Ellie Planner vs Friday: Comprehensive Comparison
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Overview
In today's fast-paced world, choosing the right productivity tool can make all the difference. This comprehensive comparison between Ellie Planner and Friday will help you understand which tool best fits your workflow and productivity needs.
⚡ Quick Summary
Aspect | Ellie Planner | Friday |
|---|---|---|
Best For | A minimalist daily planner app focused on time-blocking with drag-and-drop task scheduling and calendar integration. | Friday was a work hub designed for team alignment on goals, communication, and activity reporting, but is no longer operating as an active product. |
Pricing | Free Plan available. Pro: $9.99/month, $99.99/year, or $299.99 lifetime. | Free, Team $8/user/mo, Enterprise custom |
Platforms | Web, iOS, Mac, Windows | Web |
What is Ellie Planner?
Ellie Planner is a minimalist daily planner and time-blocking app that combines tasks and calendar events to help users plan and visualize their day. It features drag-and-drop task scheduling, a brain dump area for quick capture, and built-in time tracking with analytics. The app includes AI assistant capabilities for task organization and scheduling optimization.
🌟 Key Features of Ellie Planner
✦Time Blocking with Drag-and-Drop: Core feature allowing users to drag tasks from a Kanban-style list directly into their calendar view for visual time blocking and day planning.
✦Brain Dump & Task Management: Quick capture inbox area combined with comprehensive task management including lists, priorities, due dates, labels, subtasks, and recurring tasks.
✦Built-in Timer and Analytics: Time tracking capabilities with analytics on how you spend your time, providing insights into productivity patterns and time allocation.
✦AI Assistant: AI-powered features for bulk task creation, smart organization, time estimation, automated scheduling, finding free time, and priority guidance (Pro feature).
✦Calendar Integration: Syncs with Google, Apple, and Outlook calendars to provide a unified view of appointments and tasks in one interface.
✦Cross-Platform Access: Available on web, iOS, Mac, and Windows with native apps and browser-based access for flexible planning anywhere.
What is Friday?
Friday was a productivity and communication hub for teams designed to streamline async communication, daily standups, status updates, and planning so distributed teams could stay aligned and track work more easily. However, public information indicates Friday.app as a former/legacy product that is no longer operating as a standard end-user product.
🌟 Key Features of Friday
✦Team Check-ins: Friday provided configurable playbooks for daily standups, status updates, weekly reviews, and 1:1s to keep distributed teams aligned and reduce meeting overhead.
✦Progress Tracking: With built-in reporting and analytics, Friday helped teams track work progress and performance on updates and tasks for better visibility.
✦Async Communication: Friday streamlined internal communication with messaging-style updates designed to reduce meeting and communication chaos for distributed teams.
✦Feedback Management: The platform included feedback collection and management features to facilitate team improvement and communication.
✦Calendar Integration: Friday offered calendar-related workflows for planning and cadences, though current integrations cannot be confirmed for the legacy product.
✦Configurable Playbooks: Teams could customize their check-in processes and workflows through configurable playbooks for different types of updates and reviews.
📊 Feature Comparison
Feature | Ellie Planner | Friday |
|---|---|---|
📅 Calendar Integration | ✓ Yes | ◐ Limited |
✅ Task Management | ✓ Yes | ◐ Limited |
⏰ Time Blocking | ✓ Yes | ✗ No |
🗣️ Natural Language Processing | ✓ Yes | ✗ No |
🔔 Notifications | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes |
🌍 Time Zones Support | ✗ No | ✓ Yes |
📆 Scheduler | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes |
📈 Analytics | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes |
🔗 Integrations
Ellie Planner
Apple Calendar, Google Calendar, Microsoft Outlook, Slack, Notion, Zapier
Friday
Google Calendar, Slack, Teams, Todoist, Asana, Trello, Google Tasks, Microsoft To Do, ClickUp, Jira, GitLab, GitHub
💰 Pricing Comparison
Ellie Planner
Free Plan available. Pro: $9.99/month, $99.99/year, or $299.99 lifetime.
Free Plan: $0 with unlimited tasks and braindump. Ellie Pro: $9.99/month, $99.99/year, or $299.99 one-time lifetime purchase.
Friday
Free, Team $8/user/mo, Enterprise custom
Free: Core features. Team: $8/user/mo. Enterprise: Custom pricing.
💡 Things to Consider
When Choosing Ellie Planner
→You Value Visual Time-Blocking: Ellie Planner excels at drag-and-drop task scheduling into calendar views, making it ideal if you prefer visual daily planning over text-based task lists.
→You're Willing to Pay for Core Features: The free plan is quite limited, so you'll need Pro ($9.99/month) for time-blocking, calendar integration, and most useful features - consider if this fits your budget.
→You Use iOS/Web/Desktop: Best experience is on iOS and web platforms. Skip if you need Android support or prefer fully native desktop applications over web-based interfaces.
When Choosing Friday
→Product Status: Friday.app is indicated as a former/legacy product that is no longer operating as a standard end-user product, so availability and ongoing support cannot be confirmed.
→Focus on Communication Over Tasks: Friday was more focused on team communication rituals and updates rather than comprehensive task management, making it less suitable for teams needing full project management capabilities.
→Limited Current Information: Since the product appears to be discontinued, current pricing, features, and integrations cannot be reliably verified, and users should seek alternative solutions for team productivity needs.
⭐ User Reviews
Ellie Planner
"Ellie Planner is praised for its intuitive, minimalist interface and effective time-blocking capabilities with drag-and-drop functionality. Users appreciate the brain dump feature, calendar integration, and responsive indie developer support. However, the free plan is quite limited, pricing is considered high compared to alternatives, there's no Android app, and it offers fewer advanced features than comprehensive tools like Sunsama. Best suited for individual users who prioritize visual time-blocking and simplicity over complex workflows."
Friday
"Friday was designed as a productivity and communication hub for distributed teams, focusing on async updates and team alignment rather than full project management. While it offered useful features for team check-ins and progress tracking, the product is no longer operating as an active end-user service."
🎯 Conclusion
Both Ellie Planner and Friday are excellent productivity tools with their own strengths.
Ellie Planner excels in Time Blocking with Drag-and-Drop: Core feature allowing users to drag tasks from a Kanban-style list directly into their calendar view for visual time blocking and day planning., while Friday shines with Team Check-ins: Friday provided configurable playbooks for daily standups, status updates, weekly reviews, and 1:1s to keep distributed teams aligned and reduce meeting overhead.. The best choice depends on your specific needs, workflow preferences, and budget.
We recommend trying both tools to see which one fits better with your productivity style.
