Comparison

Basic Checklist vs Life Lists

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Basic Checklist

Create unlimited checklists for groceries, to-dos, or any organizational need. This free, ad-free app helps you stay organized and track accomplishments by crossing items off your lists.

Highlights
  • Unlimited checklist creation
  • Ad-free experience
  • Grocery list organizer
  • To-do list management
  • Track accomplishments
Features
Read full description

Free and with no ads, this basic checklist allows you to create any number of checklists for the grocery store, supplies, to-dos, or anything else to keep you organized. If you're like me, crossing things off a list means you've accomplished something. Enjoy this free app to help make your productivity even more productive. Give it a try and see if it can work for you.

About

Life Lists

This app helps you organize everything in your life with customizable checklists, notes, habit trackers, and more. It offers advanced features like subtasks, sections, and visual customization with icons and colors. Keep your data private locally or sync across Apple devices.

Highlights
  • Customizable checklists and notes
  • Habit tracking for recurring tasks
  • Workout logging and tracking
  • Budgeting and cost calculation
  • Visual customization with icons and colors
  • Syncing across Apple devices
  • Collaboration on lists
Features
Read full description

Life Lists is one place for everything in your life — lists, notes, habits, budgets and plans — with an AI assistant that keeps it organized. ASK, AND KEEP THE ANSWER • Ask anything. Answers come back as clear cards: a verdict, an estimate you can adjust, steps, comparisons, diagrams. • Turn an answer into something you own — a checklist, a budget, a pro/con list, habits — filed in the right folder. • Snap a photo of a listing, a receipt or a product and get the answer it implies: is it a good deal, how do we split the bill, what's next? • Research in depth: one sentence becomes a folder with an overview, budget, plan, options and sources. • Talk instead of typing with voice chat. • The chat knows your lists and updates them: "add milk and eggs", "what's left to pack?" ORGANIZED FOR YOU • A folder for each part of your life — Health, Home, Work, Family — with what you're working on at the top. • Organize automatically tidies as you go: related lists grouped, empty ones put away, every change one tap to undo. • A dashboard for your day: what's due, what's late, your habits and the weather. EVERY KIND OF LIST • Checklists, prioritized and numbered lists, sections • Groceries that sort themselves by aisle • Habits with streaks, reminders and packing lists • Notes, notebooks, a journal and stickies • Budgets that add up, weighted pro/con lists, side-by-side comparisons • People lists for birthdays and the details that matter • Tools beside your lists: timer, stopwatch, focus mode, counter, breathing, voice memos and meeting notes EVERYWHERE YOU ARE • iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Watch, plus home screen widgets • Sync with iCloud and share lists with family and friends — or keep everything on your device • 500+ icons and colors, unlimited lists, no ads YOUR DATA, YOUR CHOICE • Your lists live on your device and, if you choose, in your iCloud. • AI features send what you ask to our AI providers only after you allow it. Turn AI off anytime and Life Lists works as a classic list app.

Screenshots

Basic Checklist2 screens
Life Lists4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is update cadence: Life Lists at weekly against Basic Checklist's every 26 months. Life Lists also leads on rating (4.6 vs 4.2) and ratings volume (1.8K vs 21). Basic Checklist's advantage is review sentiment (83% vs 74%) and iOS requirement (12.0 vs 16.0). On price, ads, in-app purchases and monetization model 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Life Lists holds the better App Store score, 4.6 against 4.2. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Life Lists has 1.8K ratings behind it against 21, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 83% of Basic Checklist's written reviews are positive against 74% of Life Lists's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Basic Checklist ships an update every 26 months, Life Lists weekly. The most recent releases landed on October 16, 2026 and October 18, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard5 real differences · 5 level
Basic Checklist versus Life Lists: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterBasic ChecklistLife Lists
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.2 (21 ratings)4.6 (1.8K ratings) — better
Positive reviews83.3% of reviews — better73.6% of reviews
Number of ratings211.8K — better
Update frequencyEvery 26 monthsWeekly — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFreeFree
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch — better
Requires iOS12.0 — better16.0
Further details — not scored
Size9 MB142 MB
Age rating4+17+
DeveloperDerek CarterDG Apps, Inc.

Customer experience

Basic Checklist

All ratings21 ratings
Positive85.7%
Neutral9.5%
Negative4.8%
Written reviews30 reviews
Positive83.3%
Neutral3.3%
Negative13.3%

Life Lists

All ratings1,813 ratings
Positive91.3%
Neutral4.9%
Negative3.8%
Written reviews129 reviews
Positive73.6%
Neutral11.6%
Negative14.7%

Bugs and requests

Basic Checklist

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

Life Lists

Reported bugs

4 issues
  • Lists disappearing or getting corrupted
  • Inability to paste text into list items
  • Unexpected list item reordering
  • Crash when trying to create new lists

Requested features

5 requests
  • Recurring reminders or to-do items
  • Ability to sort lists manually
  • Cross-device syncing and sharing
  • Password protection for sensitive lists
  • iPad and landscape mode support

In-app purchases

None

Basic Checklist

No in-app purchases

None

Life Lists

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Basic Checklist free?
Basic Checklist is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Life Lists free?
Life Lists is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Basic Checklist or Life Lists?
Life Lists is rated higher. Basic Checklist averages 4.2 out of 5 from 21 ratings, while Life Lists averages 4.6 from 1.8K ratings.
Do Basic Checklist or Life Lists have ads?
Neither Basic Checklist nor Life Lists shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Basic Checklist or Life Lists?
Basic Checklist ships an update every 26 months, and Life Lists weekly. Most recently, Basic Checklist was updated on October 16, 2026 and Life Lists on October 18, 2026.

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