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Comparison · PM
Ellie Planner vs Hive
A side-by-side editorial comparison of Ellie Planner and Hive — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Ellie Planner vs Hive: at a glance
What is Ellie Planner?
Ellie opens its task data to outside agents, eight months after its last changelog.
Ellie is a solo-built task and calendar planner spanning web, desktop, iPhone and iPad. After an eight-month gap, the catch-up release lands a real Week Calendar on iPad, Pomodoro sessions started from a task and restored across reloads, Quick Capture as a standalone window on a global shortcut, rich-text task notes with Markdown shortcuts, and MCP/API access in beta. Beneath the headline items sits the unglamorous work: recurring tasks, timezones, rollover, and calendar sync behaviour.
What is Hive?
Hive is building the plumbing its Buzz AI snippets need to run on real team data
Hive is project management software publishing short, well-structured changelog entries — each tagged New or Improved, with a 'Who it helps' line naming the affected role. The recent run splits between conventional project work (pinned comments on action cards, a configurable Roadmap display on the timeline, calendar overlays for Google and Outlook meetings, capacity context beside resourcing estimates) and the Buzz AI snippet system, which has been gaining shared OAuth connections and now a simpler default view for its runs.
Ellie Planner vs Hive: editorial side-by-side
Ellie opens its task data to outside agents, eight months after its last changelog.
◆ Current state
Ellie is a solo-built task and calendar planner spanning web, desktop, iPhone and iPad. After an eight-month gap, the catch-up release lands a real Week Calendar on iPad, Pomodoro sessions started from a task and restored across reloads, Quick Capture as a standalone window on a global shortcut, rich-text task notes with Markdown shortcuts, and MCP/API access in beta. Beneath the headline items sits the unglamorous work: recurring tasks, timezones, rollover, and calendar sync behaviour.
◆ Where it's heading
The consistent pattern across four years of releases is reach - Outlook and Google calendars, Slack, Notion, Todoist, iOS widgets - all aimed at making Ellie available wherever work originates. MCP applies that instinct to agents rather than apps, and the release frames it exactly that way. The in-app AI assistant from a year ago put a model inside Ellie; MCP inverts the arrangement and lets an agent the user picks hold the task data instead.
◆ Prediction
MCP access is explicitly beta and gated behind Power Features, so the open questions are whether it graduates and how it is priced. The entries do not say which clients have been tested against the endpoint.
Hive
7.5COLLABPM
Hive is building the plumbing its Buzz AI snippets need to run on real team data
◆ Current state
Hive is project management software publishing short, well-structured changelog entries — each tagged New or Improved, with a 'Who it helps' line naming the affected role. The recent run splits between conventional project work (pinned comments on action cards, a configurable Roadmap display on the timeline, calendar overlays for Google and Outlook meetings, capacity context beside resourcing estimates) and the Buzz AI snippet system, which has been gaining shared OAuth connections and now a simpler default view for its runs.
◆ Where it's heading
The AI work is being built from the infrastructure inward rather than from the demo outward. Shared OAuth connections came first — credentials created once in Hive AI Connections and reusable across snippets without exposing tokens — which is the prerequisite for snippets touching a team's real Google or Microsoft accounts. The run visualisation now defaults to a simple flow graph with the step-by-step state chart behind an Advanced toggle, which is what a feature looks like once people are reviewing runs routinely rather than debugging them.
◆ Prediction
Connections are shared and runs are now readable at a glance, so the missing piece is control over who may run what against a shared connection; expect permissions on snippets to follow, since the OAuth work already introduced the idea of authorized workspace users.
Ellie Planner alternatives
Other PM products tracked by Sparkpulse, ranked by recent ship velocity. Tap any card for the full editorial trajectory or compare directly with Ellie Planner.
Notesnook
Notesnook ships fast across three platforms and points every release note at its blog
Celoxis
Celoxis publishes buyer-guide content on a schedule; its releases are elsewhere
Teamhood
Teamhood's feed is a competitor-comparison engine, not a changelog
Process Street
Process Street's feed is a content engine, and its releases are not in it
Kantree
A single undated Kantree release line records a dependency field for Gantt views
Hive alternatives
Other PM products tracked by Sparkpulse, ranked by recent ship velocity. Tap any card for the full editorial trajectory or compare directly with Hive.
Slack
Slack raises the Marketplace bar back to ten installs while the agent platform consolidates.
Mattermost
Mattermost is selling sovereignty and air-gapped AI, with releases buried in the argument
Paperless-ngx
Paperless-ngx is patching hard behind a 3.1 release that made AI a workflow step
Read the Docs
Read the Docs ships a dated release every week, and this one is documentation and dependencies
Zoho Sign
Zoho Sign is clearing the exit path off Docusign while stacking up regional legal assurance
Jellyfin
Seven candidates in, 12.0 is still trading features for correctness in the metadata layer.
Recent activity from Ellie Planner and Hive
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 1d agoHiveAutomation runs default to a simple flow graph
- 5d agoHiveResourcing estimates show capacity and allocation context
- 5d agoHiveWorkflows can start from an external webhook endpoint ⚡
- 5d agoHiveGoal pivot widgets report on linked projects
- 5d agoHiveCalendar widget overlays connected Google and Outlook meetings
- 5d agoHiveShared OAuth connections become available to Buzz AI Snippets
- 9d agoEllie PlanneriPad Week Calendar, Pomodoro, Quick Capture, rich notes, and MCP ⚡
- 8mo agoEllie Planner🧹 Todoist integration, improved Slack/Notion integrations and more
- 11mo agoEllie PlannerEllie AI, Task templates, "Add task" from calendar events and more ✨ ⚡
- 1y agoEllie PlannerNotion integration, Analytics, Rituals, Notifications and a ton more
- 2y agoEllie Planner🐹 Outlook Calendar Integration, iOS Widgets, Slack integration and more
- 2y agoEllie Planner📆 Mac menu bar, improved auto sync and more
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Ellie Planner and Hive?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. Hive is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 7.5 vs 3.8), with 1 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 1. See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.
Is Ellie Planner better than Hive?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. Hive is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 7.5 vs 3.8), with 1 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 1. For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other PM products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to Ellie Planner?
Top Ellie Planner alternatives in PM are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Ellie Planner alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/ellie for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to Hive?
Top Hive alternatives in PM are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Hive alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/hive for the full list with editorial commentary on each.