Show HN: Godspeed is a fast, 100% keyboard oriented todo app for Mac

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

A new Mac-focused, keyboard-driven todo app called Godspeed is drawing both praise for its speed, nesting, shared lists, and powerful date picker, and criticism for being an Electron app with a relatively high price ($149 for 18 months of updates) in a crowded market. Commenters compare it heavily to tools like OmniFocus, Things, Todoist, and TickTick, weighing its smooth UX and iOS companion against missing or planned features such as start dates, scripting, deep links, and end-to-end encryption. Many also question its proprietary cloud sync and lack of self-hosted or iCloud-based options, highlighting long-term data portability, privacy, and platform support (Windows, Android, web) as make-or-break factors.

Overall Reception & UX

  • Many praise the UI as sleek, fast, and very keyboard-centric; feels closer to a “built-for-keyboard” app than most existing tools.
  • Infinite nesting, powerful date picker, natural-ish time expressions (e.g. 2w+3d), snoozing single instances of recurring tasks, labels + smart lists, and shared lists with live cursors are highlighted positively.
  • Some find non-native Mac behaviors (font, sidebars, undo stack, onboarding panel) jarring; Electron is repeatedly criticized despite the good feel.
  • iOS app exists and syncs; watchOS and other platforms (Windows, Android, web, Linux) are only on the roadmap.

Pricing & Business Model

  • Major debate around $149 “one-time” with 18 months of new features vs subscription (~$8/month).
  • Supporters compare it to OmniFocus pricing and argue that a core productivity tool easily justifies this if it delivers value over years.
  • Critics compare it to cheaper or perpetual apps (Things, TickTick, Todoist, Sublime Text, Office, other Mac utilities) and see it as 2–10x overpriced, especially for an Electron app and 1.0 product.
  • Some see the 18‑month update window as effectively a higher-priced subscription dressed as “pay once.”

Sync, Data Ownership, Security

  • Sync is proprietary, cloud-only, and cannot be redirected to iCloud, Dropbox, Nextcloud, or self-hosted backends; this is a dealbreaker for some (compliance, corporate policy, or privacy reasons).
  • Data is stored locally in a SQLite DB; users are discouraged from editing it but can read it. Export exists (JSON), with more formats and attachment export planned.
  • No end-to-end encryption yet; several users say this is mandatory for sensitive or regulated work. It’s on the roadmap.
  • Offline use works, but disabling sync or restoring from local-only backups is not officially supported.

Integrations, Automation, and Workflow Fit

  • Desired integrations: Jira, Asana, Google Tasks, Linear, CalDAV, email-to-task, scripting (Shortcuts, JavaScript/AppleScript), deep links to tasks.
  • Some argue manual mirroring with tools like Jira is fine; others want a “central layer” aggregating tasks from existing systems.
  • Start dates, hiding future/blocked tasks, focus mode, better calendar/timeboxing concepts, and custom keyboard shortcuts are highly requested.
  • Thread repeatedly notes that task management is highly personal; many compare to their own stacks (paper, Obsidian, Vim/Emacs/org-mode, Workflowy, 2Do, TickTick, Todoist, Things, OmniFocus) and differ on whether Godspeed’s tradeoffs are worth switching.