• Best Kanban App For Mac 2018 Release
• Best Kanban App

1. Kanban is all about visibility: managing your work in a visual and pleasant way. Kanbanier lets you create effective and easy to understand Kanban boards. Designed for Mac, the sleek and modern interface makes your Kanban boards fit right into your desktop.
2. Feb 16, 2018  LeanKit is one of the best kanban apps because it's relatively easy to use, supports lean and agile methodologies, and has ample features. The price is on the high end, but it's still within.
3. Kanbanize is online Portfolio Kanban software for Lean Management. Kanban boards, flow analytics and automation bring visibility and help you deliver on time. Kanbanize is online Portfolio Kanban software for Lean Management. Kanban boards, flow analytics.

5 Kanban Flow. The tool works fine. It offers a bunch of well-made unique features (including time tracking and build-in pomodoro timer). However the premium version (which is in some cases the basic version) is quite expensive. I've just tried this and it looks nice and costs only $5 per user. Nice app, focus on work/task management and kanban.

After a few weeks of exploring and testing I have chosen a kanban tool for my company. Now, I would like to share with you of what I have found. I present you the list of the best, most intuitive and powerful, online kanban tools that are available on the market.

The Top Ten

1Kanbanize

Disclosing: I am the product manager of Kanbanize.
If you need Enterprise class software and not just a task management, to-do-lists and so on, you should evaluate Kanbanize. Most tools listed here don't even have an on-premise installation, some of them are NOT Kanban systems at all (lack WIP limits, policies, etc).
This is not an advertisement, I only care to keep the term, Kanban clean and not load it with too many meanings. Also, PERSONAL Kanban and BUSINESS Kanban are two very different topics.
Please don't trust these 'Top-10' things too much, but just review the tools for yourself and see which one works for you.

Kanbanize is a great tool. Surely the best one out there for doing Lean and Agile project management. Unlike other tools and dashboards on the market, Kanbanize offers an end-to-end platform for managing, executing, and even analyzing your work flow, helping you find bottlenecks and remove them from the system - one by one.
Not to mention that in my opinion the team behind this platform is awesome - they know exactly what they're doing, they obviously have vast experience in practicing Lean and Agile principles and now they're putting all this great knowledge in Kanbanize.

These people are true professionals, they are truly customer focused. They took the time to understand our problems and requirements and found a solution even before we spent one cent. Their software is very easy to use and will improve efficiency and collaboration in your organisation if used correctly. I will recommend anytime. Regards Ted

I must have tried a zillion kanban software tools out there but most of them were either too complex or too simple. In my opinion kanbanize is probably the best available right now, because it has hell lot of customization options, it's easy to use and can be applied across my whole organization. Highly recommened for their customer focus too - these guys really helped me out and did not charge for consulting whatsoever.

2Zenkit

Zenkit is still in beta but already offers a very rich range of functions, with list, calendar, kanban and spreadsheet views. It is cleverly organised to provide a simple entry point - the basic to to list - with pathways to discover its many bells and whistles as you need them. For my purposes, I was blown away by the ability to take an enumerated list column in the spreadsheet view and then display the collection's items organised by those categories in kanban mode. Applying different spreadsheet label lists to the kanban screen enables me to view items in productivity terms (the traditional queued / in progress / done columns) but then shift to organise by category (in honour of NaNoWriMo, organising novel scenes into acts, for example). This is a neat package. - mattz

Zenkit works great because it allows our entire team to manage the same tasks and projects using the project management visualization they prefer - spreadsheets for Engineers, Kanban for PMs, and so on. We use a range of tools for project management, so I would be the last person to want to add another tool to the list unless, like Zenkit, it can replace a good number of them - and do it impressively well!

I love Zenkit for its extreme flexibility - it can display my data in so many ways. Kanban with grouping by labels that can be changed anytime is my favourite.

This Tool is an amazing piece of technology. It supports all kind of organizational project steering needs. The easy to use GUI allows even crossreferences over several projects or collections. Adding, editing, sorting, filtering and modifying the tasks in several views is so quick and well thought, that everybody could learn it in minutes. Simple, impressive piece and best support for your evil genius plans.

3Kanban Tool

I was looking for a simple yet effective way to manage my personal tasks & this has been perfect for the way I work. Really helping me get more done. The only thing I'm missing is a setting to change the date display (I'm in Europe, and shows my week starting Monday, rather than Sunday, which I'm used to). But that's minor!

I've been searching a lot for an easy and simple tool who actually reflects agile principles, and I've found Kanban tool, it works great for my team, easy to use, easily customizable, simple but complete reports, if you like to Keep in simple (KISS) this is a great tool to work with. - dajaim

I've played around with a couple of this type of project management tools and Kanban Tool is the best I've used. Really simple interface, but with enough customization options to fulfill all my needs. I used it at a previous job, and the first thing I did at my new job was to set up Kanban Tool again. I love the power-ups like card aging and recurring tasks!

