This is sponsored by Dynalist, so reflects that bias. But what do you all think?

On the list: Dynalist versus WorkFlowy, Moo.do, and Checkvist.

https://dynalist.io/compare

Dynalist is the service that recommended last Xmas that in order to take advantage of their 1-yr 50%-off deal that existing users should 'unsubscribe first.' That they are unable to code a simple promo code for existing users does not speak well of them.

Checkvist has been around since at least 2010 and is pretty robust... if not pretty. And one of Dynalist's founders admitted she started coding it by cloning (and trying to improve upon the then-moribund) Workflowy. So the question of a mature codebase is just as important as checklist (so to speak) features.

Chart does not address issues of stability, robustness, speed and quality of desktop/mobile apps, which are pretty important too. Also, I don't think the comparison to Moo.Do is particularly apt. Moo.Do is designed to integrate with all your Google services, not offer the kind of endless outline offered by Workflowy/Checkvist/Dynalist.

Also, pricing should be considered Checkvist is $39/year, Workflowy is $49/year, Dynalist is $96. (Moo.Do is $70/yr but they recently had that weird lifetime pro membership for $60 on StackSocial.)

I've used them all pretty intensely except for moo which I only really glanced at. IMO Dynalist is the best of them by a long shot in my opinion.

Workflowy is where I started, but they dropped the ball by just not really doing anything for years. They are starting to develop again, but I think they are more focused on simplicity than power - which is great for many, but I'm a power user who wants more features if they mean higher functionality even if it comes at the price of a higher learning curve.

Chekvist is pretty robust but it's ugly as as heck. It really bothers me how cluttered and messy the top of the screen is. I'm looking at zoomable outliners so that I can hide all the information that I DON'T want to see, don't make me look at your ugly header all day. It also ran slower and was less responsive for me which was annoying. I did like the keyboard shortcuts and ability to create separate files (looking at you workflowy).

Dynalist is the king though. Except for one instance of the servers being down, Dynalist has pretty much done everything the others have plus some. Some of the extra stuff like custom keyboard shortcuts is a big deal for me. Also, their development cycle has been pretty impressive. They put out weekly updates which is pretty awesome. There's a few features on their development board that if they go live would make it even better.

I get it if people care about the price, but I don't. I use this stuff professionally all day every day and would easily pay 5x as much if I had to (though I'd demand a fully functional desktop version with tabs and split screens at that point).

I'm surprised how far Checkvist has come along. I used them when they first came out, but haven't checked back in for a while. Since they don't have a proper iOS app I'm not interested in using them again, but I'm impressed how they've stayed competitive.

I just wish Dynalist could get their act together on iOS...

Two not on the list are Mubu, which is only in Chinese and data stored on a Chinese server, but which has a better iOS app than the others. The other is Outlinely which hasn't been updated ever since it went to a subscription model.

Luhmann wrote:

I'm surprised how far Checkvist has come along. I used them when they
first came out, but haven't checked back in for a while. Since they
don't have a proper iOS app I'm not interested in using them again, but
I'm impressed how they've stayed competitive.

m.checkvist.com isn't bad. More info here:

https://checkvist.com/auth/mobile

Also, I haven't used it but Checkvistle is a free (as in beer) 3rd-party iOS app for Checkvist, though it hasn't been updated in 18 months:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/checkvistle-checkvist-on-the-go/id995611134

I am sure all four online outlining services are very good. I prefer Dynalist because it just works the way I want it to. I like that I can create separate lists (unlike Workflowy). The bookmark feature works great for me. Color-coding list items, adding notes to items, the ability to make items one of three levels of header, adding dates and tags... that all works for me. Yes, they need to make a better iOS app. And the one other thing I'd like to see improved is how the export works. It just feels kind of clumsy to me.

The proof, however, will be when the "Early Bird" pricing goes away and instead of $4 per month, it is $8. I'm not sure I'd sign on for $96 per year.

Steve Z.

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

The proof, however, will be when the "Early Bird" pricing goes away and
instead of $4 per month, it is $8. I'm not sure I'd sign on for $96 per
year.

According to Erica at Dynalist, if you took advantage of the Early Bird pricing (which I did), you will keep it forever, even if you let your subscription lapse and then resubscribe later.

AFAIK, Early Bird pricing is no longer being offered. I agree that $96/year is pretty steep but Dynalist can be pretty aggressive about building their customer base, so there may be other offers in the future.

Yes, they said Early Bird is forever. They were pretty aggressive pushing the offer last June/July, and I remember getting emails from them saying that I could even sign up for a single month under Early Bird, and if I wanted to cancel they'd always let me return later with that sale pricing in effect. One reason I didn't take them up on it (aside from not being an active user) was that the sales pitch seemed a bit *too* aggressive to me, and I figured similar deals would eventually reappear.

