When comparing Things 2 vs Joplin, the Slant community recommends Joplin for most people. In the question“What are the best cross-platform task apps?” Joplin is ranked 5th while Things 2 is ranked 24th.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Cloud sync
Users need to create an account for Things Cloud (the account can be created from any device). Once signed up, cloud sync will be active, and you’ll have to login on all of your devices to complete setup. From that point on, syncing happens in the background. It is invisible and always reliable.
Pro Daily review
At the beginning of every day, a yellow box appears at the top of the Today section, displaying all tasks scheduled for this day. You can investigate them, and then decide which ones you’ll have for that day and which one you’d rather want to delay.
Pro Easy to set up and use
Things 2 works from the moment you start it up. Simply add a task and when you want it done by. You can also add notes to tasks or tag when you need them. Things allows you to quickly and easily start keeping track of your tasks.
Pro Project support
Things 2 has a projects feature that allows you to organize your tasks together. You can select a project you need to get done and Things helps you focus on each task to get it done. You can even group projects together to focus on the most important aspect of your life at the time.
Pro Great for GTD
Things is one of the best apps of doing Getting Things Done.
Pro Nested tags
It's very easy filtering tasks that belong to various areas (etc private vs work)
Pro Responsive and easy naviagation
Logical and responsive navigation and editing. Easy to operate.
Pro Customized calendar
The calendar view (when selecting a due date for a task) is a customized, scrollable version of the default iOS calendar view. This makes it look familiar, but also functional for Things 2's requirements.
Pro Offline access
Pro Open source
Peace of mind that there is no malicious piece of software in the app.
Pro Encryption
Pro Cross-platform
Supports Windows, Mac, Linux, Android and iOS.
Pro Supports file attachments
Pro Supports markdown
Pro Supports tags for notes
Pro Web Clipper
Browser extension saves full pages, clean content, or screen selections to new notes.
Pro Optional CLI interface
Provides a CLI interface for terminal lovers.
Pro Supports multiple languages
English, French, and Spanish, Italian, German, Czech and many others.
Pro Active user forum with support from app creators
Support, troubleshooting, and new feature requests are easy to make at the user forum and you can contact the app creator directly.
Pro Dropbox support
Can sync using Dropbox.
Pro Nextcloud support
Pro Timed alarm reminder for to-do lists
Cons
Con Expensive if you buy apps for Mac, iPhone and iPad (all sold separately)
As at May 2016 if buying all three apps it cost $80! That said there is no annual subscription and I've been using Things for years and have only paid once so far.
Con Poor calendar view
Could be more convenient with calendar interaction. Not an ordinary approach for visual people, if you want to see all the calendar events in the familiar format.
Con No file attachment available
Con No supported time based/location based alarms
Other apps have these abilities, and they are very useful. Especially for a $10 app, it would be great to include these premium features.
Con Sync issues with Android
If update on Linux then sync on Android, sometimes the Android sync will duplicate or remove some journal notes. Seems to be a bug in the Android app. The Linux app alone without sync with Android seems to work well using Dropbox. But don't expect changes you make on Android to sync properly back to Linux.
Con Sync issue under Linux
The Linux client has a bug that requires the user to click the mouse frequently in order for sync to proceed. This bug has been open for a while.
Con Gargantuan memory footprint
1GB+ of memory for taking notes.
Con Old school interface
Con Bloated
This project is suffering from feature creep and uses a lot of memory for a note-taking app.
Con App Image launches very slowly
On Linux, you can only install via App Image, which take 5+ seconds to launch. I can launch LibreOffice in under two seconds.
Con Sync issues on Windows
No way to change account settings and sync easily corrupted.
Con Weak tag searching
Joplin can currently only search for a single tag at a time. None of the boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) are available for use in searches. This greatly diminishes the usefulness of tags in Joplin.