Evertyhing works as expected which sometimes is much more than usual.

4Kanbanery

Kanbanery (Kanbanery.com) is an online task management app that lets you efficiently work on your tasks & projects individually or in a team.
The Kanbanery app is really simple to use - it’s an online board, organized with columns. The number & names of columns can be modified easily by you to suite your process / workflow / needs / context. Each column is a different steps toward completion and their sequence suits your workflow (e.g. To Do, Doing, Done). You add tasks by adding cards, and you can move them between columns by dragging & dropping them. You can comment, assign, categorize tasks and do many more actions, depends on your needs.
The idea of the Kanbanery board is based on a Kanban board, used originally in Japan in production processes. Nowadays this Kanban tool, as well as other Agile tools, is popularized and utilized in many different areas. The Kanbanery app is used successfully in large companies and startups to manage teams in big projects, as well ..more - Justyna

I like Kanbanery because it's easy to use. The best thing about it is that there's no learning curve for my clients. They just look, and they know what's happening on their project. The weekly report helps, too, because I can just forward it to my boss to keep her happy.

The CEO of Kanbanery asked me to add a review here, but I'm happy to do it. I've been using Kanbanery with my teams at a financial services company in Seattle for almost two years and I love it. I use it for everything, from sales to projects to marketing and chores. The best thing about it is that it's so flexible I can use it for things it clearly wasn't intended to do, and it still works. My team likes it, too, because it's easy to learn. Keep up the good work!

Kanbanery has the best design and is the easiest to use of any of the Kanban tools out there. It's got a lot of features and tons of integrations (native and via Zapier) but all that power stays out of your way until you need it. It also has some of the best pricing of any tool out there.

5Kanban Flow

The tool works fine. It offers a bunch of well-made unique features (including time tracking and build-in pomodoro timer). However the premium version (which is in some cases the basic version) is quite expensive.

I've just tried this and it looks nice and costs only $5 per user.

Nice app, focus on work/task management and kanban concept.

The added pomodoro timer makes this a tool to stay productive

6SwiftKanban

Much improved over earlier versions. Power when you need it. The most flexible KB tool I've used or seen. The board is now attractive instead of garish. They have the best hierarchical boards in the business. The features can be a bit daunting and the developers have a tendency to hide commonly used features (like deleting a board). If you need extra capabilities, you'll want to check them out.

SwiftKanban is one of the most modern rich featured kanban tool in present time. Its board playback and extensive analytic reports gives an edge over the other existing kanban tools.

SwiftKanban is the best combination of powerful functionality and ease of use, in my opinion. It has the most configurability, the best swim-lane design and really good Scrum support.

This is a huge thing. It has many additional features. This is great, but because of that the board is illegible. What I really like about SwiftKanban is SwiftSync. Very nice idea.

7LeanKit

I've been using LeanKit for several years now. We started when it was a pretty immature tool and have been very happy to see it evolve into what I consider the only serious enterprise-class kanban tool.
The flexibility of the board design, the ease with which changes can be made, and the ability to create template has been huge for us. It's allowed us to delegate control of boards to teams while also encouraging some degree of standardization.
The connections feature that allows cards to be linked to others with progress stats rolling up has allowed us to better control our product roadmaps within our development teams and to manage dependencies with outside folks like marketing.
It was a pain that they didn't have an Android app for a long time but they do now. It's pretty close to the iOS, I think and lots of our folks use it. I really hope they bring the My LeanKit view of a user's assigned and subscribed cards into the main web-based product soon.
I'm a ..more

We use LeanKit to manage our products - from idea inception all the way through to final release. I can roll the tasks that our engineers breakdown (on a board of their own design) up to a higher level view, helping all team members across the company know how far along work is. I think we'd be lost without LeanKit to help us manage the continuous delivery that we strive to achieve.

Horrible mobile app. Great online, so I'm torn. I really need the mobile app to work better and I'd use it for life.

It is very similar to Kanban Tool mentioned above. The main difference is design which, this is only my option, looks a little bit childish. Also, LeanKit does not provide an on-site version. It has mobile apps.

8Trello

It's colorful and friendly, and free. But it does lack the features most people look for in a Kanban tool. For what it is, it's great, but it's not really for business use. For personal kanban or collaborating with friends in a club or at school, it's ideal.

Relatively simple & straight forward tool. The real power appears when you start to use it in combination with the many Trello Chrome extensions.
I discounted this tool initially, but the combination of the extensions & the fact that it's safe harbor accredited won me over.

