Don't Forget Me vs Tody — Which Is Better in 2026?

Both of these apps show you things getting dirtier over time. Both use visual indicators that escalate as tasks become overdue. And both solve the same fundamental problem: you forgot to clean something, and now it's gross.

But that's where the similarities end. Tody is a dedicated cleaning app that goes deep on rooms and zones. Don't Forget Me is a life tracker that goes wide across everything you need to not forget — cleaning included. This comparison will help you figure out which scope fits your actual life.

The Core Difference

Don't Forget Me answers: "What in my life needs attention right now?"

Tody answers: "Which rooms need cleaning right now?"

Don't Forget Me is a general-purpose recurring task tracker where cleaning is one category among many. Tody is a specialist cleaning scheduler with no ambitions beyond that. Neither approach is wrong — it depends on whether your problem is "I forget to clean" or "I forget to do everything."

Feature-by-Feature Comparison

Scope & Coverage

Don't Forget Me: Tracks anything recurring across four categories — relationships (calling parents, seeing friends), habits (exercise, reading), home maintenance (air filters, gutters, HVAC), and health (dentist, checkups, medications). Cleaning fits naturally under home maintenance. You manage your entire recurring life in one place.

Tody: Tracks cleaning tasks organized by room. Kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, living room — each with customizable tasks and frequencies. That's it. Deliberately and effectively focused.

Verdict: If you only need cleaning tracking, Tody's focus is a strength. If you need cleaning plus everything else, Don't Forget Me eliminates the need for multiple apps.

Visual Urgency System

Don't Forget Me: Color-coded urgency based on elapsed time vs. target frequency. Colors shift continuously: gold (< 50% of frequency elapsed) → amber (50-75%) → orange (75-100%) → red (overdue). The dashboard shows all your trackers at once with their current colors, so you see the full picture instantly.

Tody: Visual "dirtiness" indicators per task that fill up over time. Each task has a bar that fills from clean to dirty. Rooms aggregate their tasks, so you can see overall room cleanliness at a glance. The visual metaphor is intuitive — things literally look dirtier on screen as time passes.

Verdict: Both approaches work well. Tody's "dirtiness" metaphor is more emotionally resonant for cleaning specifically. Don't Forget Me's color system is more universal — it works equally well for "clean the bathroom" and "call the dentist."

Granularity

Don't Forget Me: One tracker per task. "Clean bathroom" is a single tracker with a single frequency and a single urgency indicator. You decide the level of detail — you could create one tracker per room or break it into "Scrub shower," "Clean toilet," "Mop bathroom floor" as separate trackers.

Tody: Tasks are nested inside rooms, and rooms can be divided into zones. A kitchen might have zones for countertops, floor, stove, oven, fridge, and sink — each with their own frequency and dirtiness indicator. This granularity is Tody's killer feature. You know that the kitchen floor needs mopping but the countertops are fine.

Verdict: Tody wins on cleaning granularity. If you care about zone-level detail, Tody is built for that. Don't Forget Me gives you the flexibility to be as granular or as broad as you want, but you build that structure yourself.

Shared Use & Household Features

Don't Forget Me: Shared trackers let both partners see the same tasks with the same urgency status. The household dashboard shows personal and shared tasks in one view. Completion history tracks who did what and when. The Ping feature lets you send a nudge to your partner when something is overdue — through the app, not through a passive-aggressive text.

Balance tracking quantifies the division of labor over time.

Tody: Sharing is available on premium plans. You can assign tasks to household members and see who completed what.

Verdict: Don't Forget Me has deeper household features — balance tracking, Ping nudges, household dashboard, and challenges. Tody's sharing is functional but less developed. For couples managing cleaning together, Don't Forget Me offers more tools for accountability and fairness. For detailed info on splitting chores, see our guide on how to split chores fairly.

Beyond Cleaning

Don't Forget Me: Full coverage. You track vacuuming, mopping, and deep cleaning the bathroom alongside "Call parents," "Change air filter," "Dog to vet," and "Schedule dentist." One dashboard, one system, one app.

