Todoist Vs. Trello: A side-by-side Comparison (2025)
Compare Todoist and Trello side by side with our comprehensive 2025 guide
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Finding the right productivity app in 2025? It’s like trying to hit a moving target… blindfolded… while juggling flaming torches.
You dive in, set up color-coded boards or endless task lists, feeling on top of things — then two weeks later, chaos wins. Overdue tasks, forgotten priorities, and zero control.
I’ve been in the trenches with Trello and Todoist. Dragging cards like a productivity ninja, building task trees like a monk on a mission.
Both are solid — but neither truly fits how people actually work today.
Then I discovered Focuzed.io.
💡 This isn’t just another task manager. It’s a completely new way to work, built around your brain, your energy, and your real-life flow.
Focuzed doesn’t just track tasks — it smartly guides your day based on your energy, focus, and what you can actually handle. No more decision fatigue. No more burnout.
It predicts your energy dips. It guards you against decision overload. It prioritizes what matters without the endless manual tweaking.
Curious? Hang tight. First, let’s dive into Todoist Vs Trello — and why neither quite cuts it.
Quick Feature Face-Off: Todoist Vs Trello
Feature | Trello | Todoist |
Core Focus | Visual task management via boards | Task organization via lists |
Best Use Case | Project management, team workflows | Daily planning, personal productivity |
Collaboration | Real-time team boards, comments | Shared projects, basic team features |
Customization | Power-Ups, automation, templates | Labels, filters, productivity views |
Learning Curve | Low – drag and drop to start | Moderate – nested tasks, filters |
Automation | Butler automation built-in | Some automations via integrations |
AI Features | Limited, mainly rule-based | Light AI suggestions & smart scheduling |
Mobile Experience | Clean but board-heavy | Fast, lightweight, quick-add focus |
Pricing | Free + paid plans from $5/user/month | Free + paid plans from $4/user/month |
Getting Hands-On with Trello
Trello is the OG kanban tool. You open it up, and you’re immediately greeted with columns (called “lists”) and cards you can move across them. It’s intuitive, visual, and great for tracking projects.
You can customize your boards with Power-Ups (Trello’s app integrations), build automations with Butler, and invite teammates to collaborate in real time.
What Trello Gets Right
- Drag-and-drop simplicity: It’s satisfying. It’s visual. It works.
- Collaborative boards: Great for teams and small projects.
- Templates + Power-Ups: Add calendars, time tracking, even voting.
Where It Falls Short
- No structure for deep task management: Trello isn’t ideal for recurring tasks, subtasks, or daily planning.
- Overwhelming at scale: Boards get messy fast. Long-term tracking is clunky.
- Lacks true prioritization: You’ll need labels and hacks to sort what’s urgent.
Getting Real with Todoist
Todoist feels more like a traditional to-do list — but on steroids.
It lets you build nested tasks, set due dates, assign priorities, and even add recurring routines. It’s beloved by productivity nerds for its elegant simplicity and deep organizational features.
You can create projects, apply labels and filters, and even gamify your productivity with its Karma system.
What Todoist Nails
- Powerful task structure: Subtasks, recurring tasks, priorities — it's all there.
- Focus mode: Clean, distraction-free daily task views.
- Flexible views: See tasks by project, deadline, label, or filter.
What’s Lacking
- Not built for team projects: Collaboration exists, but it's basic.
- No visual boards (natively): If you think in Kanban, you’ll miss Trello’s UX.
- Setup fatigue: You may spend more time organizing than doing.
First Impressions: What You Get Right Away
When you open Trello for the first time, it’s like walking into a workshop. You see these big, colorful boards with columns and cards, and it’s almost tactile. You can drag stuff around, rearrange your workflow visually, and get a big-picture view of your projects.
Todoist, by contrast, greets you with a clean, minimal interface. It’s basically a smart to-do list with a no-nonsense vibe. It’s more text-driven, more about lists and tasks than visuals. You get your inbox, projects, labels, filters — all neat and organized. It feels familiar if you’ve ever used a checklist app but has way more power under the hood.
Todoist vs Trello: How They Actually Work Day to Day
Task Organization & Structure
Trello:
The whole experience revolves around boards, which you can think of as your big projects. Within boards, you create lists—these are like stages or categories. Inside lists, you create cards for individual tasks. Cards are flexible — you can add checklists, due dates, attachments, comments, and even automate some actions with Butler.
This visual, kanban-style system is great if your work naturally flows through stages — like “Ideas → In Progress → Review → Done.” It’s a dream for teams tracking projects because everyone can see the status at a glance.
But here’s my catch: Trello doesn’t let you nest tasks deeply. You can’t have subtasks of subtasks without hacks like checklists inside cards, which quickly get messy. Also, setting priorities is manual — you assign colored labels but there’s no built-in hierarchy like “High,” “Medium,” or “Low” priority that automatically affects your views.