Simple and effective. The only missing piece is blocking tasks

Simple, effective, easy to learn, collaborative, flexible, and free.

Yahoo Messenger (Classic) for Mac is the Mac version of the popular Windows YM, a communication app for anyone with has a Yahoo account. Considering that its Windows-based version is one of the. Yahoo Messenger for Mac is a free service that allows you to see when friends come online and to send them instant messages. It also can alert you to new e-mail in your Yahoo Mail or Yahoo Personals accounts, or when you have upcoming events recorded in your Yahoo Calendar. I've never been a particularly big fan of Yahoo! Products and so I tested Yahoo!Messenger with more than a little trepidation. Whenever a product is specifically designed for Windows users and is then finally rolled out for Mac, the results can be less then impressive - and so it seems with Yahoo!

9SmartQ

SmartQ helps me by
1) maintaining lean management systems in my company.
2) Plan and assign project tickets to project staff
3) Improves project communication throughout the organization
4) Project staff are able to draw work tickets as and when required.
5) Helps me to monitor work flow from anywhere.

Nice usability. Strange design and expensive pricing.

It's a simple way to visualize my to-do list and keep track of items in different statuses.

I found the design pretty simple. And the support of custom fields was huge for us.

10Kanbanchi

I use Kanbanchi to manage project progress and communicate better with my clients. It has an easy to use interface, several customization options, and supplies a complete view of current project demands. The Dashboard feature provides a quick view of current boards and tasks. Google Drive integration makes it easy for me access the app as it has the same interface and features as Google Drive. Kanbanchi is the perfect Google App for personal and business project/task management. I would recommend giving it a try!

A kanban board that is available as a Google App. Use your Google drive to search organize and share boards.

Kanbanchi is easy to access and a pleasure to use. It's simple and sleek design also makes it easier on the eye. Integration with Google Drive provides an easy way to share your dashboards with your team and the weight system assures efficient time management for all of your projects. - Sorin

Light-weight, suitable for both personal and business use cases.

The Contenders

11Kantree

Switching from Kanban to Calendar and table views is quick and simple. Helps to get the big picture of a project and to visualize its milestones and timeline.

One of the best, underestimate software on the market. Clear interface, rich functions to customize your projets, cards, lists,..

Got some solid features for project management and teamwork (milestones, shared templates..). Also pretty intuitive, reminds me of Trello. You can install it on your server too.

Underestimated compared to its main competitors.

12Breeze

A nice transition from Basecamp to Kanban.

One of the best in my opinion. Easy to use, integration with Onedrive for business, google drive and others, you can send e-mail to create a task or a comment into an existing task, etc.. Excellent

Think Trello + Basecamp + Slack in one box that's prettier and more practical to actually manage projects
(note, it's 'way' better than Trello and Basecamp, combining both their plus poiints in terms of functionality and ding them 10x better.. Slack however, is unbeatable for communication but is not a project manager.. so with Breeze's Slack integrations that also works perfectly if you don't want to lose the fun of slack.. Breeze is the perfect answer, new on the block but already the best, and improving all the time.. no contest simply for the combined logic whilst maintaining simplicity and beauty.. so intuitive to use for individual tasks and projects, build them up and then invite teams onto the same page and get things done together ;-)

13Kanzen

Kanzen brings ease of use and expert level functionality together with their Kanban tool. I love their intro tutorial which teaches how everything works, making the normally confusing process of getting acclimated to a new time saving tool almost too easy. I save a ton of time on my projects and I am glad I went with them. Great tool!

Helps me organizing my work and projects

Very intuitive Kanban ready management platform

I love the visuals and ease of use!

14Projectplace ToDo

This one looks nice, but also a bit expensive for what it offers.

Easy to use, great app.. possible to attach documents from Dropbox, Google docs, Box or your hard drive on the cards when needed. Burn ups sharts. Free for 1team up to 5 users possible to upgrade and add modules like gantt sharts, document management, online meetings.
Todo. Projectplace.com

15Scrumwise

Very intuitive and easy to use

Best for one project team.

Best Kanban App For Mac 2018 Release

16Herogami

It's really powerful, but at the same time it's easy to use and has an attractive UI. Free trial with a Full-featured account (three month).

I am the project manager of a large agile-oriented team, I checked the tool along with many others and this is probably the best one for managing software development through kanban boards. Easy interface, plenty of features including wip limite, shared calendar, effort points or pomodoros, document management.

17Kanboard

Simple, detailed, self-deployable and Open Source

19Nutcache

Smart & simple collaborative project management web app with time tracking, invoicing and expense management. Its flexible collaborative boards allow for great Kanban setup.

I use it with my team and its free!

20Yanado.com

Yanado is super easy to use Kanban enabled project management tool that works within Gmail. You can put your tasks and emails into Kanban structure and managed them accordingly.

