Comparison

Fantastical Calendar vs Things 3

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

Head to head
About

Fantastical Calendar

This powerful calendar and task management app offers intuitive natural language input for event creation, multiple calendar views, and robust task integration. It provides weather forecasts and advanced features like meeting polls and video conferencing integration for premium users.

Highlights
  • Natural language event and task creation
  • Multiple calendar views (day, week, month, year)
  • Integrated task management (Todoist, Google Tasks)
  • Weather forecasts
  • Meeting scheduling and polls
  • Video conferencing integration
Features
Read full description

Fantastical is the award-winning calendar app with powerful features including intuitive natural language text parsing, beautiful full calendar day, week, month, quarter and year views, tasks, time zone support, and much, much more. TRY FANTASTICAL FOR FREE • Beautiful, clean, and easy to use calendar app allowing you to manage basic events • The DayTicker and calendar makes your schedule look the nicest it ever has • Full screen day, week, month, quarter, and year views • Full task support including Todoist and Google Tasks • 3 day weather forecast (powered by AccuWeather) • 14 day free trial for Flexibits Premium UPGRADE TO FLEXIBITS PREMIUM FOR EVEN MORE (requires subscription) • Includes Fantastical on all devices: Mac, iPhone, Apple Watch, and iPad • Openings: Schedule events based on your availability • Proposals: Create meeting polls • Add Zoom, Google Meet, Webex, and Microsoft Teams calls • Extended 10 day weather forecast with RealFeel and MinuteCast up-to-the-minute weather data (powered by AccuWeather) • Browse and instantly subscribe to interesting calendars, including sports, TV shows, holidays, and much more (powered by SchedJoules) • Calendar sets - quickly toggle multiple calendars on or off with a simple click or automatically when you leave or arrive, based on location • Event and task templates • Sync calendar sets and templates across devices • Apple Watch app with Up Next and Weather (and works over LTE) • Parser autocomplete recommendations for invitees, locations, and calendars/task lists • Propose multiple times to easily ask people when they can meet • Combine duplicate events across multiple calendars • Invitees and availability lookups • Respond to event invitations • Default alerts • Time zone override • Favorite time zones • Push updates for Google and Exchange • Set event travel time and receive time to leave notifications • Custom event colors • Custom home screen icons • Custom alert sounds • Hide events without deleting them • Add attachments to events on iCloud, Google, and Exchange • Priority email support ADDING NEW EVENTS OR TASKS IS FAST AND FUN • The easiest and fastest way to add new events or tasks • Type in your details or use dictation and watch your words magically turn into an actual event or task! • Powerful parser features, including: - Create tasks by starting your sentence with “task” ”reminder", "todo", or "remind me to" - Powerful and expressive repeating events such as third Thursday of every month, every weekend, last weekday of the month, and more - Create alerts with phrases like "remind me tomorrow at 3PM", "alert 1 hour before", or "alarm 3PM" THE BEST TASKS APP, TOO • See your events and dated tasks together in the main list • Add tasks directly from the Tasks list or new event screen - just flip the switch to toggle between events and tasks • Set dates, times, and geofences (when I arrive/when I leave) • Support for iCloud Reminders, Todoist, and Google Tasks WORKS THE WAY YOU DO • Connects to your favorite calendar services including iCloud, Google, Exchange, Office 365, Todoist, and more • Automatically add alarms to your new events • Fantastical is fully localized in English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, and Portuguese • Start typing your event or task in any of these languages and Fantastical will automagically understand! EVEN MORE FANTASTICAL • Lots and lots of iOS and iPadOS widgets • Background app updating enables events, tasks, and alerts to be pushed to Fantastical even if you don't launch the app often • Birthdays and Anniversaries - see your contact’s details or send a quick birthday or anniverary greeting • Handoff support between Fantastical for Mac, iPhone, and iPad • Time zone support including floating time zone support • Dark and light themes • Stickers • Accessibility support • And much, much more!

About

Things 3

This app helps you organize your life by planning your day, managing projects, and tracking progress toward your goals. It offers a clean interface to manage tasks, projects, and life areas, making it easy to focus on what matters.

