Best free planner apps for Android in 2026: an honest comparison
Eight planner apps for Android, compared on the thing that matters most, which is what "free" actually covers. One of them is ours, so every fact about the others is checked against their own listings, pricing pages and help pages.
By Virat Chauhan · · 7 min readThere is no single best free planner app for Android. Google Calendar with Google Tasks and Microsoft To Do are free with nothing to buy. Tasks.org is open source and its core is free. Todoist, TickTick, Any.do and Structured are free to start and keep some features, such as calendar views or repeating tasks, for paid plans. doMahan, which is our app, is free with no ads and no account, and suits people who want a short list for today instead of a big system. It has no repeating tasks or shared lists. Pick by where your day already lives, and try one app for a full week.
One thing first: doMahan is our app, and it's on this list. Read this the way you'd read a baker's guide to the bakeries in town.
To keep it fair, the facts about the other seven apps come from their own Google Play listings, pricing pages and help pages, checked on 12 November 2026. Prices and limits change, so look at the app's own page before you pay for anything. Every app here gets a "pick it if" and a "skip it if", and that includes ours. Where something is an opinion, it's ours and you're free to disagree.
A word about "free". Some of these apps are free with nothing to buy. Others are free until the day you want a task to repeat every Monday, and then there's a price. That gap matters more than a long feature list, so it gets its own column below.
The short version, in one table
| App | Good at | The catch with "free" |
|---|---|---|
| Google Calendar + Google Tasks | Appointments and dated tasks in one view | None for personal use. Needs a Google account |
| Microsoft To Do | Lists, shared lists and a "My Day" view | None. Needs a Microsoft account |
| Todoist | Long task lists and projects | 5 personal projects, and no calendar layout, task durations or custom reminders. Pro is $7 a month or $60 a year |
| TickTick | Tasks with a habit tracker and focus timer | 9 lists, 99 tasks per list, basic calendar views. Premium is US$49.99 a year |
| Any.do | Tasks with a built-in calendar | No recurring tasks, location reminders or WhatsApp reminders. Premium is $7.99 a month, or $4.99 a month billed yearly |
| Structured | Your day as a visual timeline | No recurring tasks, calendar import or AI planning. Pro is monthly, yearly or one-time, priced in the app |
| Tasks.org | Open source, runs fully offline | Its own cloud sync, list sharing, self-hosted sync and themes are paid: from $0.99 a year, or $29.99 a year for Tasks.org Cloud |
| doMahan (ours) | A short list for today, on sticky notes | Nothing is paid, but it has no repeating tasks, shared lists or web version |
Google Calendar with Google Tasks
If your life already runs through Gmail, start here. It's probably on your phone right now.
Calendar gives you month, week and day views, and it adds flights and bookings from Gmail by itself. Tasks sit alongside your events, and Google's help page notes that a task needs a date to show up on the calendar. Tasks you didn't finish collect under "Pending tasks" on today's date. Google Tasks adds lists, subtasks and the option to turn an email into a task.
Pick it if most of your day is appointments. Skip it if your day is mostly small to-dos with no fixed time, since those need a date before the calendar will show them. You also need a Google account.
Microsoft To Do
Microsoft says To Do is free when you use a personal Microsoft account. The "My Day" view suggests tasks from your lists each day. You can share a list with family, break a task into steps, set repeating due dates and attach files.
Pick it if you use Outlook, because your tasks sync with it. Skip it if you don't want another account.
Todoist
Todoist is built for long task lists sorted into projects.
The free plan, which Todoist calls Beginner, has real limits. According to Todoist's pricing page, you get up to 5 personal projects, 3 filter views and 7 days of activity history. The calendar layout and task durations are for paying users. Reminders are included for tasks that have a date and time, but custom reminders are not. Pro costs $7 a month or $60 a year.
Pick it if you run projects with many moving parts and five projects is enough, or you're happy to pay. Skip it if you want a calendar view for free.
TickTick
TickTick packs a lot into one app. Its Play listing describes tasks, a calendar, a habit tracker and a Pomodoro focus timer, with sync between your phone and computer.
The free version is generous on features and tight on numbers. TickTick's upgrade page lists 9 lists, 99 tasks per list and 19 checklist items per task on the free plan, with "basic" calendar views. Premium raises the limits and makes the calendar views unlimited, for US$49.99 a year.
Pick it if you like having habits, a timer and tasks in one place. Skip it if a lot of features in one app tires you out before you've started.
Any.do
Any.do puts tasks and a calendar side by side, with daily, 3-day, weekly and agenda views, and a grocery list.
