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Comparisons of online outliners
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Posted by jaslar
May 17, 2018 at 11:19 PM
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.
Posted by satis
May 18, 2018 at 01:37 AM
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.)
Posted by thouqht
May 18, 2018 at 01:36 PM
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).
Posted by Luhmann
May 18, 2018 at 02:07 PM
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.
Posted by satis
May 18, 2018 at 02:25 PM
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