Dainvo vs Ellie Planner

Dainvo is a local-first planning workspace for calendars, tasks, projects, meetings, notes, and focused work. Its calendar offers day, week, month, year, and list views, plus weather and time zones. Calendar connections include Google, Outlook, Apple, CalDAV, and Dainvo calendars; task connections include Todoist, Microsoft To Do, Google Tasks, TickTick, monday.com, and Obsidian. Users can schedule tasks, group them into Buckets, and plan work sessions for Projects. Projects can contain ordered tasks, a deadline, one level of subprojects, notes, file links, and multiple calendar blocks. Meeting links support Google Meet, Zoom, Webex, and Microsoft Teams. Connected calendar events and tasks sync with their providers, while Project Notes and local file links stay on the user’s computer. The encrypted local SQLite store uses a key protected by operating-system secure storage. Dainvo has a Free plan and Pro plans at $5 a month or $48 a year. Its Android, iPhone, and iPad apps are listed as Early Access.

Ellie Planner is a daily planner for collecting tasks and shaping them into a plan for the day. Its Brain Dump feature provides a place to offload tasks, while the Daily Kanban lets users drag tasks into a calendar to block out time. Ellie also lists analytics, a built-in time tracker, recurring tasks, and focus sessions. Optional connections include Google, Apple, and Outlook calendars, along with Notion, Zapier, and Siri shortcuts. The app is listed for iOS, macOS, web, and Windows. The free plan includes unlimited tasks, Brain Dump, and access on iPhone, iPad, and web. Pro costs $9.99 a month and adds timebox mode, Google and Apple Calendar, recurring tasks, labels, subtasks, due dates, reminders, and an AI assistant. A Lifetime option is listed at $299.99 a month, with the plan described as one payment and no recurring bill. Ellie says it does not sell user data or run ads, and users can export their data or delete their account. Google calendar access is optional.