Todoist vs Historis: why your tasks need people
Todoist tracks tasks; it has no idea who asked for them. Historis links every task to a person and their history. A factual, feature-by-feature comparison.
Open Todoist and add "call the supplier about the delayed order." It is a good task: clear, due Thursday, tagged @errands. But who is the supplier? Todoist does not know. The name sits inside the task text as a string, and when the order finally ships, that task is checked off and gone, taking the only trace of the exchange with it. Todoist tracks what you have to do. Historis tracks the people you do it for, and keeps the history after the task is done.
This is a factual, feature-by-feature comparison, not a takedown. The two apps overlap less than the category suggests, and for a good part of the overlap Todoist wins outright.
What Todoist gets right
As a task manager, Todoist is close to the best there is. Natural-language input turns "pay rent every 1st" into a recurring task without a form. Projects and sub-tasks organize a week; filters slice work by label, date or priority; it syncs across every device without fuss and stays fast. For a personal to-do list (groceries, chores, a reading backlog, your own admin), Historis is not trying to replace it, and this article is not the place to pretend otherwise. Todoist and Historis only part ways when the work stops being about your tasks and starts being about other people.
A task remembers what, not who
Historis is built around a different unit. Where Todoist stores a task, Historis stores an event, a dated note of something that happened with someone, say a call taken, a repair dropped off, a quote sent. Each event links to a person, and every person owns a timeline of every exchange you and your team have logged, in order, in one place.
That difference is invisible on day one and decisive by month three. In Todoist, "call the supplier" this week and "chase the supplier's invoice" next month are two unrelated rows. The connective tissue (same supplier, one ongoing relationship) lives only in your head. In Historis both events hang off the supplier's record, so opening it shows the whole thread. When a client rings a music shop and asks "where are we on my guitar?", the answer is one screen: the deposit, the parts ordered, the call you promised to return. No memory hunt through tasks that were ticked off and filed away.
Feature by feature
| Dimension | Todoist | Historis |
|---|---|---|
| Core unit | A task | An event tied to a person |
| Contacts / people | None: a name is text in a task | First-class records, resolved by email |
| Client history | Gone when the task is checked off | A permanent per-person timeline |
| Built for | Anyone with a to-do list | Work that revolves around clients |
| Team model | Shared projects | Org / team / private visibility per record |
| AI access (MCP) | Add and complete tasks | Read and write the people + history, traceably |
| Automations | Recurring tasks, filters | Markdown rules an agent consults |
The table is not scored to flatter Historis. Its top two rows read the other way. On raw task management, Todoist is more polished and more flexible. Below the fold sit the rows a task manager leaves empty by design, because a person and a history were never part of its model.
Two MCP servers, two depths
Both apps now speak MCP, the protocol that lets an AI assistant such as Claude use them directly, so this comparison sticks to what ships today. The difference is depth. Todoist's MCP server lets an agent do task things: add a task, list open ones, mark one done. Useful, and bounded by what Todoist is.
Historis's MCP server exposes the client record itself. An agent can log an event against the right person, search the history, resolve who a loose message is about, read the rules your organization set, and write back. And because every AI write is deterministic and attributed, you see exactly what it did. Marked, logged, reversible. One MCP server checks off your tasks; the other gives your AI a memory of your business.
Do you need both?
Often, yes, because they answer different questions. "What do I need to do today?" is Todoist's question and it answers it well. "Who is this client and what have we done for them?" is Historis's, and no task manager answers it, because a task list is not a memory. A freelancer might keep a personal Todoist for admin and errands and reach for Historis the moment a task is about a client: the call to return, the quote to follow up, the repair to phone about. The dividing line runs between tasks and people, not between one productivity app and another.
Why it matters
A checked-off task is a small deletion. That is the right behavior for "buy milk" and the wrong one for "the conversation with a client you will talk to again." If your livelihood depends on remembering what people bought, what they asked and what you promised, the task is only half the record, and Todoist keeps the half that expires. Historis keeps the half that compounds: one timeline per client, and an AI that can read it and add to it. Save Todoist for your to-do list. Your clients belong in Historis.
Related: why events beat tasks for client work, and how to give your own AI a memory it can write to.
Frequently asked questions
- Is Historis a replacement for Todoist?
- Not for a personal to-do list. For groceries, chores and admin, Todoist is excellent and Historis is not trying to unseat it. Historis replaces the workaround people reach for when their tasks are about clients: the task whose real subject is a person, whose history needs to live somewhere after the task is done. If your work revolves around people you serve, Historis is the better home for it; if it is about your own errands, keep Todoist.
- Does Todoist track contacts or client history?
- No. Todoist has no contact or person entity: a client's name lives inside a task as plain text. You can type "call Marie about the guitar," but "Marie" is a string, not a record. There is no page that gathers everything you have done with Marie, and when the task is completed the note disappears with it. Historis makes the person the record and the task an event on their timeline, so the history stays.
- Both have an MCP server, so what is the difference?
- Todoist's MCP server lets an AI agent manage tasks: add one, list them, mark one done. Historis's MCP server exposes the client record itself: an agent can log an event against the right person, search the history, read your organization's rules, and write back. Every write an AI makes carries a mark and shows up in the log, so it can be undone. One ticks tasks off a list and the other remembers your business.
- Can I use Todoist and Historis together?
- Yes, and many people should, because they answer different questions. Todoist answers "what do I need to do today?"; Historis answers "who is this client and what have we done for them?" A common split is a personal Todoist for errands and admin, and Historis as soon as a task involves a client: returning a call, chasing a quote, phoning someone about their repair.