They haven't, so far. (shrug) They did offer an end of year "one time only" 1-year, 50%-off deal, though last year on Reddit Erica said "I was planning to do a promotion where you can pay what you want for our product, and we'll give 50% that to a charity" which she apparently chose not to do. Currently you can google coupon codes for them as well, which are in the 10%-20% range, though I'm not sure if any are active. (To my knowledge neither checkvist nor workflowy have offered sales or coupon codes.) Maybe Dynalist had no choice but to charge more than the competition as they ramp up their development; as of two years ago the company was just two full-time college students.

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

I'm not sure I'd sign on for $96 per year.

If one didn't know about Dynalist's "pro" features, I think most people would find the free tier more than adequate. It stands up well to the pro-plan offered by Workflowy. I think most people could use the free version for years without ever needing any of the pro features, and it would still be better than most of the other options out there. If only they could get it together on iOS...

Free:
Unlimited items & documents
Move item
Internal linking
Markdown formatting
Dates
Tags
Checklist
Sharing & collaboration
Export & import
5 bookmarks

Pro:
Google Calendar integration
Capture to inbox
Unlimited bookmarks
Tag pane
Image and file attachments
Version history
Daily Dropbox & Google Drive backup
Item finder
Custom shortcuts
Custom date display format
Priority support

My vote goes to Dynalist. Development is very active, recent speed improvements in browser are very welcome (before that, Workflowy felt more nimble).
Not quite there yet though ... e.g. tags are part of body text and are always exported as such (which in most cases for me doesn't make sense - hate having to clean them up manually). Also iOS version has ways to go.

moritz wrote:

My vote goes to Dynalist. Development is very active, recent speed
improvements in browser are very welcome (before that, Workflowy felt
more nimble).

Has anyone else noticed a sudden improvement in Workflowy's speed this week? I know they've moved to new servers a couple of months ago, but it was only this week that I noticed a dramatic improvement in the responsiveness (when navigating the tree, not necessarily in the initial loading of the site - but my file is huge anyway).

P.S. Those of you who are Dynalist customers, have you managed to find out in which country Dynalist the organisation is based and what jurisdiction applies to their services (or where the data is held)? I haven't been able to find out much in that regard.

On speed: I've noticed both workflowy and dynalist have sped up some this past year. workflowy has always been faster for me, in web, android, and desktop. I have 1000's of items in each service (why? it's nuts I know). I feel like dynalist struggles with really huge amounts of data in one big list where workflowy doesn't, and I like one huge list, not separate documents like dynalist offers (although I completely understand how some people do like the separate documents).

On development pace: dynalist has slowed considerably, workflowy has picked up a lot. dynalist appears "stuck" to me. I hope they can "unstick" because I like them a lot.

Looks like it's hosted on Digital Ocean and uploads are on AWS.

Btw, you can now hide the header in Checkvist by typing 'om'

thouqht wrote:

I've used them all pretty intensely except for moo which I only really
glanced at. IMO Dynalist is the best of them by a long shot in my
opinion.

Workflowy is where I started, but they dropped the ball by just not
really doing anything for years. They are starting to develop again, but
I think they are more focused on simplicity than power - which is great
for many, but I'm a power user who wants more features if they mean
higher functionality even if it comes at the price of a higher learning
curve.

Chekvist is pretty robust but it's ugly as as heck. It really bothers me
how cluttered and messy the top of the screen is. I'm looking at
zoomable outliners so that I can hide all the information that I DON'T
want to see, don't make me look at your ugly header all day. It also ran
slower and was less responsive for me which was annoying. I did like the
keyboard shortcuts and ability to create separate files (looking at you
workflowy).

Dynalist is the king though. Except for one instance of the servers
being down, Dynalist has pretty much done everything the others have
plus some. Some of the extra stuff like custom keyboard shortcuts is a
big deal for me. Also, their development cycle has been pretty
impressive. They put out weekly updates which is pretty awesome. There's
a few features on their development board that if they go live would
make it even better.

I get it if people care about the price, but I don't. I use this stuff
professionally all day every day and would easily pay 5x as much if I
had to (though I'd demand a fully functional desktop version with tabs
and split screens at that point).

Somebody remarked that DynaList tags are body-embedded – which is true, but DynaList also finds them if you put them in notes.

Dr Andus wrote:

P.S. Those of you who are Dynalist customers, have you managed to find
out in which country Dynalist the organisation is based and what
jurisdiction applies to their services (or where the data is held)? I
haven't been able to find out much in that regard.

Devs formed the company in Canada, and remain there, I believe.

I used Twitter, and got this response:

Dynalist
‏

@DynalistHQ
Replying to @jaslar
Our company is based in Canada, and our servers live in the United States. Does that answer your question?

satis wrote:

Dr Andus wrote:
> P.S. Those of you who are Dynalist customers, have you managed to find
>out in which country Dynalist the organisation is based and what
>jurisdiction applies to their services (or where the data is held)? I
>haven't been able to find out much in that regard.

Devs formed the company in Canada, and remain there, I believe.

jaslar wrote:

I used Twitter, and got this response:
Our company is based in Canada, and our servers live in the United
States.

@jaslar, many thanks for following that up!