We make ProgressCove, so treat this comparison accordingly. Let's start with what's fair: Todoist is a capable, polished, well-supported app, and if deadlines are what keep you moving, it does that job about as well as anything out there.
Todoist wants a date on everything
The difference is simple. Todoist runs on dates. It asks you to put a time on almost everything, and once a date passes, the task turns overdue, red text, an overdue list, a number on the icon. If deadlines keep you moving, that works well.
But a lot of a real to-do list has no deadline. "Fix the fence," "read that book," "sort the garage", you'll get to them, they're not due Tuesday. In a date-first app you end up either making up deadlines to keep it happy, or letting things go overdue for dates that were never real. After a busy week that's a pile of red waiting for you, and many people just stop opening the app, not from laziness, but because checking in stopped feeling good.
What "no overdue" means
ProgressCove takes the whole thing out, not just the color. There is no overdue anywhere. A task whose date has passed is simply ongoing, like any task you haven't finished. Nothing turns red, nothing counts your misses, nothing piles up asking to be rescheduled. Dates are always optional: useful when you want them, never a judgment.
What the app shows you instead is progress. Finish tasks and the bars fill; projects closest to done rise to the top, so you open the app to what's almost finished rather than what's most late. Your stats count what you've done, a number that only goes up. Same daily check-in, built to feel good on a slow week as much as a busy one.
Structure, without the setup homework
A smaller difference, but real. Todoist organizes by projects and sub-projects you assemble yourself. ProgressCove ships an opinionated home for everything, life areas contain projects, projects contain tasks and subtasks, and teaches it in a one-minute onboarding where you pick your areas from suggestions. Prefer a flat list? Skip setup entirely and the hierarchy stays invisible until you want it.
Side by side
| ProgressCove | Todoist | |
|---|---|---|
| Overdue tasks | Don't exist, past-date tasks are "ongoing" | Core mechanic: overdue views, red highlights |
| Due dates | Optional everywhere | Central to the workflow; excellent natural-language entry |
| What surfaces first | Closest-to-finished work (progress-based sort) | Today + overdue (date-based sort) |
| Organizing model | Guided: areas → projects → tasks → subtasks, or flat if you skip | Projects and sub-projects you assemble |
| Family use | Household included in one subscription; unshared spaces stay private | Shared projects; paid plans per person (separate business tiers) |
| Integrations & ecosystem | Focused; self-hosted option coming | Vast, calendars, email plugins, automation, extensions |
| Price | $4.99/mo or $39.99/yr, whole household, 14-day free trial, no card | Free tier; Pro roughly $4–5/mo per person |
Todoist details reflect its publicly listed features and pricing at the time of writing, check their site for current specifics.
Who should stay with Todoist
Deadline-driven people, honestly. If due-date pressure motivates you rather than draining you, if you rely on its integrations and ecosystem, or if you need mature iOS and desktop apps today, Todoist is a polished, proven tool and ProgressCove won't out-ecosystem it.
Who should switch
Most of your list doesn't really have a deadline, and you'd rather not invent one to keep an app happy. You've watched things slide into overdue for missing dates that were never real. You want a task app that treats your pace as fine, or one plan that covers the whole household. That's who ProgressCove is built for.
A to-do list that doesn't keep score against you.
14-day free trial · No card required · Dates optional forever
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