Griply is good, and it's good at something specific: connecting what you do today to what you're trying to become. You define life areas — health, work, finances — set goals inside them with measurable targets, then hang habits and tasks off those goals. Open the app and the habit you're about to tick has a visible reason above it. That thread from long-term goal down to today is the whole product, and no dedicated habit tracker gives you it.
People look for a Griply alternative for a narrower reason than "it's bad." Usually it's the free ceiling: 2 goals and 2 habits, which you hit in about a day. Sometimes it's the opposite of what Griply does well — you don't want a goal hierarchy, you want to tick five things and see a year of history. And sometimes it's price, because Griply's lifetime option is $119.99.
init.Habits is a terminal-style habit tracker for iPhone with GitHub-style heatmaps, earned streak freezes (shields), five tracking modes including a pomodoro timer, and 23 editor themes. It has no goals, no tasks and no calendar — it does habits, and it goes deep on them. Here's the honest comparison, as of July 2026.
At a glance
| init.Habits | Griply | |
|---|---|---|
| Primary job | track habits over time | plan goals, with habits attached |
| Structure | habits and routines | life areas → goals → subgoals → habits + tasks |
| Platforms | iPhone (synced web coming) | iPhone, web app (Android via browser, no native app) |
| Free habits | 10 | 2 (plus 2 goals) |
| Free stats | full, incl. GitHub-style heatmap | habit statistics + goal progress charts |
| Price | €3.99/mo, €24.99/yr, €34.99 lifetime | $4.99/mo, $29.99/yr, $119.99 lifetime |
| Tasks & calendar | no | yes — tasks, timeblocking, Google/Outlook events |
| Streak protection | earned shields + vacation + sick mode | no earned freeze |
| Tracking modes | checkbox, counter, number + unit, timer, Apple Health | check and target-based habits |
| Themes | 23 editor palettes | custom icons and images |
| Rating | — | 4.6★, ~191 US ratings |
Goals-first vs habits-first
This is the entire decision, and it's not a quality gap.
Griply's bet is that habits fail when they float free — that "run three times a week" only survives if it's visibly attached to "finish a half marathon in April." So the app makes you build the hierarchy first. Life area, goal, measurable target, then the habits that feed it. When it clicks, it's genuinely motivating: you're not ticking a box, you're moving a number toward something.
init.Habits makes no such demand. There's no goal object at all. You add a habit, pick how it's measured, and that's the setup. The upside is speed and a much lower ceiling on maintenance — nothing to restructure when your goals change. The downside is real: if your problem is that you can't remember why you started, init.Habits will not solve that for you. Habits vs goals works through where each one belongs if you're weighing that properly.
The free tier is the usual reason people leave
Griply's free plan is more generous than the habit cap suggests — unlimited tasks, 9 life areas, goal progress charts, habit statistics, reminders, calendar events and iOS widgets, all free. It's specifically goals and habits that are capped at 2 each.
For someone using Griply as a planner, that's fine. For someone using it as a habit tracker, two habits is not a habit tracker. init.Habits gives you 10 habits, 2 routines, 8 of the 23 themes, and full statistics free — the heatmap included.
On paid plans the comparison flips in places. Griply's monthly is $4.99 against init.Habits' €3.99, and its annual is $29.99 against €24.99 — close enough that it shouldn't decide anything. The gap is at the far end: $119.99 for Griply lifetime versus €34.99. If you buy software once and keep it, that difference is the whole argument.
Depth on the habit itself
Once a habit exists, the two apps do different amounts with it.
Griply tracks completion and, on Premium, targets — did you do it, how often, how close to the goal it feeds. That's appropriate for what it is.
init.Habits treats the habit as the unit worth instrumenting. Five tracking modes: a checkbox, a counter, a number with a unit, a timer for focus sessions, or a value read straight from Apple Health so steps and workouts log themselves. Every habit gets its own GitHub-style heatmap — a year on one screen, dense where you held and pale where you didn't. And there's a full statistics view per habit rather than a dashboard averaging everything together.
Streaks, and what happens when you miss
Griply has no earned streak-protection mechanic. Miss a day and the record simply shows the miss.
init.Habits has shields — earned streak freezes. You accumulate them by turning up, and a missed day spends one automatically rather than resetting the count. They're finite on purpose, so it isn't an unlimited undo, and there are separate vacation and sick modes for planned gaps. The design exists because the "I broke it, so it's over" reflex is a documented failure mode, not a character flaw — psychologists call it the abstinence violation effect. More on the mechanic in streak freeze.
Where Griply genuinely wins
- The goal↔habit link. init.Habits has no answer to this. If losing sight of the "why" is what kills your habits, Griply is aimed directly at your problem.
- It's a real planner. Tasks, timeblocking, Google and Outlook calendar events, smart lists. init.Habits does none of that and isn't trying to.
- A web app, now. Griply runs in any browser, which is also how Android users get it. init.Habits is iPhone-first with a synced web app coming.
- Apple's editorial backing. Griply has been featured widely by the App Store, which is not nothing for a small team.
- Free habit statistics and widgets without paying, which plenty of apps gate.
One correction worth making since the roundups get it wrong: Griply has no native Android app. Android access is through the browser or the PWA. If you specifically need a native Android tracker, neither app here is your answer.
Switching, if you decide to
- List the habits you're actually keeping — usually fewer than the goal structure implies.
- Note anything that's really a task ("book the dentist"). Those don't belong in a habit tracker at all; leave them wherever your to-dos live.
- Recreate the habits in init.Habits and pick the tracking mode per habit rather than defaulting everything to a checkbox.
- Keep Griply for the goals if the goals were working. Nothing says you need one app.
If you're deciding between several trackers rather than just these two, habit tracker for iPhone covers the wider field honestly.
FAQ
Is Griply free?
There's a free plan with 2 goals and 2 habits, plus unlimited tasks, 9 life areas, habit statistics, reminders, calendar events and widgets. Premium is $4.99/month, $29.99/year or $119.99 once, and lifts the goal and habit caps.
Does Griply work on Android?
Not as a native app. Griply runs on iPhone and in the browser, and Android users reach it through the web app or PWA. A native Android app has been signalled as a future plan without a date.
What does init.Habits do that Griply doesn't?
Earned streak freezes, a per-habit GitHub-style heatmap, five tracking modes including a pomodoro timer and Apple Health, 23 editor themes, and 10 free habits instead of 2. What it doesn't do is goals, tasks or calendars.
Which is cheaper?
Monthly and annual are close — $4.99 vs €3.99, $29.99 vs €24.99. Lifetime is where they diverge sharply: $119.99 for Griply against €34.99 for init.Habits.