When comparing Habitica vs Checkvist, the Slant community recommends Checkvist for most people. In the question“What are the best cross-platform task apps?” Checkvist is ranked 20th while Habitica is ranked 25th. The most important reason people chose Checkvist is:
Checkvist hits a sweet spot between minimal and complexity. It gives you a host of options and extras to use on your lists, but you can completely ignore them if you don't need them and keep it very simple. This makes Checkvist a one-stop shop, regardless of what type of 'list' you need.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Can use peer pressure to motivate
The app allows creating a party with other people and go on a quest together. Here, your actions affect not just you, but everyone else in the party as well. If you fail a task, the party loses health, if you complete a task, the party gains experience, etc.
Pro Gamifies the process to motivate
The app takes cues from role playing games by having a system that rewards certain behavior with experience points, levels, and gear upgrades. It also allows you to set custom rewards that you come up with yourself such as watching an episode of your favorite TV show.
Pro As simple or as complex as you need
Checkvist hits a sweet spot between minimal and complexity. It gives you a host of options and extras to use on your lists, but you can completely ignore them if you don't need them and keep it very simple. This makes Checkvist a one-stop shop, regardless of what type of 'list' you need.
Pro Tasks can be managed with custom tags
Pro vim-like commands
Pro Convenient search by text or tag filtering
Pro Converts incoming emails to todos - this is a way to enter tasks from anywhere.
Pro Great search
Search filters help you search for tasks by tag, due date, assignee, etc.
Pro Very flexible
To-do lists often need to be grouped and regrouped for clarity. The outline-based nature of Checkvist makes it easy to move things across categories, to increase and decrease priority, etc.
Pro Smart parsing of items
Parses markdown, html links, hashtags to become formatted text, clickable links, and tags, respectively.
Pro Generous set of free features
Checkvist offers many free features if you are using this individually.
Pro Supports comments on tasks
Any item can have a free-text comment, which can be shown or hidden as desired.
Cons
Con Occasional bugs and laggyness
The app is still in beta and has the occasional bug to work out.
Con Can cause needless stress
As with most gamified systems it includes punishments for failures. Fear of failure can cause stress and failures can demotivate.
Con Limited capability in the android app
Checkvist is primarily a web interface.
