Looking for a Things 3 alternative

There is one dominant reason, and it is worth naming rather than inventing dissatisfaction that mostly does not exist. Things 3 is extremely well liked. People do not leave it because it annoys them; they leave because of a laptop.

The situation is usually one of two. A work machine that runs Windows, where the list you actually rely on is unreachable for eight hours a day. Or a household drifting off Apple hardware — an Android phone, a Linux desktop, a Chromebook for the kids. Cultured Code are unusually direct about this: their support site answers “Can I see my to-dos in an internet browser?” with a flat No, and adds that Things Cloud cannot be signed into from a browser either. There is no partial workaround, the way Apple Reminders at least has iCloud.com.

The failure that follows is specific. A list you cannot check during the working day stops being the list. Things get captured somewhere else — a notebook, a work tool, messages to yourself — and once there are two systems, neither is trusted. That is the actual cost, and it is larger than the inconvenience sounds.

A second, much smaller group leaves over the release cadence. Things 3 shipped in 2017 and there has been no Things 4. That is a defensible way to run a product — it is stable, it does not change under you, and 3.23 in August 2026 showed they are still shipping real work. If this is your reason, it is worth being honest that you are trading a mature product for a much younger one.

Read honestly, Things wins that table on everything except where you can open it and what happens at the end of a repeat rule. If your devices are all Apple devices, the rest of this page is not for you.

The whole reason. TaskPocket is a web application first, so a Windows machine, a Linux desktop, a Chromebook and an Android phone all open the same list, and the iPhone app covers the pocket. Nothing is per-platform and nothing is bought twice. See does Things 3 have a web app for the primary sources on the Things side.

This is the part that makes a move survivable. Things separates When from Deadline, and TaskPocket separates a start date from a deadline — the same idea, different word. The day you plan to pick something up decides what Today shows you; the day it is genuinely due is a separate field with its own view. If that distinction is why you liked Things, it is intact. See start dates and deadlines.

The one documented gap in Things’ repeat engine, and a genuinely useful one: a series can end after a set number of occurrences or on a date. Cultured Code document Pause and Stop, both of which you have to remember to do. Everything else about repeating tasks is a wash — after- completion anchoring, nth-weekday rules, completing early and moving a single occurrence all exist in both, and a repeating to-do in Things can carry a deadline too.

Things has no free tier — the trial is 15 days and Mac-only, because Apple only offers trials for apps with in-app purchases. TaskPocket’s free plan has no time limit: unlimited tasks, 5 projects, 2 areas and the whole repeat engine. If you liked buying software once rather than renting it, the lifetime option keeps that shape.

A page that only lists gains is a page you should not trust, and the losses here are real.

Craft. Things’ interaction design, typography and animation are the benchmark for this whole category. TaskPocket does not match them and it would be silly to claim otherwise. If the way the app feels is a large part of why you use it, that is a legitimate reason to stay on Apple hardware and keep Things.

Reminders, Siri, the Watch, widgets. TaskPocket has none of these, on any platform. This is the single biggest functional gap and it has no workaround. If a nudge is how you remember things, stop here.

Tags, loose to-dos in an area, and cancelling a project. Things has all three; TaskPocket has none of them. Areas here group projects only, so a stray task needs a project or stays in the Inbox, and only tasks can be cancelled.

Maturity. Nine years of stability against a much younger product from one developer. That is a real risk and it is reasonable to weigh it.

If the problem is only the work laptop, you do not have to choose. Things stays the system on your own machines, where it is better, and a browser-based list covers the working day. The cost is honest — two places to look, nothing syncing between them, and you have to decide which one is authoritative — but for someone who loves Things and needs eight hours of Windows coverage, it is often less disruptive than a migration.

Cultured Code publish no price on their own site by design — Apple sets each country’s figure from the dollar one — so those come from the App Store listings. A Mac and an iPhone is $59.98 paid once, and every further device is another purchase. TaskPocket’s lifetime plan is $59.99, also once, covering the web app and the iPhone app — though there is no Mac, iPad or Watch app for it to cover.

For a Mac-and-iPhone user who is staying on Apple hardware, Things is the better purchase and it is not close. The arithmetic only turns when a machine you cannot install it on enters the picture.

Be realistic about this before you start: it is manual. TaskPocket has no importer from any app, and Things has no JSON or CSV export to feed one. Anyone promising a one-click migration between these two is selling something.

1. Get a copy of your data first, whatever you decide. Cultured Code document copying the Things database — an industry-standard SQLite file containing everything — out of your own Library folder, and printing any list to PDF. Do this even if you stay; it is a good habit.
2. Do not move everything. A migration is the best chance you will get to not carry three years of someday items into a new system. Move what is live.
3. Rebuild areas and projects first, by hand. There will be fewer than you think. Then paste tasks in — the natural-language capture reads dates and repeat rules as you type, so “renew insurance every year” arrives as a repeating task rather than a title you then edit.
4. Translate two things deliberately. Things tags have no equivalent, so decide whether each one becomes a project, an area, or nothing. And any loose to-do sitting directly in an area needs a project to live in, or it stays in the Inbox.