Highlights
  • To-Do management
  • Project organization
  • Area categorization
  • Daily planning
  • Reminders and repeaters
  • Calendar integration
  • Share extension
Features
Read full description

Get things done! The award-winning Things app helps you plan your day, manage your projects, and make real progress toward your goals. Best of all, it’s easy to use. Within the hour, you’ll have everything off your mind and neatly organized—from routine tasks to your biggest life goals—and you can start focusing on what matters today. “Things offers the best combination of design and functionality of any app we tested, with nearly all the features of other power user applications and a delightful interface that never gets in the way of your work.” —Wirecutter, The New York Times KEY FEATURES • Your To-Dos Your basic building block is the almighty To-Do—each a small step toward a great accomplishment. You can add notes, tag it, schedule it, and break it down into smaller steps. • Your Projects Create a Project for any big goal, then add the to-dos to reach it. Use headings to structure your list as you outline your plan. There’s also a place to jot down your notes, and a deadline to keep you on schedule. • Your Areas Create an Area for each sphere of your life, such as Work, Family, Finance, and so on. This keeps everything neatly organized, and helps you see the big picture as you set your plans in motion. • Your Plan Everything on your schedule is neatly laid out in the Today and Upcoming lists, which show your to-dos and calendar events. Each morning, see what you planned for Today and decide what you want to do. The rest is down to you :) MORE THINGS TO LOVE As you dive deeper, you’ll find Things packed with helpful features. Here are just a few: • Reminders — set a time and Things will remind you. • Repeaters — automatically repeat to-dos on a schedule you set. • This Evening — a special place for your evening plans. • Calendar integration — see your events and to-dos together. • Tags — categorize your to-dos and quickly filter lists. • Quick Find — instantly find to-dos or switch between lists. • Magic Plus — drag the + button to insert to-dos anywhere in a list. • Share extension — create to-dos with content from other apps. • Widgets — see lists on your home/lock screens. • Mail to Things — forward an email to Things; now it’s a to-do. • Markdown — structure & style your notes. • And much more! MADE FOR IPHONE Things is tailored to the iPhone with deep system integrations as well. A great example is the Share extension, which allows you to create to-dos with content from other apps, such as a link to a website you want to get back to. You can also enjoy a beautiful dark mode at sunset, connect your calendars, add a variety of widgets, create to-dos via Siri, import from Reminders—Things can do it all! There’s even Shortcuts integration if you want to automate your workflows. MADE FOR APPLE WATCH Things comes with a great app for Apple Watch. Just raise your wrist to glance at your Today list, mark to-dos complete as you go, and dictate new ones on the fly—all synced instantly with your iPhone, iPad, and Mac. AWARD-WINNING DESIGN Made in Stuttgart, with two Apple Design Awards to its name, Things is a fine example of German engineering: designed not only to look fantastic, but to be perfectly functional as well. Every detail is thoughtfully considered, then polished to perfection. “It’s like the unicorn of productivity tools: deep enough for serious work, surprisingly easy to use, and gorgeous enough to enjoy staring at.” —Apple GET THINGS TODAY Whatever it is you want to accomplish in life, Things can help you get there. Install the app today and see what you can do! • Things is also available for Mac, iPad, and Apple Vision Pro (sold separately). • Sync is provided for free via our Things Cloud service. • A free trial is available for Mac: www.things.app If you have any questions, please get in touch. We provide professional support and will be glad to help you!

Screenshots

Fantastical Calendar4 screens
Things 34 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Fantastical Calendar at Free against Things 3's $9.99. Fantastical Calendar also leads on device support (4 vs 2). Things 3's advantage is rating (4.8 vs 4.2) and in-app purchases (none vs 10). On ratings volume, update cadence, ads and iOS requirement 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

Fantastical Calendar is free to download; Things 3 costs $9.99 up front. Fantastical Calendar sells 10 in-app purchases, starting at $6.99 per month. Things 3 asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Things 3 holds the better App Store score, 4.8 against 4.2. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 25K and 28K respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 47% of Fantastical Calendar's written reviews are positive against 76% of Things 3's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Fantastical Calendar ships an update every 3 weeks, Things 3 fortnightly. Both last shipped on October 15, 2026.

