Diurnal and TickTick
TickTick is a task manager on every platform, with habits, a focus timer and two-way Google Calendar sync. Diurnal is a Mac page you write on: every paragraph becomes a task, and the ones you stop touching tidy themselves away.
Both sync Google Calendar both ways. TickTick can also turn an event into a task; Diurnal keeps your meetings beside the page and asks for no setup before you write.
Side by side
| Diurnal | TickTick | |
|---|---|---|
| Write freely, and every paragraph becomes a task | ||
| Tidies away tasks you stopped touching | ||
| Free, with every feature included | ||
| Tracks habits | ||
| Turns Google Calendar events into tasks | ||
| Runs on Windows, iPhone and Android |
A page that keeps itself
Press ⇧⌘A and write. Every paragraph is a task, dates and tags are read as you type, and ⇧⌘L does it by voice. TickTick's notes never become tasks; here, everything does.
TickTick suggests the tasks you keep postponing and leaves the decision to you. Diurnal asks on the task itself, then moves it to next week if you do not answer.
What TickTick does that we do not
Its calendar goes one step further than ours: a Google event can arrive as a task you work on, where Diurnal keeps events and tasks as separate things beside each other.
It is also on every device, tracks habits, keeps nested lists and filters, and its Premium tier is listed at $49.99 a year on their upgrade page. If you want one app that does most things everywhere, that is TickTick and not us.
Which one fits your week
Pick TickTick if you work across phones and PCs, want habits and nested lists in one app, or want calendar events to arrive as tasks.
Pick Diurnal if your day happens on a Mac and you would rather write than maintain a list, with your meetings drawn beside the page.
Questions
- Is Diurnal free?
- Yes, right now, with every feature included. TickTick has a free tier, and its Premium tier is $49.99 a year.
- Does Diurnal have a Pomodoro timer?
- Yes. 25 minutes of work, a 5 minute break, and a longer one every fourth round, counting down in the menu bar.
- Which platforms does Diurnal run on?
- Macs, today, on macOS 15 or later. TickTick is the better answer if you want the same app on a phone and on Windows.
Other comparisons
Facts about TickTick were checked in . Software changes; if something here has gone out of date, it is a mistake rather than a position.