Choosing a Habit Tracker: Habitica vs Becom
Seven things that matter in a habit tracker, and how Habitica, Habitify, Streaks, Loop and Becom differ — written by the people who make one of them.
The Becom team
Most people look for a new habit tracker for one of three reasons: the old one made them feel bad, it did not survive a missed day, or it tracked habits in isolation from everything the habits were for. This is what to look for, and how the common choices differ.
We make one of the apps below, so read the Becom paragraph with that in mind. The rest is written to be useful even if you pick something else.
Seven things that actually matter
- Schedules, not just daily. A habit set for Monday, Wednesday and Friday should not count Tuesday as a miss. Trackers that only understand "every day" quietly punish sensible schedules.
- How it handles a missed day. Some apps reset a streak to zero and lose you with it. Look for completion rates alongside streaks, so a 90% month reads as the success it is.
- Reminders you can time. At the moment the habit belongs, or a little before — not a single daily digest at 9am.
- Speed of check-in. Ticking off a habit should take one tap from wherever you already are. Every extra step costs you days in month two.
- What you can see later. A month view that shows patterns is worth more than a number. Fridays failing four weeks running is information you can act on.
- Where the data lives. Can you get it out? Is it sold? Read the privacy policy, not the marketing.
- Whether habits connect to anything. A habit exists to move something — a goal, a skill, a balance. Trackers that keep habits in their own silo make it easy to forget which ones still matter.
The common choices
Habitica turns habits into a role-playing game: experience points, armour, parties with friends. If play genuinely motivates you, nothing else feels like it. If it does not, the game becomes another chore, and the structure fights you when your real routine is irregular.
Habitify is the clean, focused option — habits, streaks, clear statistics, across phone, tablet and web. It does one job properly. If you want your goals, journal or budget alongside, they live elsewhere.
Streaks is the polished iPhone choice, with Apple Health integration and a deliberately small number of habits. That limit is a feature: it forces a shortlist. It is not available outside Apple's platforms.
Loop Habit Tracker is free, open source and Android-only, with a strong scoring system rather than a brittle streak. No account, no sync, no cost — and no web version or reminders beyond the basics.
A spreadsheet is more capable than people admit and costs nothing. It also asks you to open it, which is exactly the step most habits die at.
Becom — ours — schedules habits by weekday, keeps streaks and completion rates, and sends reminders at the habit's time or 10 or 30 minutes before. What it adds is connection: habits link to the goals they serve, and your goals, tasks, journal and money planner sit in the same app, on one dashboard. It is a paid product with a 30-day trial, so it is the wrong choice if free is the requirement, and overkill if all you want is a tick-box list.
How to choose in ten minutes
- Motivated by play? Habitica.
- Want one focused tool and nothing else? Habitify, or Streaks on an iPhone.
- Want free, on Android, with no account? Loop.
- Want habits tied to goals, a journal and your money? Becom, or a spreadsheet if you enjoy maintaining one.
Whatever you pick, judge it on one thing after a month: did it survive a week that went wrong? That is the only test that matters, and it is the reason to prefer completion rates over unbroken streaks.
The app is the smaller half
Changing trackers rarely fixes a habit that keeps failing. The usual culprits are a habit that is too big, a cue you never see, or a habit attached to no goal you care about. How to build habits that stick works through the fixes; if you want to try our side of it, the habit tracker page shows exactly what Becom does.
Habitica, Habitify, Streaks and Loop Habit Tracker are trademarks of their respective owners; Becom is not affiliated with any of them. Descriptions reflect these apps as commonly used in September 2026 — check their own sites for current features.
Key takeaways
- A tracker that only understands 'every day' will punish a sensible Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule.
- Completion rates matter more than unbroken streaks: they survive a missed day, and so do you.
- Check reminder timing, how fast a check-in is, and whether you can get your data out.
- Habitica suits people motivated by play; Habitify and Streaks do one job cleanly; Loop is free on Android.
- Becom is the one that ties each habit to the goal it serves, with your journal and money planner alongside.
- Judge any tracker on one question after a month: did it survive a week that went wrong?
🔁 Try it: create a habit
Set up a habit with the days it belongs on and a reminder at the moment it happens.