21RealtimeBoard

It's just like the real whiteboard (which is required for Kanban board), but located in the cloud - simple and useful!

23KanBo

Visual project management & contextual collaboration tailored to business. Integrates with Office365 and SharePoint. Runs in the cloud and on prem.

Daily work with KanBo improve productivity every team. Contextual collaboration this is it!

KanBo - Work Coordination Platform, best tool for remote workers, built by remote workers.

The only Kanban Software on the market that integrates into the Microsoft environment on premise as well as in Office365. It integrates with Skype, Outlook, Office, OneDrive and Active Directory.

24Pipedrive

Kanban tools are often used in software development and in sales as a way of understanding how far along the process either a software development task or a sales deal currently is. In software development, the Kanban approach helps limit the work in progress so that all the tasks in works get enough attention. In sales, the Kanban board are called sales pipelines. The sales pipeline is a systematic and visual approach to selling a product or service, and it usually includes the following four metrics: number of deals, average size of a deal, close ratio, sales velocity.Use Kanban tool built on a sales pipeline. Gathering the data displayed above on a more regular basis takes a lot of time and effort. Using a Kanban sales pipeline tool such as Pipedrive will help you make that process easier, save you time, and literally show you where the money is.

I tried this one, because it's focussed on sales, but I was already using Kanbanery for my sales management and since I use it for IT, recruitment management, and personal task management too, I don't see any point in using a different tool just for sales.

25Visum

Built for managing portfolio execution. Strong analytics.

Best Kanban App

26Taskulu

Easy an intuitive Kanban software. I love the division of ToDo/Doing/Done in any list.

Next-Gen Role Based Project Management Platform.Really great and intuitive!

With Selection for list not need Swimlines, very fast and easy.

27Brightpod

Brightpod is a stress-free way for marketing teams to manage their campaigns and collaborate in real-time.
Most marketing teams currently use a general purpose project management tool. With Brightpod, we make it easy for them to plan, organize & track all their digital marketing projects in one place.
Clients are spending more and more money on Digital marketing. Marketing firms have more work that they can handle. This is where Brightpod comes in.
Key Features & Benefits:
1. Ready-made marketing workflows (for Google Adwords, Social Media, Email Marketing etc.) to help marketers save time. It has ready-made marketing workflows. In addition, teams can save and reuse their workflows too.
2. Kanban style flow view to plan and assign tasks easily. It is as simple as dragging things around. You can even drag and drop a person's thumbnail onto a task for assignment. Think of this as 'agile marketing'.
3. Brightpod even has an editorial calendar to help ..more

One of the simplest collaboration apps!

28Teamput

Create kanban board with rich visual collaboration behind the cards. Super simple and effective.

29Twproject

It's not just a kanban tool, it's much more than that because you can manage your projects with agile methods or not. Twproject includes all the agile management: sprint creation, backlog, kanban organizer but also Gantt charts for a more 'old school' task management.

Twproject has an amazing Kanban tool, the best part of it is that we can have several projects, some managed with scrum and others not, it has a great Gantt chart too!

30Kanban for WordPress

A complete project management suite for your WordPress site!

31ScrumDo.com

Originally made for Scrum, this tool offers a powerful set of board manipulation and metric capabilities that can beat the best Kanban tool. Most folks use it for scrumban.

32Eylean Board

Eylean Board is an intuitive and effective Kanban tool. This Software specializes in all things Agile and will treat you with predefined Boards, WIP limits, reports and much more. And all of it can be fully customized as well.

34HiTask

Not a kanban tool but great for task management.

Nice UI. Very cheap for the features it provides.

35Kanbanara

After five years of near-continuous development, the source code to Kanbanara, a web-based project management system using the kanban methodology, has now been open-sourced under the GNU Affero General Public License version 3. Kanbanara has been developed in Python 3.6 and utilises CherryPy as its web framework and MongoDB as its NoSQL database system.
See http://www.kanbanara.com or https://sourceforge.net/projects/kanbanara/ for further information.
Even though the development of Kanbanara is well advanced in some areas, such as the kanban board itself, other aspects of the application require a little more attention.
In order to attract new co-developers, it is my intention to set up a United Kingdom-based charity, Kanbanara Software Foundation, once a number of additional potential trustees come forward so as to allow the source code to have a legal entity, other than myself, as its owner.
Should you like what you see and wish to get involved, please ..more

37Project Manager

Use ProjectManager.com’s kanban boards for your personal work, or create a project and make a communal kanban board for your team and visualize your workflow for maximum efficiency.

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Error Reporting

Why Trust Us?

My name is Adrian, and I have a lot of things to keep track of. That might be a good thing because I love playing with apps that help me manage it all. I used Above & Beyond throughout the 90s on my Windows laptops, and when I became a Linux geek turned to Task Coach and web apps like Todoist, Remember the Milk and Toodledo.

