Vikunja vs Todoist

Why Consider Vikunja over Todoist?

Todoist is genuinely well designed. The Doist team has spent over a decade polishing it. But it is a closed-source product from a US-domiciled company, and for European teams that increasingly look at where their task lists actually live — what they say about projects, clients, internal politics — the jurisdiction question becomes hard to ignore.

Vikunja is built by Kolaente Rocks, a small German developer studio, and licensed AGPL-3.0. It comes as a polished cloud product hosted in Germany, and as a free self-hosted binary that runs on a Raspberry Pi or a VPS. The pricing model is honest: you pay for hosting, not for unlocking features your data already supports.

Feature Comparison

Feature	Vikunja	Todoist
Open source	Yes (AGPL-3.0)	No
Jurisdiction	Germany (EU)	United States
Self-hosting	Yes	No
Views	List, kanban, gantt, table, calendar	List, kanban, calendar
Subtasks	Unlimited, nested	Yes (Pro tier)
Filters	Saved filters with query language	Saved filters (Pro)
Natural-language quick-add	Basic	Excellent
Mobile apps	iOS, Android, third-party clients	iOS, Android, watchOS
Integrations	API, webhooks, CalDAV	Native Slack/Notion/Spark/etc.
Pricing	Free self-host / €4/user cloud	Free / $4/$6 user/month

Pricing

• Vikunja self-hosted — Free forever, AGPL-licensed
• Vikunja Cloud — From €4/user/month, EU-hosted, includes backups and updates
• Todoist Free — 5 personal projects, 5 collaborators per project
• Todoist Pro — $4/month (billed annually)
• Todoist Business — $6/user/month

For solo users on the free tier, both are workable. For teams, Vikunja Cloud is comparable to Todoist Business and ships with a DPA out of the box.

Privacy and Data Sovereignty

• German company, hosted in EU data centers for cloud users
• AGPL-3.0 license guarantees the code stays open
• Self-hostable for full data control — no third party touches your tasks
• GDPR-native: clear DPA, export, deletion, and processing logs
• No tracking, no ads, no usage telemetry beyond opt-in error reporting

Todoist is not a careless operator — Doist has a strong privacy posture for a US company — but the corporate domicile remains the load-bearing legal fact.

Migration Considerations

Estimated time: 30 minutes (small project list) to a couple of hours (heavy power-user). Difficulty: Easy.

1. Export from Todoist. Settings → Backups → download the most recent backup.
2. Pick your Vikunja path. For a quick start, sign up for Vikunja Cloud. For full control, run docker compose up -d with the official compose file on a small server.
3. Use the Todoist importer. Vikunja includes an import for Todoist backups; projects, tasks, subtasks, due dates, and labels come across in one step.
4. Recreate filters and saved views. Vikunja’s filter syntax is more SQL-like than Todoist’s, but expressive. Document your most-used filters as you go.
5. Install the mobile apps (official or community) and point them at your instance.
6. Wind Todoist down gradually. Keep it read-only for two weeks to make sure nothing was lost, then close the account.

The Bottom Line

Todoist remains a delightful product — natural-language input, polished mobile experience, deep integrations. If those specific features carry your workflow, stay. For everyone else, Vikunja gives you the same core task management with an open-source codebase, EU jurisdiction, and the option to self-host if you ever want to take the cloud out of the loop entirely.

For European teams that are also revisiting other US productivity tools, Vikunja slots neatly into a stack alongside Nextcloud, Proton, and other EU-native alternatives.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where is Todoist based, and why does it matter?

Todoist is built by Doist Inc., a US-domiciled company with a remote-first team. Even though Doist's culture is famously thoughtful, the corporate structure means Todoist data is subject to US law including the CLOUD Act. Vikunja is built and hosted in Germany under GDPR, with self-hosting available for complete data sovereignty.

Is Vikunja a real alternative to Todoist's polish?

It is close, not identical. Vikunja covers everything most knowledge workers actually use in Todoist — projects, subtasks, due dates, labels, filters, kanban, calendar — and adds gantt and table views Todoist does not have. Todoist still wins on mobile polish and natural-language input. For desktop-first users, Vikunja is at parity or better.

Can I self-host Vikunja?

Yes. Vikunja ships as a single Go binary and a frontend, with Docker images officially supported. A small VPS can comfortably host the personal Vikunja instance of one user or a small team. The mobile apps connect to your self-hosted instance over HTTPS.

How does Vikunja handle GDPR?

As a German company under GDPR, Vikunja Cloud provides a DPA, EU-only data hosting (in Germany), and supports data export and deletion through the API and UI. If you self-host, you are the controller and have full responsibility — and full control.

Can I import my Todoist projects?

Yes. Vikunja has an importer for Todoist that brings across projects, tasks, subtasks, due dates, and labels. Recurring tasks and natural-language patterns may need a manual check, but the bulk import takes minutes.