No 18 · Comparison

HabitKit Vs Habitify: Habit Grid Or All-In-One Planner

By , creator of HabitKit

14 min read Published

Habitify and HabitKit are both habit trackers, both free to start, and both rated well on the App Store. They are built for different people. Habitify is a habit planner: it sorts your day into morning, afternoon and evening, syncs across your phone, watch, Mac and the web, and connects to Apple Health, calendars and automation tools. HabitKit is a habit record: each habit is a grid of days on your phone, and the months you have already done are the first thing you see.

So the real question is what you want the app to do for you. If you want a system that runs your routine on every screen you own, Habitify reaches further. If you want to open your phone and see, at a glance, how each habit has really gone since spring, that is the one thing HabitKit is built around.

HabitKit is free for four habits on iPhone and Android: get it on the App Store or Google Play.

The short answer Facts checked

HabitKit vs Habitify

  • Pick HabitKit if

    • you want months of every habit on screen as a grid of days, not behind a tap
    • you want four habits free, and no account at all
    • you want to move your whole history to a new phone, iPhone or Android, with one file
  • Pick Habitify if

    • you want your habits on an Apple Watch, a Mac or the web as well as your phone
    • you want Apple Health, Strava or Fitbit to log habits for you
    • you want time-of-day sections, timers, a mood log and Lock Screen widgets in one app

Written by the maker of HabitKit, who wants you in the app that suits you. Habitify is named for comparison only; HabitKit is not affiliated with its maker. Prices and features come from the US App Store, Google Play and each developer's own site on the date above.

On this page

Side By Side

HabitKit Habitify
What it is A habit tracker built around a grid of days A habit planner with sections for each part of the day
Free plan Four habits, no time limit Three active habits, according to its help center
Paid plans (US) Pro monthly, yearly or lifetime Plus $29.99 a year. Pro $8.99 a month, $49.99 a year or $119.99 lifetime
iPhone and Android Yes Yes
Apple Watch, Mac, web No Yes, plus Wear OS and Windows
Account Never needed Optional on phones as a guest; needed to sync and on the web
Sync between devices No; daily backups and a file you can move Yes, with an account
How progress looks A grid per habit on the home screen, months at a glance A daily checklist with a week grid a tap away, plus streaks, charts and heatmaps on a progress screen
Count and measure in units Yes, tiles fill in partial shades Yes
Quit a habit Yes, with a Stay Below limit Yes, as a bad habit with a limit or quit goal
Apple Health No Yes, two-way, with Pro
Home screen widgets Yes, with Pro, log from them Yes, including Tap to Track
Lock Screen widgets No Yes
Export your data Yes, free, as a file you can import again Yes, as CSV or a full database file
Languages English and 16 others English and 39 others
US App Store rating 4.8 from 2,559 ratings 4.6 from 7,187 ratings

Prices and ratings are from the US App Store and each developer's help pages on the date at the top of this page. HabitKit's own prices vary by country and are shown in the app.

The Idea: A Record Or A Planner

This is the difference that the rest follows from.

Habitify opens on today. Your habits are grouped by time of day, each with a tick, a timer or a number to fill in, and the app nudges you through them with reminders that can follow a time, a place or the habit you just finished. The history is there too, on a progress screen with streaks, charts and a heatmap, and in widgets on the home screen. A week view, added in late October, shows every habit across the week, day by day, from a grid button at the top of the Journal. But the main screen is a plan for the day ahead.

HabitKit opens on the past. Every habit is a card with a grid of days, filled in the habit's colour, and you tick today from the same card. A good month is a solid block; a slow one is plain to see, with the weeks around it still on screen. There is no day plan and no sections. The record is the point, and for many people seeing it is the motivation. How the grid works explains the details.

Three HabitKit habit cards, Read 20 pages, Run and Meditate, filling in week by week from January to today, then each ticked for today

Illustrative demo data: three habits from January to today on one screen. Each card is ticked for today from the card itself.