After moving to the Mac, I fell in love with Cultured Code’s Things, and I’ve used it successfully for the last decade. But I do love to play, so I keep five or ten of these apps installed on my Mac, iPhone, and iPad. Some I use, and others I play with from time to time. I have a keen interest in OmniFocus and used it as my main task manager for a few years. I also use Apple Reminders and Wunderlist to share tasks with my family. I’ll share some of my experiences throughout the review.

What You Need to Know Up-Front about Task Management

Before we look at the individual apps, here are a few things you should know first.

1. Just Installing a New App Won’t Make You More Productive

Apps are tools, and they will be of more use to you if you know how to use them effectively. Right now, there’s a lot of advice out there about how to become more productive and get more out of your apps. You can’t read it all, but some study will yield a great return on your investment. Start by reading the material that comes with your task management software.

Many have found value reading and practicing David Allen’s book “Getting Things Done“. In it, he covers a range of useful techniques, including capturing tasks and ideas as they occur to you, keeping project lists where you identify the next action to be done, considering higher horizons of focus like your vision and goals, and reviewing all of your lists each week. I recommend it.

2. There’s Room for Personal Preference

We’re not all alike. We have different tasks to manage, and different approaches to the way we organize them. There’s a lot of room for personal preference, and the app that best suits me might not suit you. Look for the app that works the way you do.

3. Lists Aren’t Just for To-Dos

Are you a list keeper? They’re helpful for a lot of things in life. Don’t just use your app to list your daily to-dos — you can use it to track so much more! Here are some ideas:

• Keep a list of the books you want to read and movies you want to see.
• Record the places you’d like to go and people you’d like to visit.
• Keep track of the bills that need to be paid and the dates they’re due.
• Create a bucket list of achievements you’d like to accomplish while you’re still breathing.

4. Other Types of Apps that Help with Task Management

In this review we’ll cover list managers, but keep in mind there are other types of apps that can help you to be productive, and supplement your to-do list:

• calendars to manage your time (Apple Calendar, BusyCal, Fantastical),
• timers and Pomodoro apps to keep you focused and accountable (Be Focused, Timing),
• project management apps (Merlin Project, OmniPlan, Pagico),
• notes apps to keep track of reference material (Apple Notes, Evernote, Google Keep, Microsoft OneNote, Bear),
• outliners to structure your life and information (OmniOutliner, Outlinely, Workflowy, Dynalist),
• Kanban boards to track your team’s progress (Trello, Any.Do, Freeter).

Who Should (& Should Not) Get This?

Years ago my friend Daniel told me, “I thought only disorganized people used to do lists.” I disagreed, but that experience helped clarify to me that not everyone values using a to-do list. He’s certainly not the sort of person who’d spend $80 on an app! Perhaps you feel the same. I encourage you to give a task management app a serious try anyway.

At the time I was editing several blogs, managing a few dozen writers, and having to meet deadlines most days. I couldn’t have survived without the getting the most out of the best task management software I could afford. If you’re the same, then you’re sold on the idea of using a to-do list, and just need to identify the right app for you.

In “Getting Things Done“, David Allen explains that trying to remember all of the things you need to do just adds stress to your life. Once you write them down and get them out of your head you can relax and focus on the task at hand, and become more productive.

Almost everyone will be better organized by using a to-do list app. Once you’ve listed everything you need to do you can become objective. You’ll find it easier to get an idea of how long it will all take, which tasks are most important, and which don’t need to be done at all. You can start to put what you need to do in some sort of order.

How We Tested and Picked

Comparing apps that can manage your to do list is tricky. Each has its own strengths, and there’s a wide range of prices, features, and techniques. Here’s what we were looking for when evaluating.

How Easy Is It to Capture Tasks?

Once you’ve thought of something to do — or someone has asked you to do something — you need to get it into your to do system as soon as possible, or you may forget it. Doing so should be as easy as possible. Many apps have an inbox, where you can enter multiple items quickly without having to organize them up front. Integration with other apps is also helpful, so you can add a task from, say, an email directly into your app.

How Versatile is the App’s Organization?

We all have different roles and task categories, so you need an app that can organize things in a way that makes sense to you. You might want to separate work tasks from your personal ones and create a number of lists to match your responsibilities. Folders, tags, priorities, and flags are some of the ways an app will let you create structure.

Does the App Provide Different Ways to View Your Tasks?

When organizing tasks, it’s helpful to see the details of each project. When doing tasks, it’s helpful to group them in different ways. You might want to see a list of all the tasks that are due soon, quickly check all of the phone calls you need to make, or create a shortlist of the tasks you aim to accomplish today. Many apps allow you to view your tasks by context, filter by tag, or notify you of tasks due today. Some apps even allow you to create custom views.

