Chore & Cleaning Task Tracking

The household-flavor of task management: who's emptying the dishwasher this week, when did we last mop, and how do we get teenagers to do anything. For the GTD / personal task side see Productivity Task & GTD Apps; for the broader self-hosted personal stack see Self-Hosted Personal Apps; for the ERP-for-your-house pantry + chore combo see Pantry Inventory & Grocy; for habit-as-RPG (Habitica) see also Self-Hosted Personal Apps.

Frequency-based cleaning (the Tody / Sweepy pattern)

The killer feature: chores have a frequency (every 3 days, every 2 weeks), and the app shows you what's "dirty" right now — not a fixed schedule.

• ★ ★ Sweepy — the 2026 default for "what cleaning needs doing now." Frequency-based; lovely UI; family sharing; generous free tier with a paid Pro subscription for unlimited family members and rooms. iOS / Android / web.
• ★ Tody — the original frequency-based cleaning app. Paid one-time + free tier. iOS / Android. UI feels older than Sweepy but it's solid.
• Spotless Pro — paid; iOS-only; clean UI; less rotation logic.
• ChoreList (Mac/iOS) — paid; recurring + check-off; nicely Mac-native.

Family chore + rotation + rewards

• ★ OurHome — free; family chore + rewards + shopping list. The default if you want zero subscription cost and a kid-reward layer.
• Cozi Family Organizer — free + Cozi Gold paid (~$30/yr); chores live alongside the family calendar and shopping list. Strong if you're already on Cozi for the calendar (see Family Calendars).
• Pluto Apps — paid; meal planner + chores + family hub.
• Tally — paid + free; minimalist allowance + chores.
• Greenlight / BusyKid / GoHenry — chore lists tied to debit cards (see Kids Chores & Allowance).

Habit / RPG-style

• ★ Habitica — free; OSS; habit-as-RPG; party mode for the family quest. Self-hostable. Best for "we want this to feel like a game and we don't mind explaining XP to a 9-year-old."
  • https://github.com/HabitRPG/habitica
• Loop Habit Tracker — free Android; minimal habit grid.
• Streaks — paid iOS; clean.

Free / OSS / pen-and-paper

• ★ Apple Reminders + recurring + Shared Lists — free; the pragmatic default for iCloud households. Recurring tasks, shared lists, location triggers. Works alarmingly well; hard to beat without Sweepy's frequency-engine smarts.
• Google Tasks + Family Group — free; bare-bones but works in Workspace households.
• Vikunja — OSS task / Kanban with CalDAV; family chore boards work fine. See Self-Hosted Personal Apps.
• Grocy chores module — if you already run Grocy for pantry, chores come bundled (see Pantry Inventory & Grocy).
• Notion templates — endless family-chore templates; great until the 12-year-old refuses to open Notion.
• Trello family boards — free; columns for "to do / doing / done"; works for visual learners.
• Whiteboard on the fridge — still wins for many households. No app fatigue.

License / pricing notes

• Sweepy: free tier + Pro paid (rooms / family members unlock).
• Tody: paid one-time per platform + free tier.
• OurHome, Apple Reminders, Google Tasks: free.
• Habitica: AGPLv3, free; Habitica.com is hosted free with paid cosmetic gems.
• Cozi: free + Cozi Gold paid annual; ad-supported on the free tier.

Pick this if…

• Default frequency-based cleaning, modern UI: Sweepy.
• Free OSS habit + family chore + RPG: Habitica.
• Family chore chart with kid rewards, free: OurHome.
• Apple-house, simplest possible: Apple Reminders shared lists.
• Already on Cozi for the family calendar: Cozi chores.
• You run Grocy already: Grocy's chore module.
• Self-host, OSS, CalDAV-clean: Vikunja.