How to choose an app for tracking habits: nine trackers compared

How to choose a habit tracker app: six questions we asked every app

Choose by three things: what stays free, what the paid plan really costs, and whether another person can see your check-ins. A plain grid is enough for a habit that is yours alone. For a habit you keep with someone, you need an app that shows both of you the same streak.

We asked six questions of every app, in the same order:

• What is free. How many habits, is there an account, are there ads.
• Where it runs. Phone, watch, desktop, browser.
• What paid costs. Not one number: the App Store prints a list of purchases, and the same plan name often appears at several prices.
• Who else sees it. Whether another person can see the check-ins, and what exactly they see.
• What a miss does. Whether the streak breaks or the app has a skip.
• Who is still home. When each build was last updated.

Two things we will not pretend. Alpacto is our own app, and in the table its store numbers are dashes: quoting our own listing back at you proves nothing. And three of the eight results on the first page here are habit trackers reviewing their rivals, which is worth knowing before you read any ranking, including this one.

The best habit tracker app for each case, side by side

Four columns, because a phone screen holds four. Prices and ratings were read on September 18, 2026, from the listings linked in the first column.

The nine apps for habit tracking, one by one

Loop Habit Tracker

The free habit tracker app that other free apps get compared to, and it is Android only: a search of the US App Store returns other developers’ namesakes, not this one, and a lookup by its bundle id returns nothing at all. No account, no internet, no ads, no purchases, open source under the GPL. The trade is support: the Play listing shows the last update on September 14, 2025.

Streaks

The only paid-once app here, at $5.99, with no In-App Purchases section on its listing at all. It runs on iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and Vision, which is the reason to pick it, and it is Apple only, which is the reason not to. Its description does mention sharing tasks “so they can encourage you and keep your accountable”, but neither the listing nor the site says what the other person actually sees.

Habitify

The one to pick when the list has to look the same on a phone, a watch, a Mac and the web. Since version 39.0.0 free users can add unlimited habits, with the ones past the basic limit going “view-only”, which is a softer wall than most. Paid comes in two tiers now: Plus Yearly at $29.99, Pro Yearly at $49.99, and a lifetime option that appears on the listing at both $119.99 and $59.99.

Habitica

Habits as a role-playing game: tasks earn gold, missed dailies cost health, and a party of friends fights a boss with the same to-do list. It is the oldest idea and the most divisive, and its App Store rating, 4.3, is the lowest of the eight US listings, while its Play rating, 4.7, is among the highest. Rated 13+ on the App Store, which matters if you were installing it for a younger child.

Finch

A self-care app with a bird that grows when you look after yourself, and 753K App Store ratings at 4.9, more than any other app on this page. The buddy features are the interesting part, and they live in the help center rather than on the listing. Goal Buddies puts two people on the same daily goal, one buddy per goal, each notified when the other finishes.

Everyday

A calendar board built around the chain, with a free tier of three habits, stated on the pricing page rather than in the store. Premium is $29.99 a year or $7.49 a month, with a lifetime licence that appears at $99.99 and, on the store listing, also at $49.99. It reaches further than most, from iPhone and Watch to Mac, Android, the web and browser extensions, and nothing in it involves a second person.

Way of Life

Fifteen years of chains of yes and no days, and the plainest question of the nine: did you or did you not. Premium is listed nine times on the App Store: seven of them at $29.99, then one at $14.99 and one at $4.99. On Play the same name runs $4.99 to $6.49, and the Android build was last updated in August 2025.

Fabulous

Not a grid but a coach: it builds morning and evening routines and talks to you between them, which people either stay with for years or delete on day two. That split is visible in the ratings: 4.4 from 89K on the App Store against 3.9 from 590K on Play. Its listing prints the App Store’s maximum of ten purchases, from $16.99 to $59.99, and only two of the Fabulous ones name a period: Annual Subscription at $49.99 and Premium Quarterly at $39.99.

HabitShare

The social one, and the only app here with nothing for sale on either store. Its description is exact about what friends get: “Selected friends can see your progress and help you stay motivated”, and privacy is set per habit, so the running club sees your runs and nothing else. The caveat is as plain as the feature: the last iOS version is dated January 27, 2023.

Habits you keep with another person

Can two people share a habit in a tracker app? Yes, but apps mean three different things by it: a shared habit, where two people mark one goal; a visible habit, which a chosen friend can watch; and a competition. Finch’s Goal Buddies is the shared kind, HabitShare the visible kind, Habitica’s parties the competitive kind.

The round-ups we could open rank these apps by charts, widgets and the look of the grid. Not one of them asks whether a second person can see the check-in, although people raise it themselves. In a habit tracker Reddit thread on r/todoist someone recommends HabitShare for exactly that, and names its limit in the same breath: “mobile app only”.

That thread also picks apps the way most people pick an app for tracking habits: by what annoys them least. For Loop, “It’s free, doesn’t have restrictions on how many habits or skips you can add”; for Habitify, “simple, multiplatform and not expensive”.

The three kinds, in more detail:

• A shared habit. Two people, one goal, both marking it. Finch’s Goal Buddies works this way, one buddy per goal.
• A visible habit. Yours alone, but somebody chosen can watch it and comment. That is HabitShare, per habit, and roughly what Streaks means by sharing a task.
• A competition. A leaderboard with friends who have their own habits: Habitify’s challenges, Habitica’s parties, Fabulous’s circles.

The difference matters when the habit is not really yours alone. Dishes after dinner, the bins on Tuesday, the gym on the way home: those are agreements with somebody. A solo tracker only knows that you pressed a button.

That is the part Alpacto does, and we will be plain that it is our own app. A routine there is a habit with no end date, agreed by two people: every check-in adds coins, and the streak is visible to both of you at a glance. It is built for the household rather than for one person in it.

If the habit is shared by two partners, see the best habit tracker app for couples, which sorts seven apps by what the two of you share. On paper, a 30 day habit tracker for two gives each person a box a day and one reward to earn together.

What a star rating does not tell you about an app for tracking habits

Three things we ran into while reading nine listings, each of which changes what any comparison is worth:

• The two stores count different things. Apple counts ratings, Google Play counts reviews, and each polls its own people: Way of Life sits at 4.8 on the App Store and 3.6 on Play. Subtracting one from the other means nothing.
• “Free” is about installing, not using. Everyday allows three habits before it asks for money; Habitify lets you add habits past the limit but makes them view-only. Neither fact is on the store page in those words.
• One plan name, many prices. Fabulous Premium appears six times on a single listing at six different prices; Habitify prints two lifetime prices. Any article quoting one of them as “the price” is quoting an offer, and it will be stale before you read it.