How Does the App Handle Dates?

Some tasks are associated with a date — most often a deadline, like a homework assignment. It’s helpful to see a list of tasks due today (or in the next few days), and some tasks may deserve a pop-up notification to remind you. Some tasks are recurring and need to be done on a certain day each week, month or year, for example, putting the garbage out. You may have some tasks that you can’t actually start yet. They shouldn’t be clogging up your list, so some apps will let you hide them from your list until a future date — a feature I find very helpful.

Is the App for an Individual or a Team?

Many of the apps we’ll cover in this review are for one person only. Others allow you to share lists and delegate tasks with others. Which do you need? Many people prefer to use two different apps, one for personal use (which other members of the team can’t mess up), and one for shared tasks and projects.

Can the App Sync to Mobile?

I find myself checking my to-do list on my phone and iPad more than my computer. I often review my tasks on the go and add new tasks as soon as I think of them. Mobile apps are helpful and should sync quickly and reliably with your Mac.

Cost

The best to do list apps are not cheap, and in my opinion, that cost is justified. Not everyone will agree, so we’ve included apps right across the price range, all the way down to free. Here’s what the apps we cover cost, sorted from cheapest to most expensive:

• Wunderlist – free
• Apple Reminders – free
• WeDo – free
• GoodTask 3 – $19.99
• 2Do – $24.99
• TaskPaper – $24.99
• OmniFocus – $39.99
• Todoist – $44.99/year
• Things 3 – $49.99
• OmniFocus Pro – $79.99

Now let’s get to the winner’s list.

The Winners

Best Choice for Most People: Things 3

Cultured Code Things is a sleek, modern task manager, and has recently been rebuilt from the ground up. Tasks are logically organized by area of responsibility, project, and tag, and can be viewed in a number of ways — tasks to do today or in the near future, tasks that can be done at any time, and tasks you may get around to someday.

$49.99 from the Mac App Store. A fully functional 15-day trial version is available from the developer’s website. Also available for iOS.

Meet the all-new Things! A complete rethinking of the original, award-winning task manager – with a perfect balance between simplicity and power, incredible new features, delightful interactions, and a timeless new design.

Things has been my main task manager since 2010 — almost as long as I’ve been using a Mac. It suits me well. Maybe it’s a good fit for you too.

Above is a screenshot of the tutorial project. The app looks clean, and there’s a sense of logic in the way it’s set out. The left pane contains a list of your areas of responsibility and projects, and above them, some shortcuts for smart folders that give you useful overviews of your tasks.

Areas of responsibility are the categories that sum up your major roles and interests. It could be as simple as “Work” and “Home”, but I find it useful to include additional areas like “Cycling”, “Tech” and “Finances”.

You add tasks under each of these areas, or you can add projects for jobs that require multiple tasks. For example, under “Family” I have a project that lists the places we’d like to visit while living inter-state for the next year, and under “Work” I have a project related to writing this review.

The smart folders at the top list tasks according to the level of commitment you have toward them:

• Today contains the tasks you should finish today. That includes the tasks that are due today and the ones you’ve flagged as wanting to work on today. You can also list separately tasks to do in the evening.
• Upcoming tasks have start dates or due dates that are coming up. These are listed by date along with events from your calendar.
• Anytime contains important tasks you can work on now, but don’t have a deadline.
• Someday is a list of tasks you haven’t committed to doing yet. They could be wish list items or tasks you don’t have time for right now.

Other folders include the Inbox where you can rapidly enter new tasks, the Logbook which contains all of your done tasks, and the Trash.

Things offers two additional methods of organization. The first is headings. A big project can become cumbersome, and headings allow you to split it into smaller sections. That’s clearer than having one big jumbled list and simpler than creating two different projects.

Things also allows you to categorize your tasks by tags. One task can be assigned multiple tags, and these can be used for a variety of our purposes. Here are some examples:

• Context, for example, home, work, phone.
• People, so you can quickly look up tasks you need to talk to someone about, or tasks that relate to a certain client.
• Priority, so you can focus on just your most important tasks.
• Energy required, so you can choose easy or challenging tasks depending on how much energy you have.
• Time required, like 15m, 30m, 1h, so if you have limited time, you can still find something to do.

Once you have set up some tags, you can filter any list to show just the items tagged a certain way. For example, here are the tasks I can do anytime that are tagged “Phone”.

Things also supports checklists, which is helpful for tasks with multiple steps that aren’t significant enough to be set up as a project.