Neither approach is better in general. Planners suit people who want structure handed to them. A record suits people who already know what they want to do and need to see whether they are doing it.

What You Can Track

Both apps cover the same ground for the habits most people keep. A habit can be a simple yes or no, or a number in a unit you choose, such as glasses of water or minutes of reading. Both can repeat on chosen weekdays, at an interval, or as a number of times per week or month. And both can track a habit you want to cut down or stop.

The details differ:

  • Partial days. In HabitKit, a Count or Measure habit fills its tile in five shades as you log, so half a goal still shows as half (daily goals and amounts). Habitify shows progress toward a numeric goal in the habit, and for weekly or monthly goals in its Goal Progress widget.
  • Quitting. HabitKit's quit habits count clean days by themselves, and a Count or Measure quit habit can set a Stay Below limit (tracking a habit you want to quit). Habitify's bad habits take a "No More Than" limit or a "Quit This Habit" goal, and don't get reminders.
  • Timers. Habitify has a countdown timer for free, and pomodoro and stopwatch timers with Pro. HabitKit has no timer.
  • Mood and notes. Habitify logs a daily mood from five faces, with a tag and a note, separate from your habits. HabitKit has no mood log; any day of a habit can carry a note, including days you missed.
  • Automatic logging. With Pro, Habitify can complete habits from Apple Health, Health Connect on Android, Strava, Fitbit, Screen Time and RescueTime. HabitKit doesn't connect to health apps, so you log by hand, from a widget, or with Siri and Shortcuts on iPhone.

Streaks And Days Off

Both apps count streaks per habit, and both count weeks or months for habits that don't repeat every day.

Habitify has two ways to protect a streak. Skip marks one habit's day as excused, and Off Mode, a Pro feature, pauses all habits for a stretch you plan, mutes their reminders and keeps every streak intact. A day you fail or don't check in ends the streak, and its help center offers no way to hide streaks; that option is a feature request.

HabitKit plans days off ahead instead of excusing them afterwards. A habit set to three times a week, or to fixed weekdays, never counts the other days against you, and its streak can count in weeks rather than days (taking a day off). If you do miss a day that counted, the streak starts again, but the grid keeps every day before it, and with Pro the Charts screen shows your Best Streak next to the current one. Our essay on what one missed day does to a habit explains why that matters less than it feels.

Phones, Watches And The Web

This is where Habitify is clearly ahead. Its App Store listing covers iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and Vision Pro; it is on Android and Wear OS; and its help center lists a Windows app from the Microsoft Store and a website as well. Sign in once and the same habits follow you to every one of them.

HabitKit runs on iPhone and Android only. There is no Watch app, no Mac or web version, and no sync between two phones at the same time. What it does have is a way to move: export writes every habit, completion and note to one file, and import on another phone brings it all back, from iPhone to Android or the other way round (moving to a new phone).

An iPhone's Backup & Restore screen exporting a file that travels to an Android phone's Backup & Restore screen, where Restore a backup brings three habit grids across

An illustration of moving phones: Export a copy on one phone, then Restore a backup › Choose a file on the other. The habits arrive with their history, and neither phone asks for an account.

Widgets

Both apps put habits on the home screen, and both let you log from it.

Habitify's widget list is long: today's habits, progress chains, a consistency heatmap of up to 216 days, the current streak, days since, goal progress, a limit tracker for bad habits, and Tap to Track, which completes, skips or fails a habit from the home screen. It also has Lock Screen widgets on iPhone, and reminders that can show as a Live Activity.

HabitKit's widgets show what the app shows: one habit's grid with a button for today, or a compact list of several habits where you can tap today or an earlier day you forgot to log. They need Pro, and there is no Lock Screen widget (adding a widget). Our roundup of habit tracker apps with widgets compares both with three more.