Its pricing page shows a free Personal plan with tasks, reminders and the calendar. Recurring tasks, location reminders and WhatsApp reminders are in Premium, at $7.99 a month or $4.99 a month if you pay for a year. The shared family space and shared grocery list are listed under a separate Family plan.
Pick it if you want your calendar and tasks in one screen and don't need tasks that repeat. Skip it if you rely on "every Monday" or "every month" tasks, because that's where the free plan stops.
Structured
Structured lays your day out as a timeline, with colour coding for tasks. For people who think in "what am I doing at 3 pm", that can make more sense than a list.
Structured's own list of free and Pro features says timeline tasks, all-day tasks, the inbox, subtasks, notes, notifications and widgets are free. Recurring tasks, calendar import and the AI planner need Structured Pro, sold as a monthly or yearly subscription or a one-time purchase. The same page shows that the Android app is missing a few things the iPhone version has.
Pick it if you plan by the clock and your days look different from each other. Skip it if your week is mostly the same tasks repeating, since repeats are a paid feature.
Tasks.org
Tasks.org is the odd one out, in a good way. It's open source, has no ads, and can run completely offline.
The pricing page says unlimited tasks, lists, tags and reminders are free on Android, and so are recurring tasks, location reminders and connections to Google Tasks and Microsoft To Do. Paying is optional. A name-your-price subscription from $0.99 a year adds themes, self-hosted sync and the desktop app. Tasks.org Cloud, at $29.99 a year (about $2.49 a month), adds its own sync and list sharing.
Pick it if you care about privacy and want repeating tasks without paying. Skip it if you want a simple app with few options. Tasks.org does a lot.
doMahan (ours)
doMahan is built for a smaller job than the others. Your day is a short stack of coloured sticky notes. Swipe a note up when it's done and down when it's not, and move what's left to tomorrow with one tap. A calendar then colours each day by how it really went. It also has reminders that ring like an alarm, a grocery list, an expense tracker and a one-page daily journal.
It's free, with no ads, no subscription and no paid extras, and it works offline with no account. A Google sign-in is optional and only used for a private backup.
Now the honest part. doMahan is Android only, with no web or desktop version. It has no repeating tasks yet, so if "every Monday" matters to you, look at Tasks.org or Microsoft To Do. You can't share a list with someone or run a team project in it. It's also new: it reached Google Play in November 2026 and is made by one developer, so it has a tiny fraction of the reviews the other apps have.
Pick doMahan if your to-do list keeps growing until you stop opening it, and you'd do better with three things for today. Skip it if you need repeating tasks, shared lists, or your tasks on a computer. Our side-by-side page goes deeper on how it differs from Google Keep, Microsoft To Do and Todoist.
How to choose without trying all eight
Start from where your day already lives: your email, your work calendar, or just your head.
Then check the one feature you can't live without against the last column of the table. For a lot of people that feature is repeating tasks, and at least three of the eight apps here either charge for it or don't have it.
After that, give one app a full week before judging it. Most planner apps look good on day one, when the list is empty. If you want a method to test it with, our five-minute daily plan works in any of these apps, and so does the idea of parking most of your list so today stays short.
And if an app turns out to be the wrong tool, paper is still allowed. We keep a free printable daily planner for exactly that.
doMahan is free on Google Play for Android, and iPhone users can join the waitlist.
Quick answers
What is the best free planner app for Android?
It depends on how you plan. For appointments and dated tasks, Google Calendar with Google Tasks costs nothing and is probably on your phone already. For shared lists, Microsoft To Do is free. For a visual timeline of the day, look at Structured. For a short daily list on sticky notes with no account, doMahan (our app) is free with no ads.
Which planner apps are completely free, with nothing to pay for later?
Google Calendar and Google Tasks are free with a Google account, and Microsoft To Do is free with a personal Microsoft account. doMahan is free with no ads, no subscription and no account. Tasks.org gives you unlimited tasks, lists and reminders for free and asks for a subscription only for extras such as its own cloud sync.
Do I need to pay for repeating tasks?
In some apps, yes. Any.do and Structured both list recurring tasks as a paid feature. Tasks.org includes them for free, and Microsoft To Do has repeating due dates. TickTick lists recurring tasks as a feature without saying on its upgrade page whether they are free, so check before you rely on it. doMahan doesn't have repeating tasks yet.
Is there a planner app for Android that works without an account?
Yes. Tasks.org can run fully offline with no account, and doMahan works offline with no account unless you choose to switch on a backup. The Google and Microsoft apps need you to sign in.
Who makes doMahan, and is this comparison fair?
doMahan is made by an independent developer, and this post is on doMahan's own site, so treat it as you would any review written by a competitor. Facts about the other apps come from their Google Play listings, pricing pages and help pages as they stood on 12 November 2026.
Last updated .