Tody: No non-cleaning features. You can technically add non-cleaning tasks by creating creative room names, but the entire UX is designed around rooms and cleaning. Adding "Call Mom" to your kitchen tasks feels like a hack.

Verdict: Don't Forget Me. Not close. If your life involves things beyond cleaning — which it does — Don't Forget Me covers all of it.

Setup & Getting Started

Don't Forget Me: Install the Couple Household pack or Chore War pack and you have pre-built cleaning trackers in under a minute.

Tody: Walk through your home room by room, adding tasks and zones. Setting up a kitchen with 6 zones and 15 tasks takes 10-15 minutes. Good default templates help.

Verdict: Don't Forget Me is faster. Tody's setup takes longer but produces more detailed tracking.

Reminders & Notifications

Pricing Comparison

	Don't Forget Me	Tody
Free tier	10 trackers	Limited tasks/rooms
Premium	Solo €3/mo (unlimited trackers)	$4.99/year (Solo) to ~$30/year (Family)
Household	Together €5/mo (5 people)	Sharing in premium
Best value for	Whole-life tracking	Cleaning-only tracking

Tody's premium is very affordable for what it does. Don't Forget Me's pricing reflects broader functionality. Both have usable free tiers.

Head-to-Head Summary

Aspect	Don't Forget Me	Tody
Scope	All recurring tasks	Cleaning only
Organization	Categories + labels	Rooms + zones
Visual urgency	✅ Color-coded	✅ Dirtiness bars
Granularity	Task-level (flexible)	Zone-level (detailed)
Shared tracking	✅ Built-in	Premium only
Ping/nudge	✅	❌
Balance tracking	✅	❌
Beyond cleaning	✅ Everything	❌ Cleaning only
Starter packs	✅ Multiple	✅ Room templates
Setup time	< 2 minutes	10-15 minutes

Who Should Choose What

Choose Don't Forget Me if:

• You need to track cleaning and everything else in life
• You share a household and want accountability features (balance tracking, Ping)
• You prefer simplicity over granularity
• You want one app for all recurring tasks
• You care about the overall state of your household, not just how clean the kitchen zones are

Choose Tody if:

• Cleaning is genuinely your only tracking need
• You want zone-level detail (kitchen counter vs. kitchen floor vs. kitchen stove)
• You think about cleaning room by room, not task by task
• You enjoy the "dirtiness filling up" visual metaphor
• You don't need to track health, relationships, or home maintenance

Consider using both if:

• You want Tody's cleaning granularity AND Don't Forget Me's whole-life tracking
• You're willing to manage two apps (one for cleaning zones, one for everything else)

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better for cleaning?

If cleaning is your only concern, Tody's room-and-zone system is more detailed and purpose-built. But if you're tracking cleaning as part of a broader household management approach, Don't Forget Me keeps cleaning tasks alongside everything else you need to remember. Most people's actual problem isn't "I need zone-level kitchen tracking" — it's "I forget to clean regularly." Both solve the latter.

Which covers more than just cleaning?

Don't Forget Me, by design. Tody is deliberately cleaning-only. Don't Forget Me's categories span relationships, habits, home maintenance, and health. One dashboard for your entire recurring life.

Can both be used together?

Yes. Use Tody for deep cleaning schedules (zone-by-zone, room-by-room detail) and Don't Forget Me for the rest of your life — vacuuming frequency, but also calling parents, car maintenance, health appointments, and everything else Tody can't touch. Some people find this is the best of both worlds.

The Bottom Line

Tody is an excellent app that does one thing really well: room-based cleaning scheduling with satisfying visual indicators. If that's all you need, it's a great choice at a great price.

But most people who are comparing these two apps have already realized that their problem extends beyond cleaning. The bathroom isn't the only thing they're forgetting — it's the air filter, the dentist, the parents they haven't called, the dog's flea treatment. That's where Don't Forget Me earns its spot: one dashboard, one system, one place to see everything that needs your attention.

Start with the Couple Household pack for shared cleaning trackers, or the Chore War pack if you want a little competitive motivation. Then add everything else Tody can't track — which is most of life.