Things offers three date features:

• When (start date). Some tasks can’t be started yet, so shouldn’t be cluttering your to-do list. The “When” setting will hide the task until you can actually start to work on it, though you’ll always be able to track it down in the Upcoming section.
• Deadline (due date). Some tasks have a deadline, and there may be consequences if you miss it!
• Reminder (notification). For those tasks you can’t afford to forget about, you can set a reminder alarm at a specific time on the day it’s due.

Things is designed for individuals and doesn’t allow you to share or assign tasks. There are mobile versions of the app for iPhone and iPad, and sync is reliable.

At $49.99 Things is not cheap, and if you need the iPhone and iPad versions, it’s even more expensive. I find it worth every cent. You can read more from my full Things app review.

Best Choice for Power Users: OmniFocus 2

OmniGroup’s OmniFocus is a power user’s tool for getting things done. Unique features like outlines and perspectives allow you to optimize your workflow, and the review feature allows you to periodically check up on your projects.

Power users will want the Pro versions of both the Mac and iOS apps, which comes to an eye-watering $139.98. If you put a high value on productivity, you might find that a bargain.

$39.99 from the Mac App Store or the developer’s website. A 14-day trial version is available from the developer’s website. OmniFocus Pro is available for $79.99 from the developer’s website, or you can upgrade through an in-app purchase. Also available for iOS.

Live a productive, contextual life with OmniFocus 2 for Mac. Keep work and play separated with contexts, perspectives, and focus. Ignore the irrelevant, focus on what you can do now, and accomplish more. And do it all much faster than before.

OmniFocus can do everything Things can do, and more. It’s a powerful and flexible tool that can adapt to your way of doing things. For best results, you’ll need to purchase and carefully configure the Pro version. So it will cost you more and require more effort to set up.

You can view your OmniFocus tasks by project or by context. Project View allows you to organize what you need to do in detail. You’re able to create as many folders and subfolders as you need to give categories to place your tasks and projects in.

Projects can be parallel or sequential. A parallel project has tasks that can be completed in any order, where the tasks of a sequential project must be done in the sequence they are listed. You can use the outline feature to create a hierarchy of subtasks. I love the idea, but find the interface a little fiddly, and wish it worked more like OmniOutliner.

Context View is often the best way to work on your tasks. You could pull up your “Phone” context if you’re in the mood to chat, or the “Errands” context when shopping. All relevant tasks from across your projects will be there. However, while Things allows you to apply an unlimited number of tags, each OmniFocus task can be associated with one and only one context.

Regular reviews are important. In OmniFocus, you can define how often each project should be reviewed. The Review view shows you all projects that are due.

But the real power of OmniFocus Pro is its Perspectives, where you can create as many custom views as you need. You could create a perspective to imitate Things’ Today view that lists all tasks that are flagged or due today.

You could set up “Home” and “Work” perspectives, have one for tasks that are due soon and another for tasks that are on hold. This feature is only in the Pro version and really allows you to personalize the app.

The Best Free Choice: Wunderlist

Wunderlist is an attractive, multi-platform task app that is now completely free. The Pro version was recently discontinued, and its features incorporated into the standard app. There are versions for Windows, Android and more.

Wunderlist has fewer features than both Things and OmniFocus. That keeps the app simple, which will appeal to some people, as will its price. One final benefit — the app allows you to share task lists and assign tasks, making it the only winner appropriate for teams.

Free download from the Mac App Store. As of April 4, 2018, Wunderlist Pro is no longer available, and its features are now included in the free version. Also available for Android, iPhone, iPad, Web, Windows Phone, Chromebook, Kindle Fire.

Wunderlist is the easiest way to get stuff done. Whether you’re planning a holiday, sharing a shopping list with a partner or managing multiple work projects, Wunderlist is here to help you tick off all your personal and professional to-dos.

If you’re concerned about the cost of our other winners, Wunderlist may be for you. It’s a simple and attractive task manager that manages to include quite a few features, and it’s absolutely free.

Like most task managers, you can set up lists for the main categories of your life. With Wunderlist, you can share each list with others, so you could share a shopping list with your family, and a work project with the other team members. Individual tasks can be assigned to other members of the group.

This is something our other winners are unable to do. So, besides cost, the ability for multiple people to manage the same task is another strong reason to consider Wunderlist.

You’re also able to star important tasks, and set due dates and reminders. When looking for urgent tasks, you’ll need to check both the “Starred” and “Today” lists. I wish that you could view both in a single list, but that’s not possible unless you go through the list of tasks due today and manually star them.

Tasks can contain checklists, notes, and comments. Comments allow team members to discuss a task with one another.

The Competition and Comparisons

There are plenty of alternatives. Here are a few highly rated apps you may like to consider.

2Do is recommended in many reviews and highly rated on the App Store. It has many of the features of our winners and costs the same as Things.

