I Tested Four Habit Tracking Apps so You Don’t Have To

There’s an app for everything.
It’s no surprise that habit trackers are among them. I tested a handful of habit tracking apps and narrowed them down to ones I find valuable.

Before we get into it, I have some advice:

When you start using an app, you are forming a habit. In other words: the use of the app itself is a habit. I recommend using your habit tracking app to remind yourself to do things you already do for a couple of weeks to break it in. 

For example, I have had a cup of coffee every morning for the past ten years. I look forward to it. I enjoy it. My morning coffee is part of who I am. If I’m using a new app (or any reminder system), I pair it with my morning coffee. That way, I’m forming a habit around the reminder system. Then, when I associate the reminder system with my coffee, I’ve created a habit. Now, I can take that reminder system and apply it to learning a new habit.

If I want to remind myself to meditate in the morning, I can use that app. I’m already conditioned to using it, which means I’m not trying to develop a habit while developing a habit. No habit-ception here.

Use the app that works best for you. There are several options on this list, each with its own pros and cons. What works best for you may not work best for me. It’s okay to try one out and decide it’s not for you, too. Habit forming is by nature a trial-and-error process.

Routinery

This is the best habit tracking app for creating routines. I enjoy it because it goes along well with my golden rule for habit app use: it’s simple to create a routine in this app for habits you already have.

The good things:

-Habit suggestions
It gives you many excellent starter ideas for your habits, but you can customize them as needed.

-Timer for routine completion
The app estimates the completion time for tasks and has a timer that you start when you begin your routine. This allows you to see how much time it actually takes to get everything done. You can adjust the timer for the next time based on your results and make sure you always have enough time.

The bad things: 

-Less Flexibility
There isn’t a way to complete your habits individually. However, that’s part of the app’s design. The intent is that you form a habit by following a similar routine at similar times.

Pro Tips:

Make sure you start with easy, high-priority habits. Try three small ones that you already complete regularly. 

For my nighttime routine, that could be: 

  • taking off my makeup

  • brushing my teeth

  • silencing my phone

 If I forget to do one of these, my nighttime quality of life would dramatically suffer. There are serious consequences if I don’t do them.

My morning habits might be: 

  • drinking my coffee 

  • taking my vitamins

  • grabbing my keys

Once you have these habits down, you can add more. Maybe you want to set aside five minutes of morning meditation, or maybe you want to make yourself a cup of tea in the evenings. Start really small. You can even create different routines for different days to set smaller goals if you’re not ready to commit to a habit every day of the week.

Habit Rabbit

I’m including this one, but I’m not happy about it.

The only reason this made it on here is because it houses a very cute rabbit that says nice things to motivate you. I named mine Reginald.

This is a “gamefied” habit app that rewards you for completing tasks. You can buy items for your rabbit and use the points you accumulate to tidy the rabbit’s room. If you don’t complete your habit, your rabbit’s health suffers. The consequences of not caring for your rabbit can take an emotional toll (speaking for myself, of course). Once you tidy your rabbit’s room using the points you collect from habit completion, you can go to other areas of the house. Turns out, you are in charge of a very filthy rabbit.

The good things:

-Priority levels
You can change the priority level of the habit so it carries more weight. Getting up before 8 AM is really important to me, but I struggle to get up on time. Therefore, I set it as a high priority. I receive a bigger reward for getting it done. 

-Vacation mode
When you turn this on, you don’t lose progress while you’re out of your routine.

-Individual notifications per habit
You can set time-based notifications to remind you to complete your habits, and you can tailor them to each habit.

The bad things:

-Ads. 
Every time you complete a habit, you have to sit for five seconds before you can close it. No thank you.

-Limited customization
There’s not a whole lot of customizing you can do for the habit settings compared to some of the other apps on this list. You can only designate a couple of habits set as high priority.

Eden

This is the simplest habit tracking app I found. You create a basic task list, and when you complete all your habits, a flower grows on the main page. The home page is beautiful if you can make good progress.

The good things:

-Simple habit creation
Add a line to your list for each of your habits. That’s it. 

-Reminder function
You can have the app remind you about your habits, and you can choose the days that the habit must be completed.

-Thoughtful Quotes
Morgan Freeman, Benjamin Franklin. You know, the usuals.

The bad things:

-Little customization
The habits are just one line of text per habit. You can’t choose additional values or descriptions. The reminder function can’t be applied to individual habits. That’s a problem if you have habits that need to be completed both in the morning and at night.

I recommend this app if you need something with no frills. If you want more details, use the next habit app on my list:

Habit:

On the surface, this app appears simple. The colors are plain. The design doesn’t have much going for it. However, once you start creating habits, you’ll find all the details that I love.

The good things:

This app has a lot of the nice features from the other apps (vacation mode, reminder features), but there are others, too:

-MANY habit suggestions
This habit app gives you suggestions for habits if you need some help getting started. Aside from the main list on the habit creation page, there’s a “more ideas” tab.

-Highly customizable 
You can change the units that measure your goal (minutes, steps, mL of water, etc) and how many of that count you’d like to complete. You can choose a location-based reminder. You can change the sound that plays per habit to condition yourself to complete it when the sound goes off. You can even change the type of chart that shows your progress over time. 

-Simple but effective completion summaries
There’s a weekly summary at the top of the app that shows your overall progress for the week. The more the circle is filled in, the more habits you’ve completed that day. 

The monthly summary is a longer version of the weekly summary and includes your success rate in a percentage, your days in a row, how many habits you’ve completed, your daily average of how many habits you complete, and how many perfect completion days you’ve had. 

-Buddy system capability
You can invite other people to join you in your habit forming journey if you need some extra accountability. 

The bad things:

-It’s almost too functional
You can get a little in the weeds or overcomplicated with your habit creation.

-Confusing layout
Some functions are a little harder to find. I had to dig around to find the “add habit” button. It’s a plus sign in the bottom left-hand corner. You can edit your existing habits by going into the Stats tab, selecting the habit from the top bar, and scrolling all the way down. I recommend taking some time to play around with it before you start using it.

-iPhone only
I’m sorry, Android folks!

I hope this review was helpful for you. I’ll be keeping Eden on my phone and deleting the others for now. Until next time, pile of apps!

Rachael Bordo

I’m a board-certified health coach and health and wellness content writer with a decade of experience in helping people improve their lives. When I’m not coaching or writing, I’m most likely out getting lost in the woods.

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