Strides alternative: habits or deadline-based goals?

Start with the kind of goal

miniHabits is an alternative for recurring habits, not a substitute for every Strides tracker. A deadline-based project and a daily action need different records.

What Strides does

Strides’ official site describes four tracker types: Habit, Target, Average and Project. It includes pace lines, progress reports and tools for checking whether a goal is on track. If you need to finish a measurable project by a date, that is directly relevant. Source: Strides.

miniHabits’ four modes are different: checkbox, counter, timer and quantity. Four modes does not mean the same four features. They describe how to log an action, not how to forecast a project’s completion.

miniHabits today

miniHabits is a paid iPhone habit tracker for iOS 17 and later. It has four tracking modes: checkbox, counter, timer and quantity. Schedules can be daily, selected weekdays or a number of times per week. Its heatmap shows 26 weeks.

Streak shields bank on satisfied days and are spent automatically on a missed day when available. A protected day stays visible in the history; it is not recorded as a completed habit. Break mode pauses judgement for all habits without spending shields.

Your device’s iCloud account is required for backup and sync. There is no free tier or free trial. After onboarding, a purchase or restore is required to enter the tracker. The two plans are an auto-renewing yearly subscription and a one-time lifetime purchase. EUR reference prices are 25 € per year and 34,99 € lifetime. Your App Store checkout shows the local price and currency.

miniHabits does not currently offer Android, web or Apple Watch apps, widgets, Live Activities, Apple Health integration, notification reminders, or CSV/JSON import and export. Switching means recreating habits manually, not transferring an existing history.

Two examples that separate the jobs

“Read twenty minutes on weekdays” can be a recurring timer habit in miniHabits. “Finish a manuscript by November” needs a deadline, a remaining workload and a pace calculation. miniHabits does not provide that project model.

You can track the recurring action that supports a project without asking the habit tracker to manage the whole project. But do not replace a useful deadline view with a streak and assume the information is equivalent.

Which should you keep?

Keep Strides if Target, Average or Project tracking is central to your setup. Consider miniHabits if your needs are recurring actions, a heatmap and the shield mechanic.

There is no Strides importer. Preserve existing goal records and recreate habits manually. miniHabits has no free tier; check its paid access requirements before switching. If removing the goal forecast creates more work elsewhere, keeping your current system is a reasonable decision.

Sources and method

This comparison is written by the maker of miniHabits. Competitor details were checked against the official sources linked here on September 4, 2026. This is a documentation-based comparison, not a hands-on test. Features and offers can change; check the current store listing before paying.