Dynalist vs Workflowy: which outliner fits in 2026?

Dynalist and Workflowy share the same basic pleasure: make a line, nest it, zoom into a branch, and keep thinking. Both still make more sense than a task app when the work has to stay visible as a hierarchy.

The choice comes down to what you want around that tree. Choose Dynalist if you want an uncluttered document-based outliner with unlimited free items, notes, tags, dates, sharing, and export. Choose Workflowy if you want a more actively expanding hosted outline with a Calendar, tables, mirrors, comments, integrations, and AI tools. Its free Basic plan limits creation to 100 nodes a month, which is the deciding fact for a lot of regular users.

Neither is a bad choice. They just make different promises.

The central difference: a settled outline or a growing workspace

Dynalist stays close to the classic outline model. Your work is organized into documents and folders, with a file pane beside the current document. Each item can carry a note, a date, a tag, a checkbox, a link to another item, or Markdown formatting. Its feature list also covers sorting, public lists, collaboration, and exports to OPML, plain text, and formatted text.

That restraint is the point. A project can be a document. A branch can be a project plan. The note under a line holds the detail without asking you to turn that detail into a page, a record, or a dashboard.

Workflowy starts from the same infinitely nested bullet model, then carries more of your work inside it. Its current keyboard reference includes zooming, movement, indentation, completion, search, panes, a command palette, and formatting. The product also has Calendar, tables, mirrors, backlinks, comments, and AI features. A node can still be a quick bullet, but it can also become a shared project, a daily note, or a small structured tracker.

Pick the calmer model when an outline is already enough. Pick the broader one when you will use the extra parts of Workflowy as part of normal work.

Free plans and paid features

The free plans sound similar until you start using them. Dynalist Free includes unlimited items and documents, private sharing, Markdown formatting, dates, tags, checklists, and import/export. It has a limit of five bookmarks. Dynalist Pro costs $7.99 per month with annual billing or $9.99 month to month. Pro adds recurring dates, Google Calendar integration, capture to inbox, unlimited bookmarks, attachments, version history, daily cloud backups, item finder, custom shortcuts, and custom CSS.

Workflowy Basic is free and has its feature set, but it allows 100 new nodes and 100 MB of uploads per month. You can keep adding after you reach the node threshold, but Workflowy shows an upgrade prompt. Pro removes the node and upload limits. It costs $6.99 per month billed annually or $8.99 month to month.

That makes the decision simple for one kind of user. A student building a deep course outline, a writer drafting every day, or anyone capturing hundreds of small items might hit Workflowy’s Basic limit without doing anything unusual. Dynalist’s free tier has room for that volume. On the other hand, someone who adds fewer than 100 nodes a month may find that Workflowy’s newer tools are worth more than Dynalist’s lower barrier.

The Workflowy free-plan guide explains the quota in more detail. It is better to test your own weekly volume than to guess from a pricing table.

Keyboard work feels familiar in both

The basic muscle memory carries across. In Dynalist, Tab indents, Shift-Tab outdents, Ctrl/Cmd+Enter checks an item off, and Ctrl/Cmd+brackets zoom between levels. Its shortcut reference keeps the core moves close to the text, with notes available through Shift-Enter.

Workflowy also uses Tab and Shift-Tab for structure. Its defaults include dedicated shortcuts for moving items, opening a note, zooming, completion, search, and exporting. People who live in an outline all day may prefer its command palette and wider set of keyboard actions. Dynalist Pro offers custom shortcuts, while Workflowy’s custom hotkeys are rolling out to Pro users who enable Workflowy Labs.

Neither comparison should turn shortcuts into a score. Try the exact moves you make most: add three next actions, nest one beneath another, write a note, mark one complete, and find it again. The tool that lets you do that without reaching for a menu is the better keyboard outliner for you.

Notes, reuse, and collaboration

Dynalist keeps extra context in an item’s note. It also supports internal links, so an item can point to another place in your outline. That works well for a project where the hierarchy provides the map and a few links handle the exceptions.

Workflowy goes further with mirrors. A mirrored node appears in more than one place while remaining one piece of content. Its sharing model also lets you share a node and its descendants by secret link or direct invite, with view, edit, or full-access permissions. Comments and mentions make it a better fit for an outline that several people will work through together.

Dynalist has sharing and collaboration too, so this is not a solo-versus-team decision. The difference is emphasis. Dynalist feels like private documents you can share. Workflowy feels more ready for a live branch that needs to be reused, discussed, and revisited by a group.

Export deserves a real test

Both products let you take your outline with you. Dynalist exports OPML, plain text, and formatted text. Workflowy can export any node as plain text, formatted text, Markdown, or OPML. A branch, rather than a whole account, is enough to test another tool with real material.

That matters more than a promise of portability. Export one current project, open the output, and check the things you rely on: nesting, notes, completed items, dates, links, and attachments. Some will travel cleanly. Some product- specific behavior will not. Finding that out before a full migration keeps the decision small.

For a migration from Dynalist, listlis is one option for people who want to retain the outline habit while moving to a current keyboard-first tree. It imports OPML and Markdown outlines, so a single project can be a low-risk trial.

Where listlis fits

listlis fits between a bare outline and a workspace built around every possible view. It keeps one tree for projects, tasks, notes, and rough ideas. Each node has a title and can have a Markdown body when a line needs more room. o adds a sibling below the focused row, Tab nests it, Shift-Tab pulls it out, ! makes it a todo, and c completes it. Completion rolls up when the last child is done.

The difference is less about copying either product’s feature list and more about keeping a project readable as it grows. Smart Lists can retrieve related work without moving it from its branch. A shared link can expose a subtree. A connected AI client can work with the same outline through the hosted MCP connection, rather than through a separate notes workspace.

listlis will not replace Workflowy’s Calendar, tables, comments, or live mirrors. It also does not try to make the outline into Dynalist’s familiar two-pane document system. It is a fit when the tree itself is the working surface and your tasks, notes, and context need to remain in that same place.

Try the choice with one live project. Put the project plan in both tools, create the next actions, add a note where it belongs, then come back a few days later. The outline that still makes the project clear is the one to keep. You can open a root in listlis for that same test, or compare the wider field in the outliner comparison hub.