Scorecard7 real differences · 4 level
Fantastical Calendar versus Things 3: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterFantastical CalendarThings 3
PriceFree — better$9.99
Rating4.2 (25K ratings)4.8 (28K ratings) — better
Positive reviews46.8% of reviews76.5% of reviews — better
Number of ratings25K28K — better
Update frequencyEvery 3 weeksFortnightly — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFreemium — betterPaid
Best chart rank#134#4 — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Vision Pro — betteriPhone, Apple Watch
Requires iOS17.616.4 — better
Further details — not scored
Size185 MB118 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperFlexibits Inc.Cultured Code GmbH & Co. KG

Customer experience

Fantastical Calendar

All ratings24,537 ratings
Positive80.0%
Neutral3.4%
Negative16.6%
Written reviews947 reviews
Positive46.8%
Neutral11.7%
Negative41.5%

Things 3

All ratings27,942 ratings
Positive96.1%
Neutral1.7%
Negative2.2%
Written reviews1,888 reviews
Positive76.5%
Neutral8.4%
Negative15.1%

User reviews

Fantastical Calendar

From 25K App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🚀 Intuitive and easy to use
  • 👍 Excellent natural language input
  • 💡 Helpful calendar integration features
  • 🚀 Smooth syncing across devices
  • 👍 Beautiful and clean UI design

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Inconsistent behavior with reminders and event management
  • 💰 Expensive subscription model
  • 🤖 Overly aggressive upselling of premium features
  • 🤔 Concerns about forced account creation
  • 🐛 Sync issues between iOS and Mac versions

Things 3

From 28K App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🚀 Smooth and fast
  • 👍 Elegant and intuitive design
  • 🔒 Secure and private
  • 💡 Powerful organization features
  • 🗓️ Great calendar integration

Room to improve

  • 💰 Expensive for multiple devices
  • 🌐 Lack of web/Windows app
  • 🔀 Difficulty with task reordering
  • 🔔 Lacking persistent notifications
  • 📁 No file attachments

Bugs and requests

Fantastical Calendar

Reported bugs

3 issues
  • Apple Watch sync problems
  • Events disappearing or changing unexpectedly
  • Freezing and crashing on certain user actions

Requested features

4 requests
  • Option to disable predictive input features
  • Improved calendar set management
  • Enhanced integration with third-party apps and services
  • Ability to customize app icons and themes

Things 3

Reported bugs

2 issues
  • Sync issues between devices
  • Occasional crashes or freezes

Requested features

5 requests
  • Ability to collapse headings and projects
  • Location-based reminders
  • Two-way calendar sync
  • Shared task lists
  • Customizable alert sounds

In-app purchases

10 purchases

Fantastical Calendar

Subscriptions10
  • Premium (2020 Upgrade)$6.991 Month
  • Flexibits Premium14 Days trial$6.991 Month
  • Premium (2020 Upgrade)3 Months trial$6.991 Month
Show 7 more
  • Premium for Families14 Days trial$10.491 Month
  • Premium Family (2020 Upgrade)$10.491 Month
  • Premium (2020 Upgrade)$56.991 Year
  • Flexibits Premium14 Days trial$56.991 Year
  • Premium (2020 Upgrade)3 Months trial$56.991 Year
  • Premium for Families14 Days trial$89.991 Year
  • Premium Family (2020 Upgrade)$89.991 Year
None

Things 3

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Fantastical Calendar free?
Fantastical Calendar is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Things 3 free?
Things 3 costs $9.99, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Fantastical Calendar or Things 3?
Things 3 is rated higher. Fantastical Calendar averages 4.2 out of 5 from 25K ratings, while Things 3 averages 4.8 from 28K ratings.
Do Fantastical Calendar or Things 3 have ads?
Neither Fantastical Calendar nor Things 3 shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Fantastical Calendar or Things 3?
Fantastical Calendar ships an update every 3 weeks, and Things 3 fortnightly. Most recently, Fantastical Calendar was updated on October 15, 2026 and Things 3 on October 15, 2026.
Which is more popular, Fantastical Calendar or Things 3?
Fantastical Calendar currently peaks at #134 in the App Store charts, and Things 3 at #4. Chart position reflects recent download velocity rather than total install base.

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