per month).
- Family: $10 per month / $100 yearly ($8.3 per month).
- Teams (per user): $8 per month / $60 yearly ($5 per month).
There’s also a big difference in what features each plan unlocks:
Personal unlocks the following:
- AI features.
- Color tags and labels.
- Improved recurring reminders.
- Access to integrations.
- Better customization.
Family and Teams unlocks the following:
- Everything in the Personal plan.
- Shared projects
- Shared grocery lists.
- Task assignments.
- Due dates & reminders.
- Kanban views.
- Permissions.
- Etc.