The app offers tags and notifications, lists and projects, mobile apps and sync. Although it looks quite simple, there is plenty of power under the hood, including smart lists, which are similar to OmniFocus’ perspectives. They are configurable saved searches that can pull tasks from all of your lists, for example, all tasks due in the next three days that are tagged “bill”.

2Do is $49.99 from the Mac App Store, or $9.99/mo on Setapp. Also available for iOS and Android.

GoodTask 3 is based on the standard Mac Reminders and Calendars app and adds functionality. That makes it a good choice if you’re already using Apple’s productivity apps, but wish they were more capable.

Like 2Do, GoodTask features smart lists, which search for tasks from certain lists, or that include (or exclude) certain tags. This feature isn’t as powerful as OmniFocus’ perspectives, but it’s helpful all the same. Other features include subtasks, repeating tasks, manual sort, and quick actions.

GoodTask 3 is $19.99 from the Mac App Store or $9.99/mo on Setapp. A trial version is available. Also available on iOS.

Todoist started as a web app, but now has apps for most platforms, including Mac. I used it long-term over a decade ago, and it’s come a long way since then.

The free version includes everything you need to get started but doesn’t include all of the features of our winners. It allows you to capture and organize tasks, remember deadlines, and review the week ahead. You can map out your tasks with projects and goals, and highlight tasks that are important with color-coded priority levels, and even visualize your progress with attractive charts and graphs.

There are some limits to the free version. You can have a maximum of 80 projects, and up to five people can access a project. Yes, it’s a multi-user app. A premium subscription will increase these numbers to 200 and 50, and unlock even more features, like templates, labels, themes and custom views.

Download Todoist from the Mac App Store. It’s free for a basic plan and $44.99/year for premium.

TaskPaper 3 is quite different to the other apps we’ve listed. It’s a plain text app and very minimalistic. It’s also quite smart, offering a very different way of working with your tasks. You organize your projects, tasks, and subtasks in an outline, and I find it more intuitive than OmniFocus’ outlining features. You can use tags on each item, and quickly filter your whole list by a specific tag.

When my daughter’s family moved in with us a few years ago, rearranging the house was a huge task. So I used a TaskPaper file in Editorial on my iPad to organize and track our progress. I just attempted to open that file in TaskPaper for the Mac for the first time, and it worked perfectly.

TaskPaper is $24.99 from the Mac App Store, or $9.99/mo on Setapp. A 7-day trial version is available. It is no longer available for iOS, but compatible apps like Taskmator and Editorial are.

Free Alternatives

Here are some ways to manage your to-do list without spending any money.

Use Pen and Paper

You don’t absolutely need to use an app to manage your to-do list. There’s something satisfying about crossing completed tasks off a paper list. You could scribble on the back of an envelope with a pencil, or purchase a stylish Moleskine or Daytimer, it’s totally up to you.

There is a certain amount of redundancy and duplication when using pen and paper. You may find that frustrating, or you may find it a good way to review your tasks each day. Paper productivity systems seem to be taking off again, and new methodologies like the Bullet Journal are being developed.

Free To Do List Apps for Mac

Wunderlist is a great free task manager for the Mac. Here are a few more.

Apple Reminders is already installed on your Mac, iPhone, and iPad, and allows you to create tasks with reminders, and shared lists. Some time ago I moved our family shopping list from Wunderlist to Reminders, and it works well. My wife and I can add items to the list, and they’re updated automatically on both of our phones. It works well.

Siri integration is very helpful. You wouldn’t believe how many times I say to Siri, “Remind me to check the washing machine in 90 minutes.” It creates a Reminders task for me and notifies me 90 minutes later without fail.

WeDo is free from the Mac App Store. It includes subtasks, due dates, repeating tasks, reminders, notes, and attachments. You can also share and assign tasks to others, making it suitable for families and small businesses.

Free To Do List Web Services

Instead of using a Mac app, there are a quite a few web apps that will manage your to-do list. You’ll be able to access your tasks from any device without installing a thing.

Toodledo isn’t the most attractive web app out there, but it’s free and includes all the features you’ll ever want. Mobile apps are available.

Google Tasks is simple and doesn’t have many features, but if you use other Google apps like Gmail or Google Calendar, it is well-integrated and may come in handy.

Asana is a great way to share and assign tasks with your team, and is free for up to 15 team members. A Pro plan is available for $9.99/month that allows more members and includes more features.

The basic plan for Remember the Milk is free, and includes plenty of features. If you want more, you can upgrade to the Pro plan for $39.99/year.

GQueues Lite includes all the basic features you need for free. Upgrade and gain additional features for $25/year.

Trello‘s boards, list, and cards allow you and your team to organize and prioritize your projects. The basic version is free, and if you need additional features, Business Class costs $9.99/user/month.