Surely vs Structured Outliner
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Surely
This app offers a streamlined approach to task management, focusing on completion rather than complex organization. It provides essential actions like completing, deleting, or deferring tasks, intentionally omitting features that might encourage procrastination.
- Complete tasks
- Delete tasks
- Defer tasks
- Minimalist interface
- Focus on task completion
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Most todo apps give you lots of features to organize your todos. But you don't want to be spending time organizing your todos: you want to be completing them. Surely is a focused todo app giving you just the features you need to get your todos done. There are only three things you can do with a todo: * Complete it * Delete it * Defer it Here are all the features Surely doesn't have because they encourage you to keep more todos instead of completing them: * Separate defer dates and due dates * Complex ways of searching for todos * Separate lists of todos so you aren't looking at all of them at once * Bulk defer features. It should not be painless to defer many todos to the future; it should be painful to work with multiple todos so that you complete or delete them Surely is available for free on both iOS and the web.
Structured Outliner
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Keep your entire outline in a single portable file you control. No account, no server, no lock-in, future-proof. ORGANIZE IN UNLIMITED DEPTH Build trees as deep as you need. Expand, collapse, and reorder topics with just a few taps. Every topic can have its own notes. Write as much or as little as you like. SEARCH EVERYTHING Search titles or note content at once. The tree expands automatically to show every match in context, so you always know where a result lives in your outline. CROSS-LINK TOPICS Link any note to another topic using the outlook: link format. Tap to jump directly there. Tap the back arrow to return where you came from. OPEN FILES AND URLS Tap any file path or URL inside a note to open it. Connect your outline to existing documents in the folder: PDFs, photos, or anything else you reference. COLOR LABELS Assign a background color to any topic: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, or Purple. The color flows down to all child topics that don't have their own. Use it to visually separate sections at a glance. AUTOMATIC BACKUPS The app writes a .bak backup before every save. Restore at any time from the menu. SYNC YOUR WAY Store your file in iCloud, Dropbox, Google Drive, or any Files-compatible provider. Open it from there on each device. No special sync setup required. MEMPAD COMPATIBLE Structured Outliner uses the same .lst format as MemPad for Windows, a portable outliner that has been around since the early 2000s. Open existing MemPad files directly, no conversion needed. FREE VERSION Structured Outliner is free to use. Development is supported by a small banner ad shown at the bottom of the screen. PRO VERSION Upgrade to Pro to remove the banner ad, unlock Color Labels and Topic + Note Search and future planned features. One-time purchase. Restore on any device from the menu.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Surely at none against Structured Outliner's 1. Surely also leads on ads (none vs shown) and iOS requirement (15.1 vs 17.0). Structured Outliner's advantage is update cadence (every 9 days vs every 6 weeks). On price and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Structured Outliner sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Surely asks for nothing beyond the download.
Surely ships an update every 6 weeks, Structured Outliner every 9 days. The most recent releases landed on October 30, 2026 and October 24, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Surely | Structured Outliner |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 5.0 (1 ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 1 — better | — |
| Update frequency | Every 6 weeks | Every 9 days — better |
| Ads | No — better | Yes |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Free | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 15.1 — better | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 34 MB | 6 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Josh Justice | Felipe Carraro |
In-app purchases
Surely
No in-app purchases
Structured Outliner
- Pro Version$7.99