Todoist:
Todoist, on the other hand, is all about lists within lists. You create projects, which are like folders, then add tasks and subtasks inside them, with as many levels as you want. This hierarchical approach is perfect if you think in terms of “buckets” of work and smaller action steps.
Plus, Todoist’s priority flags (P1-P4) are baked right into the system, letting you sort and filter your tasks by urgency. It also has powerful natural language parsing — meaning you can type “Submit report every Friday” or “Call John tomorrow at 3pm” and it’ll auto-schedule your tasks. That alone saves tons of time.
If you’re someone who loves structure and clear priority, Todoist will feel like it was built for your brain.
Recurring Tasks & Habit Tracking
I personally juggle a lot of daily habits and weekly chores, so recurring tasks are non-negotiable.
- Trello: Recurring tasks are tricky. You need third-party Power-Ups or external automation (like Zapier or IFTTT) to recreate the same task every week or month. This works but feels like a patch — it’s not seamless.
- Todoist: It nails recurring tasks out of the box. The interface lets you create complex recurrences (“every weekday except holidays”) easily. It also tracks your Karma points — a gamified way of motivating habit consistency. If you want to build or maintain habits, Todoist keeps you honest.
Collaboration & Team Use
Trello is built with teams in mind. I’ve run projects with groups of 10+ people and Trello’s transparency is a lifesaver. Everyone can see who’s responsible for what, add comments, vote on cards, and keep track of progress.
The Butler automation is also a huge plus — it can automatically move cards, assign people, and send reminders based on triggers. Trello is hard to beat when managing shared workflows.
Todoist is more solo-friendly. You can share projects and comment, but it lacks the real-time collaborative flair Trello has. If your focus is personal productivity or managing a small team, Todoist works. But for large teams or complex projects, Trello’s transparency and automation win hands down.
User Experience & Mobile
On mobile, Todoist feels fast and lightweight. Adding tasks is effortless, and the smart scheduling means you don’t waste time fiddling with dates. The clean design helps you focus on the next task without distractions.
Trello’s mobile app is functional but not as fluid. Dragging cards on small screens can be clunky, and managing detailed boards is sometimes frustrating. For quick task entry or review, Todoist takes the win here.
Automation & Integrations
Trello’s Butler automation is surprisingly powerful for a free or low-cost tool. You can create complex rules like “When a card is moved to ‘Done’, send an email to the client.” It supports over 200 Power-Ups (integrations), from Slack to Jira.
Todoist has decent native integrations (Google Calendar, Outlook), but automation requires Zapier or external services. Todoist’s AI-powered Smart Schedule feature suggests optimal due dates based on your workload, which feels futuristic and personal.
The Better Alternative — Focuzed.io
After bouncing between visual boards and structured lists, I had a realization:
“Why is managing work so much work?”
Trello gave me board overwhelm. Todoist gave me structure fatigue. Both were powerful — but they still left me feeling exhausted.
That’s when I discovered Focuzed.io.
And it changed everything.
Focuzed.io isn’t about managing your time. It’s about managing your energy — so your schedule finally aligns with how your brain actually works.
Why Focuzed Feels Different
- Energy-aware scheduling: It connects with your health data to schedule tasks when you’re mentally sharp.
- Minimal interface, maximum clarity: No kanban clutter. No endless lists. Just a focused flow.
- Neurodivergent-friendly: Designed for focus, calm, and clarity — not chaos.
If Trello and Todoist are about organizing your tasks, Focuzed is about doing them — in a way that’s humane, sustainable, and deeply aligned with your mental flow.
Final Thoughts: So… Trello, Todoist, or Focuzed?
If you love visual workflows, Trello is still a solid pick. If you crave structure and powerful task hierarchies, Todoist has your back.
But if you’re feeling burnt out from micromanaging your own brain, if your task manager feels more like a chore than a tool — it’s time to rethink the whole game.
Focuzed.io doesn’t just help you get things done.
It helps you feel good while doing them.
It doesn’t ask “What do you need to do today?”
It asks: “How do you feel today — and how can we match your work to that?”
That’s the future of productivity: human-first, energy-aligned, and designed for real life — not just checklists.
👉 Ready to stop managing your to-do list and start managing your capacity?
Try Focuzed.io today — and experience the difference.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. Is Trello or Todoist better for personal productivity?
Todoist tends to win here. Its structure, recurring tasks, and smart scheduling make it great for daily planning and habit tracking.
2. Which one works better for team collaboration?
Trello is designed with collaboration in mind. Its shared boards, real-time updates, and visual transparency make it ideal for group projects.
3. Can you use both Trello and Todoist together?
Absolutely. Some people use Trello for project overviews and team planning, while managing their personal tasks in Todoist. With the right workflow, they can complement each other.
4. Do either Trello or Todoist support automation?
Yes — Trello has Butler automation built-in, which is very powerful. Todoist offers limited native automation but works well with tools like Zapier for advanced workflows.
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