When comparing Emacs Org-mode vs Timely, the Slant community recommends Emacs Org-mode for most people. In the question“What are the best time tracking apps for freelancers?” Emacs Org-mode is ranked 7th while Timely is ranked 8th. 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
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Pros
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
Pro Free version
A basic version of Timely is free, but you can opt to buy the Premium version for $2.99 that has more themes, sounds and challenges. The premium version also introduces cloud synchronization and disables ads.
Pro Provides own alarm tones
Over 25 wake up tones come with the app ranging from simple alarm sounds to synthesized music.
Pro Gorgeous display
Timely combines vibrant colors, smooth transition effects, and peaceful animations that make the user experience all the more enjoyable. From the neat scrolling effects to the futuristic looking timer, the artistic touch to this app is outstanding.
Pro Simple user interface
This app makes setting up alarms intuitive. A list of all alarms are displayed in one place that provides detail on when the time of the alarm, if it's enabled, and even what tone will play when the alarm sounds. There is no difficulty in figuring out how to use all of its features. Timely displays icons that make it easy for users to set new alarms, switch to nightstand or timer mode, or even find out what the "Smart Rise" feature is.
Pro Can be fixed to work with Android 10/11
Pro Alarms synchronization
Set the alarm time on any devices and all synced devices (you can chose) will ring simultaneously. Turning off the alarm on one device stops all of them.
Pro Timer and stopwatch included
Everything is so simple! Please make it work with Android 10.
Pro Custom themes
Timely comes with many different themes to use, and even comes with a feature to design your own colored themes.
Pro Comes with lock-screen widgets
Pro Wake up tasks
4 possible wake up tasks are allowed to be enabled. In order to shut off the alarm, the user must complete the set task(s).
Cons
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.
Con Not compatible with Android 10
The alarm app does not pop-up when it rings. Without the app GUI, you can't dismiss the alarm. So you have to launch manually the app when it rings to dismiss.
Con Development stopped
Company has been bought by Google and development has been stopped since then.
Con Alarm does not work at all in Marshmallow
If you have Android 6.0 Marshmallow, this app is useless as an alarm.
Con Cannot use custom alarm sounds
It's not possible to have Timely play your favorite .mp3 to wake you up, or any other custom sound file for that matter.