When comparing Any.do vs Emacs Org-mode, the Slant community recommends Emacs Org-mode for most people. In the question“What are the best cross-platform task apps?” Emacs Org-mode is ranked 3rd while Any.do is ranked 14th. The most important reason people chose Emacs Org-mode is:
This app's flexibility is based on its minimalist approach, giving the user near-infinite freedom.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Clean, intuitive design
Any.do splits all tasks up into groups. Tasks can be grouped either by date (today, tomorrow, upcoming, and someday) or in custom folders. Each group has a plus button next to it that allows adding new tasks to the group.
Pro "Any.do Moment" makes to-dos manageable
"Moment" is a reminder to check all tasks that are planned for the day. It simplifies scheduling your day and let’s you quickly check off items as they're completed. It can be set it to prompt you in the morning or afternoon to review your day’s tasks and update whether or not you’ve accomplished them. This is really useful for managing a long to-do list without feeling overwhelmed.
Pro Web interface for desktop access
The web interface can be used to add items.
Pro Clever auto-complete
As tasks are added, Any.do attempts to guess what is going to be written and offers suggestions. It will search through contacts for names and information, allowing you to add people to tasks and offering suggestions for meeting spots that are convenient for everyone.
Pro Missed call reminder on Android
The mobile app reminds you of missed calls and helps manage them in the future.
Pro Folders for tasks
Users can create and edit folders for certain tasks, like “personal” and “work.”
Pro Has a system that allows collaborating on tasks
Any.do allows creating "hubs" for groups of people, like colleagues, family, and friends, where tasks can be shared or assigned to each other.
Pro Simple
Any.do includes the features that are needed and nothing more.
Pro Free version
Any.do has a free version and also offers a Premium plan that costs $3 a month.
Pro Cross-platform support and sync
The app runs on iOS, Android, as a Chrome extension and in browsers.
Pro Rewards for completing tasks
The app integrates with Kiip, a reward platform that gives free, real-life rewards when a to-do list is completed.
Pro Five simple widgets for Android
There are five widgets to choose from, all of which are simple and useful.
Pro Ultimate flexibility
This app's flexibility is based on its minimalist approach, giving the user near-infinite freedom.
Pro Absolutely free
Emacs with Org-mode is free as in beer and free as in speech – that is, it costs nothing and it’s totally open source.
Pro Files are usable anywhere at anytime
Users are not tied to one service provider, program, platform, or database engine.
Pro Incredibly extensible
There are many plug-ins for Org-mode, including Org-habits and Org-notify. If Org-mode lacks some piece of functionality, it is very easy to add it.
Pro Agenda views
Pro Excellent unofficial Android app (orgzly)
Pro Offline support
Pro Efficient features for deadline organization
Pro Supports plaintext spreadsheets
Pro There are a lot of extensions, for exporting to html, bootstrap, js-reveal and much more
Pro Quickly add rich text
Cons
Con No Windows app or client
Unlike rival to-do list apps such as Todoist or Wunderlist, Any.do does not have an official app for Windows. There’s also no indication that the company plans to build this app in the near future.
Con Lack of power features like priority and labels
Any.do has only two levels of priority that can be assigned to tasks, namely Normal and High. There is no way to assign any sort of weights to tasks either. There is no feature to assign any sort of labels on them to be able to filter particular type of tasks. These features are very valuable to a power user.
Con If you pay once it charges recurring even after unsubscribe and notified to the team as well.
Only solution is downgrade to free plan and remove credit card details.
Con Limited Any.do moments in free version
The free version gives only five Any.do moments per month, limiting productivity.
Con Cannot see task details easily
To view subtasks, notes or other data you have to click or tap multiple times. There is no task view that shows everything you should know about the task.
Con Invasive App Permissions
In order to be a complete solution, Any.Do can seem to take over your phone. For example, it monitors missed calls so you can schedule a call back.
Con Offline access not available in free version
Since the addition of the Premium plan, offline access to lists is not available for free Any.do users.
Con Spotty auto-complete and voice recognition
Though the auto-complete feature is very smart in that it can access contacts and create a variety of tasks, it also might auto-complete with something entirely wrong. The voice recognition also has some issues with correctly understanding what is being said.
Con Slow animations and features
The app goes for a smooth feel with lots of things being automated and animated. This slows down it's use, especially on older phones.
Con Awkward data entry
You cannot simply start entering tasks, one after another. You must click or tap the add icon to get a text entry field.
Con All tasks default to "today"
While there is a 'someday' category, by default every task as an end date of today. This means you get constant notifications for quickly added tasks.
Con Incomplete keyboard control
There’s no clear way to select and mark tasks using keyboard.
Con No Android Wear and Apple Watch support
The Any.do app currently does not support Android Wear or Apple Watch, in contrast to rival to-do list apps such as Todoist or Wunderlist. Currently Any.do does not have plans to support these devices.
Con Unintuitive user interface
The key combinations are unintuitive and difficult to remember. This is probably because there are a lot of hidden "modes" depending on where the cursor is. Actions aren't paired with reversing actions like in other todo apps. For example, hitting shift-tab does NOT reverse the effect of hitting tab.
Con Android app isn't very good
There are several user-created apps for Android, but none seem to offer the same level of functionality as other to-do apps.
Con Not really cross platform
Although it is possible to get a lot of it working, no all in one, sync included, out of the box solution is available for mobile devices.
Con By default, a hard-to-read display
The default way of writing an outline or checklist creates a very messy wall of text that's difficult to read with no vertical spacing. You can manually add vertical spacing, but the Org operations don't preserve it. There are pretty-display modes, but you need to remember how to enable them, etc. etc.