There's nothing wrong with a paper to-do list, but going digital has its benefits. You can write, organize, and reprioritize your tasks efficiently, as well as attach notes, links, and files. You can also share your task list with other people and assign someone else tasks. At PCMag, we've been reviewing task-management apps and to-do list apps for more than a decade, following our mission statement and guidelines to develop independent results based on our hands-on testing. We look for apps that are easy to use, available on all major platforms, and have the tools you need to work productively. We also consider value and reliability.

Because not every person needs or wants a gazillion features in their to-do list app, we consider which apps are best for different kinds of users, such as business teams and individuals who follow specific productivity methods, such as Getting Things Done or the Pomodoro technique. After considering more than 15 apps in this category, these are the best we've tested, followed by what to look for when choosing the right task-management app for your needs.

How We Choose the Best Task Management Apps

To-do list apps are a dime a dozen, and few stand out. For example, there are plenty of excellent apps for Android or iPhone, but they do you no good when you're working on a laptop and need to jot down a thought quickly without picking up your phone and losing your place.

That's why we only include apps you can access on desktops and mobile devices on this list. After evaluating about 25 possible contenders, we tested and evaluated them and selected the highest-scoring apps to list here.

A major consideration when testing and scoring is how well these apps help you organize and stay on top of your tasks. We also consider collaboration, meaning the ability to share a task list with other people, though we see this as a bonus feature and not a requirement to be included. 

We also looked for apps that fit different user profiles, such as people who follow the Getting Things Done (GTD) method of organization (OmniFocus and Toodledo are good choices).

One of the most popular to-do list apps, Wunderlist, was acquired by Microsoft in 2015 and taken out of commission five years later. Microsoft's stated ambition was to build a replacement app for Wunderlist from the ground up, cloning all its best features. Microsoft To Do frankly took too long to come to market and arrived half-baked, which is why it isn't included here. It scored too low.

What to Look for in a Task Management App

There are a few qualities to look for in a task management app. The top three are:

• Design
• Tools for managing and organizing your tasks
• Collaboration options

Design is extra important in this category of apps because you end up looking at your to-do list app often. How will you get anything done if you can't stand looking at your ugly app? A good design also makes the app feel intuitive, so you can quickly write down things that come to mind.

Every to-do list app comes with tools and features for organizing your tasks and lists, and in an ideal world, these features match up with the way you think. For example, if you are a highly visual person, you might find that color-coding your lists or tasks to show priority is important. If you are deadline-oriented, you'll want an app that sorts your tasks by due date and or shows them in a calendar view. If you're forgetful, you might want an app that sends you reminders on different devices.

As for collaboration, it's always handy to have the option to share a to-do list, although not every app that made this list lets you collaborate (you can't in OmniFocus or Things 3). For home use, a collaborative to-do list means you can assign chores to other people or track when someone has purchased items off a shared shopping list. In business settings, collaborative task management makes working together easier and more transparent.

What Is the Best App for To-Do Lists?

Our overall top winner is Todoist. Todoist is the best to-do list app you'll find. It works on every platform. You can use it for free or pay a reasonable fee for all the features. It's designed in a way that makes it productive to use. You get plenty of customization options. It does everything you could want.

(Credit: Doist)

What Is the Best Free Task Management App?

Several of the best task management apps have a robust free service tier. Of them, our favorites are Asana and Todoist. Asana may be too free-form for some people's tastes. Todoist has a more inherent structure.

Another good free app is Remember the Milk, which scored a little too low to make it onto this list of the best to-do list apps. Remember the Milk looks old-school compared with the best to-do list apps, but it's capable and reliable. It's also highly intuitive. You can figure out all the ins and outs in minutes.

Many other apps on this list are excellent, but their free versions are limited compared with the power of their paid versions.

The Best Task Management App for Teams

It should come as no surprise that our top picks for teams are also the Editors' Choice winners: Asana's Premium, Business, or Enterprise plan (starting at $13.49 per person per month) and Todoist (go for the Business subscription in this case at $8 per person per month or $72 per year).

Todoist works best for small groups of people, organizing relatively uncomplicated tasks. In contrast, Asana, on the other hand, is better for managing more in-depth teamwork, the kind of work that passes through many hands and takes a lot of steps to complete.

(Credit: Asana)

Task Management Apps vs. Project Management Apps

An ongoing challenge for productivity software is deciding what gets classified as a project management app and what fits into other categories, such as task management and work-management apps.

We believe project management apps must be specifically designed to manage project-based work and offer Gantt charts. Project-based work means a series of tasks with a start date, end date, and deliverable. Building a house is a project. Sending a rocket to the moon is a project. Answering support emails, however, is a series of ongoing tasks and not a project. 

We occasionally encounter an app that straddles more than one category. Here, Asana is that app. It now includes tools for traditional project management, but it also works perfectly well as a to-do list app.

Overall, project management and collaborative task management apps serve the same general purpose but at a different scale. Both keep track of what needs doing, when, and by whom. They help users manage time more efficiently and regulate how many tasks are assigned to each team member. Project management apps help large groups of people juggle schedules, resources, and budgets in a way that to-do list apps can't. To-do apps are simpler and cost less than project management software. For many types of work, to-do apps are a better fit.

Use Your To-Do List to Get Organized

A top task management app can help you get organized and get more done, whether you want to manage personal tasks or those of a family or small team.

A task management app is only as useful as the information you put into it, so in addition to picking the right app, you might also want to peruse these tips for creating better to-do lists. If you're looking to share to-dos, you might also want to look at our story on how to make a family to-do list and calendar.