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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