Super Productivity

Last reviewed Aug 26, 2026 · 799 words

There is nothing to self-host in Super Productivity itself. It is a desktop app (Windows, macOS, Linux), an Android app and a browser build, and every one of them keeps your tasks in local storage on the device. What you host is the sync target, and a WebDAV folder on your own Nextcloud is the sensible choice. Get that straight and this is the best free to-do app with real time tracking that I know of. Miss it and you will spend an evening looking for a server container that does not exist.

What "self-hosted" means for a local-first app

The catalogue tags it single-user and offline-first, and both are literal. Each device holds a complete copy of your data and works with no network at all. Sync is an optional layer that pushes a snapshot to a remote location and pulls the newer version back, with 3 supported backends: WebDAV, Dropbox and (on desktop) a local file path you can put on any synced folder. There is also a Docker image that serves the browser build from your own host, but it stores nothing server-side; all it does is save you trusting the public web build at app.super-productivity.com. The 256 MB RAM figure is the Electron app, not a service.

The practical consequence is that "multi-user" is not a thing here. Two people cannot share a project. If your household or team needs shared lists, Vikunja is a real server with real accounts and is the tool to look at; the project management category has the wider field.

Sync through Nextcloud WebDAV in 5 minutes

Create an app password in Nextcloud (Settings, Security, Devices and sessions) rather than using your login password, and create an empty folder for the app. Then in Super Productivity open Settings, Sync, choose WebDAV, and fill in:

Base URL:  https://cloud.example.com/remote.php/dav/files/USERNAME/
Username:  USERNAME
Password:  the app password
Folder:    super-productivity

Set sync to run on startup and every few minutes, then do the same on each device. Sync is snapshot-based rather than per-change merging, so the one rule is to let one device finish syncing before you edit on another. If both edit the same window of time you get a conflict prompt asking which copy to keep, and picking the wrong one loses the other side's changes. That is the con the catalogue lists as "sync setup manual": the setup is short, but the discipline is yours.

Time tracking is why you pick it over everything in the Todoist tier

Most to-do apps treat time as a separate product. Here every task has a running timer, an estimate, and a record of which days you worked on it; a daily summary shows what you actually spent your hours on versus what you planned. The Pomodoro mode and focus mode are wired into the same timer, so a focus session is logged against the task automatically. If you bill by the hour, or you want an honest answer to "where did Tuesday go," this is the feature that justifies the switch from Todoist, which has no native time tracking at all.

Break reminders, a scheduled daily planning prompt and a "worklog" export to CSV round it out. None of it requires the network.

The Jira and GitHub links pull work in; they do not run your board

Connect a project to Jira, GitHub, GitLab, OpenProject or a CalDAV calendar and its issues appear as tasks, with status changes and comments visible and a link back. Time you track can be posted back to Jira as worklog entries. What it does not do is act as a full client: you triage and plan in Super Productivity, but you still open the tracker to do anything beyond status and comment. Treat the integrations as "my slice of the team's tracker, on my terms, with my timer" and they are excellent; treat them as a Jira replacement and you will be disappointed.

What I'd do

Install the desktop app on every machine and the Android app on your phone, create a super-productivity folder and an app password on the Nextcloud you already run, configure WebDAV sync identically on each, and never edit on two devices within the same minute. Turn on the daily planning prompt and let the timer run on whatever you are actually doing rather than what you meant to do; the honesty of the weekly report is the product. If you need to share tasks with anyone else, stop here and set up Vikunja instead, because this tool will not grow into that and does not pretend it will.