Habitica turns your life into an RPG with dragons and armor. Funtasking shows you if you're actually living a balanced life. One rewards you with virtual pets. One rewards you with awareness.
Try Funtasking Free →| Feature | Habitica | Funtasking |
|---|---|---|
| Gamification Style | Full RPG with avatar, pets, quests | XP/levels tied to life balance |
| Rewards System | Gold, gear, pets, fantasy items | Balanced Purpose Wheel |
| Life Balance Tracking | ✗ Not the focus | ✓ Core feature (8 life areas) |
| Habits Tracking | ✓ Excellent | ✓ Daily planner focus |
| Penalties | ✓ Lose HP, avatar takes damage | No punishment (positive reinforcement) |
| Social Features | ✓ Guilds, parties, challenges | Individual daily planner |
| Real-Life Insight | Tasks completed, streaks maintained | Which life areas you're neglecting |
| Complexity | High (RPG mechanics to learn) | Simple (Purpose Wheel concept) |
| Price | Free / $4.99/month Premium | Free |
| Best For | RPG fans who love fantasy rewards | People who want real life balance awareness |
Habitica is brilliant at what it does. It takes the addictive mechanics of RPG games - leveling up, collecting items, hatching pets, defeating bosses - and applies them to your daily tasks.
Complete tasks, earn gold. Buy virtual armor. Hatch dragon eggs. Your avatar gets stronger. It's genuinely fun, and for many people, it makes boring tasks feel like an adventure.
But here's the question: when you've collected 20 virtual pets and upgraded your armor to legendary tier, are you actually living a balanced life?
Habitica rewards task completion with fantasy items. Funtasking rewards task completion with something real: a visual map of whether you're balancing career, health, relationships, and growth.
This isn't light gamification. You have an avatar, character classes (Warrior, Mage, Rogue, Healer), pets, mounts, quests. It's a real game.
Three task types: repeating habits, daily checklist items, and one-time tasks. Flexible system for different kinds of goals.
Join guilds, form parties, complete group quests. The social accountability is powerful for some people.
Team up to defeat bosses. Each completed task does "damage." It's a creative way to make group accountability fun.
Use earned gold to "buy" real-world rewards you set ("Watch a movie," "Buy coffee," etc.). Connects virtual rewards to real treats.
Track streaks, see task history, monitor your character stats (Strength, Intelligence, etc.). Lots of data.
If you love RPGs and want your tasks to feel like a game, Habitica is incredibly well-executed. The community is active, the features are deep, and the fantasy metaphor is complete.
No dragons or armor. Instead: a Purpose Wheel showing Career, Health, Family, Friends, Personal Growth, Fun, Finance, Love. Real life categories.
The reward isn't collecting items - it's seeing your wheel fill evenly. An unbalanced wheel is immediate visual feedback about what you're neglecting.
You earn XP and level up. But the levels reflect balanced living, not just task quantity. Completing 20 work tasks gives less satisfaction than balancing across all 8 areas.
Weekly/monthly reports show which life areas got attention and which got ignored. "You did 30 Career tasks and 0 Health tasks" is real data, not fantasy stats.
No RPG mechanics to learn, no character classes to choose. The concept is simple: track tasks across 8 life areas, see if you're balanced.
Purpose Wheel, gamification, all features - free. No premium tier for core insights. Balance awareness shouldn't cost money.
I used Habitica for three months. Here's what happened:
Week 1-4: This is amazing! I'm completing tasks, earning gold, collecting pets. My avatar looks awesome. I've hatched three dragons. I'm in a guild defeating a boss. So fun.
Week 5-8: Starting to optimize. Which tasks give the most gold? How can I level up faster? Completing lots of small tasks for more rewards. Avatar is level 25 now. Legendary armor equipped.
Week 12: Looked at what I was actually doing. My Habitica avatar was thriving. My real body? Hadn't exercised in weeks. My avatar had 15 pets. My real relationships? Ignored while I optimized my task list for gold.
Habitica made task completion addictive. But it didn't care WHICH tasks. Work tasks and health tasks gave the same gold. I naturally gravitated toward easier tasks (send another email for +50 gold) over harder but more important ones (go to the gym).
My fantasy avatar leveled up while my real life became unbalanced. The reward system was too divorced from what actually matters.
Habitica uses negative reinforcement: miss dailies, and your avatar loses HP (hit points). If you fail enough tasks, your avatar dies, you lose levels, you lose gear.
Some people find this motivating. Others find it stressful. When you're already overwhelmed, watching your avatar take damage can feel terrible.
Funtasking uses only positive reinforcement. Empty sections of your Purpose Wheel aren't "punishment" - they're awareness. "Hey, you haven't done anything for Health this week" is information, not damage to your character.
Different philosophies: Habitica says "your avatar suffers if you fail." Funtasking says "here's what you're neglecting, no judgment."
Habitica's guilds, parties, and challenges are genuinely impressive. If you want social accountability and enjoy group quests, it's powerful.
Funtasking doesn't have social features because life balance is personal. Your Purpose Wheel reflects your priorities, not group goals. Some people over-index on work, others on leisure. The insight is individual.
Different needs: Habitica for team accountability, Funtasking for personal awareness.
Habitica Premium (~$60/year) adds:
Notice: still no life balance tracking. Premium gives you more fantasy rewards, not real-life insights.
Funtasking's core insight - the Purpose Wheel showing life balance - is completely free. Because we think everyone deserves to see if they're neglecting important areas, not just paying users.
Habitica is genuinely great if you:
Funtasking is better if you:
Honest take: Habitica is a masterpiece of RPG gamification. If fantasy rewards motivate you and you already track life balance separately, it's excellent. But if you need help seeing what you're neglecting in real life, virtual dragons won't show you that.
Try Funtasking free and see your daily planner with life balance awareness.
Start Planning with Purpose →