Key findings
- Various habit tracking apps can help you monitor the habits you want to develop or break.
- Examples of apps you can try include Habitica and Davetech’s Habit Tracker app.
- Focus on habit trackers that are easy to use to reduce daily effort.
When I started my self-improvement journey in 2019, a handful of apps helped me more easily track habits like going to the gym. They also helped me stay accountable. If you’re looking to make small, regular tweaks in your daily life, these apps will help.
1 Habitica: Best for Gamification
One of the best ways to stick with a habit is to realize that life is like a video game you’re actually playing. And because Habitica makes habit tracking gamified, it’s one of the best apps for making lasting change.
With Habitica, you can set up a tracker for positive habits (e.g. walking 10,000 steps a day) or negative habits (e.g. skipping afternoon coffee). You can change the category via tags and set a difficulty level.
Habitica lets you reset the counter for each of your habits. You can also add notes that you think might be useful. At the top of the home screen, you’ll see health and experience bars, as well as your game level. The level increases as you complete goals.
Once you collect enough points, you can buy different things for your avatar. It is one of many wellness apps that turn self-care into a game.
Download: Habitica for iOS | Android (Free, in-app purchases possible)
Habitica Prices
You can use Habitica for free, but the app also offers optional subscriptions. If you want to support the project, the prices are as follows:
|
1 month |
Quarterly |
Every 6 months |
Yearly |
|---|---|---|---|
|
4,99 € |
14,99 € |
29,99 € |
47,99 € |
2 Super Habit: Best for iOS users
If you’re looking for a less gamified version of Habitica, I recommend this habit tracker instead. You can enter the name of your habit and choose how many days a week you want to do it. For example, I set myself the goal of working out four times a week (Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday).
When you use this habit tracker, you can also choose a start date. You can also choose how many reminders you want to see and decide what day your calendar week should start.
For further customization, you can customize the color of your habit tracker. To get a complete overview of your history, you can view your progress for the current month and year. Most in-app features are free, but you can upgrade to a paid subscription or make a lifetime purchase for unlimited habits.
Download: Super Habit for iOS (Free, in-app purchases possible)
3 Habit Tracker: Best for Ease of Use
Davetech’s Habit Tracker app has a simplified interface with several templates, such as breathing exercises, reading books, eating vegetables, and reflecting on the day. Within each of these templates, you can select specific target time periods and indicate whether you want to achieve them or give up.
Habit Tracker lets you change the icon for each of your habits, making it easier to navigate. Additionally, you can customize the chart type and choose whether it’s relevant for the morning, afternoon, or evening.
Some of the available quitting habit patterns include drinking less alcohol, complaining less, and spending less time playing video games. You can develop your own habits if you don’t want to use any of the patterns.
Habit Tracker lets you check the status of your habits based on whether or not you’ve stuck to them. It also lets you track how you’re feeling, which can help you identify patterns when you’re maintaining or breaking your habits.
Download: Habit Tracker for iOS (Free, in-app purchases possible)
Habit Tracker Pricing
Most features are free, but you can upgrade to a subscription or become a lifetime member. Pricing is as follows:
|
Improve yourself |
Habitual advertising |
Lifetime membership |
|---|---|---|
|
4,98 € |
5,98 € |
12,98 € |
4 Habitify: Best for all-day visualization
Habitify lets you choose from five starting habits, including drinking water and practicing yoga. You can also add your own later. The app lets you choose how often you want to repeat these habits, and you can set daily goals for how long you want to maintain them.
The Habitify app helps you keep everything organized by creating different sections, so if you want to organize your family or just keep track of what’s going on in your life, this is a great choice. For each section, you can customize the name and also choose a different color.
If you want to challenge yourself, there are several challenges available. These are divided on a daily and monthly basis and you will also find several subcategories where you can explore more specific challenges.
Habitify offers comprehensive statistics that give you an overview of your habits. You can see which habits you have completed and which you have missed – as well as those you have partially completed.
Download: Habitify for iOS | Android (Free, in-app purchases possible)
Habitify Pricing
Habitify offers monthly, annual, and lifetime subscriptions. The monthly subscription costs $5.99/month, but is only available on the website.
The prices for the other two are as follows:
|
Yearly |
Lifetime access |
|---|---|
|
$35.99/year |
53,99 € |
5 Streaks: The best-paid habit tracker
You have to pay $5.99 for the Streaks app, but you get lifetime access and the app is quite comprehensive, so if you’re looking to take your habit tracking more seriously, it might be worth considering.
Streaks allows you to track various habits, such as walking your dog and reducing your daily sugar intake. You’ll also find options for reading, learning languages, cleaning the house, and more. Streaks is integrated with the Health app, so you can track various wellness-related aspects, such as increasing or reducing your calorie intake.
To confirm that you have completed your habit for today, you just need to tap and hold the icon and you will see all your habits in the same place on the home screen.
Download: Streaks for iOS | Android ($5.99)
6 Lifestyle: Best for tracking your habits
Way of Life is a simple habit tracker that lets you select whether you’ve completed a habit by simply tapping the checkmark icon. You can also add notes for each habit you want to track and it’s also possible to keep a journal within the app, so it’s worth considering if you’re looking for a micro-diary app too.
The Way of Life app allows you to look at trends over longer periods of time using a bar or pie chart, so you can see if you’re on the right track. You can also set up daily reminders to make sure you do your habit every day.
If you use Way of Life, you can enable password protection if you do not want others to see your activity.
Download: Way of Life for iOS | Android (Free, in-app purchases possible)
Lifestyle pricing
Way of Life is free, but you can upgrade to a premium subscription or get lifetime access. Monthly pricing starts at $4.99/month and you can get the lifetime version for $29.99.
When choosing a habit tracker, you should first choose something that is easy to use and focuses on the core features, then upgrade to something with more complex extras if you need them.
