The short version
Finch helps you take care of yourself. Lunar helps you take care of your to-do list — with an ADHD brain and a cycle that changes your capacity every week. Most ADHD women we've talked to keep using both. They solve different problems.
What Finch does well
- Gentle gamification. Your bird pet grows when you do small self-care steps. Surprisingly effective for ADHD avoidance.
- Mood tracking, journaling, breathwork. Genuinely helpful for emotional regulation.
- Friend support system. Send little pets to friends, low-pressure social accountability.
- Free tier is generous. Most core features work without paying.
Where Finch stops
Finch is explicitly a self-care companion. It does not try to be your project manager. Three gaps if you need actual task management:
- No real task list. "Goals" in Finch are self-care reminders, not the 12 things you owe people this week.
- No cycle awareness. Your luteal week is the same as your follicular week as far as Finch is concerned.
- No energy filter. Everything in Finch is the same size. You can't tell it "I have 10 minutes of focus today, show me only what fits."
Side by side
| Feature | Finch | Lunar |
|---|---|---|
| Self-care companion | Core focus | Not the focus |
| Real task management | Limited | Yes |
| Built for ADHD women | General audience | Yes |
| Cycle awareness | No | Yes — phase-aware |
| Energy-based task filter | No | Yes — 4 levels |
| AI task breakdown | No | Yes (Pro) |
| Body doubling sessions | No | Yes |
| Streak / habit pressure | Moderate | None by design |
| Free tier | Generous | Free, no card required |
Why Lunar exists (and isn't trying to replace Finch)
The ADHD-women community on TikTok and Reddit talk about Finch constantly — and almost as often, they talk about how their actual to-do list is still chaos. That's the part Lunar is for.
Every day, Lunar asks two questions before showing you a task list:
- Where are you in your cycle? Period, follicular, ovulation, or luteal.
- What's your energy right now? Exhausted, low, okay, or high.
Then it filters your tasks down to only what fits today. On a luteal-phase exhausted day, you might see 2 tiny tasks instead of the full list. No streaks to break. No carryover guilt. Just an honest match between your brain today and what's actually possible.
The hormone–ADHD connection Finch doesn't see
Women with ADHD experience predictable hormonal drops — estrogen falls in the late luteal phase, pulling dopamine with it. During this window, even the simplest tasks require more executive function to initiate than they did two weeks ago. Finch is designed around consistent daily self-care habits. But the capacity to show up consistently for your bird changes week by week, and Finch can't account for that.
Lunar is built around this reality. It doesn't ask you to be consistent — it asks you to be honest about where you are today, and then shows you what's realistic given that answer. That's a fundamentally different design philosophy.
What a real week looks like
Day 10, follicular phase. You open Finch, take care of your bird, feel good. You open Lunar, tell it you're feeling "high energy," and work through five tasks including one big one you'd been avoiding. Both apps are earning their keep.
Day 24, late luteal. You open Finch. The bird needs you. You do a breathing exercise and journal two sentences. Good. You close Finch. You open Lunar, tap "exhausted," and it shows you three small tasks: reply to one message, make tea, take a short walk. You do two. The rest of your list — the 15 items that would normally be staring at you — stays hidden. No guilt. No shame spiral. Just permission to have a different kind of day.
Common questions
Should I use Finch and Lunar at the same time?
Most ADHD women who use both keep both. Finch covers emotional wellbeing and self-care habits; Lunar covers actual task management and planning. They don't compete. If you currently use Finch but still feel like your to-do list is chaos, adding Lunar addresses the gap.
Does Lunar have a pet or gamification feature?
No. Lunar deliberately avoids gamification that creates guilt when you skip a day. No streak counters that reset. No pet that "gets sad." The design philosophy is explicitly anti-shame — showing you fewer tasks on bad days rather than piling on pressure to maintain a streak.
Is Lunar free like Finch?
Lunar's free tier covers core task management, energy filtering, cycle check-ins, and body doubling sessions — no card required. Pro ($9.99/mo or $79.99/yr) adds AI task breakdown and pattern intelligence. Finch's free tier is also generous, but the two apps serve different purposes so the pricing comparison isn't really apples-to-apples.
If you came from Finch
You're already doing the self-care work, and that matters. Lunar plugs into the other half of the day — the part where you have actual deadlines, errands, and a brain that doesn't cooperate every week of the month. Use them together. Try Lunar free through one cycle and see if your luteal week feels different when your task list is allowed to shrink.