Your Data

HabitKit never asks you to sign in. Your habits stay on your phone, which keeps seven daily backups next to your data. On iPhone a daily backup also goes to your own iCloud; on Android it goes to your Google Drive once you turn that on. Anyone can export everything to a file and import it again, for free (export and import).

Habitify works without an account too, but only on the phone. Its help center says a guest account "is stored only locally on a single device and will not sync", and the web and desktop apps go straight to sign-in. With an account, everything syncs. It exports a CSV of your logs or a full database backup, and it can import history from Apple Health, Fitbit and Strava, and from Streaks and Productive backups.

On privacy labels, Habitify's is the leaner one. Its App Store label lists only usage and diagnostics data, not linked to you, and its Google Play listing says no data is shared with third parties. HabitKit's App Store label lists purchases as linked to you, and some usage, advertising, diagnostics and approximate location data as not linked. Neither label lists data used to track you across other companies' apps.

Price

HabitKit is free for four habits with no time limit, including notes, categories, quit habits, a reminder per habit, backups and export. Pro adds unlimited habits, widgets, charts and up to three reminders per habit, as a monthly or yearly subscription or a one-time Lifetime purchase (what Pro unlocks).

Habitify's free plan has three active habits, one reminder per habit, a countdown timer and the mood log with notes, according to its help center. Plus is $29.99 a year for unlimited habits and reminders, including location reminders, and custom areas. Pro adds the integrations, Off Mode, timers, checklists and calendar sync, at $8.99 a month, $49.99 a year or $119.99 once on the US App Store, with a seven-day trial. Its own pricing page still shows an older single plan, so check the price in the app before you buy.

If you track four habits or fewer, HabitKit costs nothing. If you need a watch, Habitify is the one of these two that has it, and for Apple Health you would need its Pro plan.

Where Habitify Is Better

  • It runs on Apple Watch, Mac, Wear OS, Windows and the web, and syncs them all.
  • Apple Health, Health Connect, Strava and Fitbit can complete habits for you.
  • Time-of-day sections, timers, checklists and location reminders help plan the day.
  • Lock Screen widgets, and a home screen widget to skip or fail a habit as well as complete it.
  • A leaner App Store privacy label, and more than twice as many languages.

Where HabitKit Is Better

  • Every habit's history is on the main screen as a grid, months at a glance.
  • Four habits free rather than three, and no account ever.
  • A partial day fills its tile in shades, so progress short of the goal still shows.
  • One file moves your whole history between iPhone and Android, free for everyone.
  • It does one job, with nothing to set up before your first tick.

Switching From Habitify

There is no importer for Habitify data. You would create your habits again in HabitKit and fill in recent days from each habit's calendar (fixing a past day). The part of the grid you will look at most is the recent end, so a few weeks of history is usually enough.

If you are weighing more than these two, our best habit tracker apps compares six side by side, and free habit tracker apps looks at what each free plan includes. Coming from Productive instead? The best Productive app alternatives covers how to bring your history along.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Habitify Free?

Yes, for three active habits with one reminder each, according to its help center. Plus ($29.99 a year in the US) unlocks unlimited habits, and Pro ($8.99 a month, $49.99 a year or $119.99 lifetime) adds integrations, Off Mode and timers.

Does Habitify Need An Account?

Not on a phone: you can start as a guest. A guest account stays on that one device and doesn't sync, and the web and desktop apps need you to sign in. HabitKit never needs an account on either platform.

Which Is Better For Apple Watch?

Habitify. It has an Apple Watch app and Wear OS tiles and complications. HabitKit has no watch app.

Can HabitKit Sync Between Devices Like Habitify?

Not live. HabitKit keeps daily backups on the phone and in your own iCloud, or in Google Drive once you turn it on, and an export file moves everything to another phone, but two devices don't stay in sync. If you use habits on several devices every day, Habitify is built for that.

Can I Import My Habitify Data Into HabitKit?

No. HabitKit imports only its own export files. You would recreate your habits and fill in the recent days by hand from each habit's calendar.

Sources

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