Hive
Hive keeps polishing dashboards: donut charts, project-date windows, and desktop split view.
Comparison · PM
Ellie Planner vs Phorge
A side-by-side editorial comparison of Ellie Planner and Phorge — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Ellie Planner vs Phorge: at a glance
What is Ellie Planner?
Ellie follows its MCP opening with a 30-day Trash and Google Calendar editing.
Ellie is a solo-built task and calendar planner on web, desktop, iPhone and iPad. The August catch-up release opened task data to outside agents through MCP and an API in beta, alongside iPad Week Calendar, Pomodoro and Quick Capture. The October 5 update added a 30-day Trash across platforms, Google Calendar editing and more iPhone features.
What is Phorge?
Phorge tags a release per fix, and years pass between the ones that reach this feed.
Phorge, the community continuation of Phabricator, tags releases named for the week they land and for the single change they carry. The entries visible here span three years and are all small defensive fixes: query errors instead of raw exceptions on malformed task IDs, a readable error screen when configuration fails to load, an empty authored date on Subversion commits, a crash in a commit hook when getenv returns false.
Ellie Planner vs Phorge: editorial side-by-side
Ellie follows its MCP opening with a 30-day Trash and Google Calendar editing.
◆ Current state
Ellie is a solo-built task and calendar planner on web, desktop, iPhone and iPad. The August catch-up release opened task data to outside agents through MCP and an API in beta, alongside iPad Week Calendar, Pomodoro and Quick Capture. The October 5 update added a 30-day Trash across platforms, Google Calendar editing and more iPhone features.
◆ Where it's heading
After a long quiet stretch, releases are arriving more often and filling gaps in safety and calendar parity between platforms. MCP access remains the directional bet, while recent work is mostly parity and polish.
◆ Prediction
Expect more iPhone and iPad parity work; whether MCP access leaves beta is unclear from the entries.
Phorge
0.0PM
Phorge tags a release per fix, and years pass between the ones that reach this feed.
◆ Current state
Phorge, the community continuation of Phabricator, tags releases named for the week they land and for the single change they carry. The entries visible here span three years and are all small defensive fixes: query errors instead of raw exceptions on malformed task IDs, a readable error screen when configuration fails to load, an empty authored date on Subversion commits, a crash in a commit hook when getenv returns false.
◆ Where it's heading
This is a project in stewardship rather than development. The work concentrates on the places an inherited codebase breaks — Subversion paths that upstream barely exercised, error handling that assumed configuration always loads, exception types leaking to users — and each fix is documented with a reproduction and test plan in the old Phabricator review style. Nothing in this window suggests new capability; the goal visible in the changelog is that the software keeps running for the installs that already depend on it.
◆ Prediction
The pattern points to more individually tagged small fixes in legacy code paths and error handling; there is no signal here of a larger release being assembled.
Alternatives to Ellie Planner and Phorge
Other PM products tracked by Sparkpulse, ranked by recent ship velocity. Each card links to a full editorial trajectory and lets you pivot into a head-to-head comparison with either Ellie Planner or Phorge.
Camunda
Camunda opens the 8.11 cycle with a cluster API and more process-variable controls.
Bonsai
Bonsai is turning its CRM into the place Zoom notes, bookings and AI drafts all land.
NocoBase
NocoBase's latest beta makes queued agent failures readable instead of vague.
Productboard
Productboard's v2 API now redirects merged entities instead of returning not-found errors.
Papertrail
Papertrail's changelog has gone quiet on product since its checklist logic rebuild.
See all Ellie Planner alternatives → · See all Phorge alternatives →
Recent activity from Ellie Planner and Phorge
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 28d agoEllie PlannerEllie adds Trash, Google Calendar editing and iPhone features
- 2mo agoEllie PlanneriPad Week Calendar, Pomodoro, Quick Capture, rich notes, and MCP ⚡
- 4mo agoPhorge2026.27: Maniphest search: Throw a Query Error when passing non-digit task IDs
- 10mo agoEllie Planner🧹 Todoist integration, improved Slack/Notion integrations and more
- 10mo agoPhorge2025.51: Don't crash when failed to load configuration
- 1y agoEllie PlannerEllie AI, Task templates, "Add task" from calendar events and more ✨ ⚡
- 1y agoEllie PlannerNotion integration, Analytics, Rituals, Notifications and a ton more
- 2y agoPhorge2024.35: Subversion: fix empty "Authored on" date on commit pages
- 2y agoEllie Planner🐹 Outlook Calendar Integration, iOS Widgets, Slack integration and more
- 3y agoPhorge2023.23: Mobile: hide unuseful "Persistent Chat" checkbox
- 3y agoPhorge2023.17: Fix InvalidArgumentException on commit hook
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Ellie Planner and Phorge?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. Ellie Planner is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 2.5 vs 0.0), with 0 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. 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 Phorge?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. Ellie Planner is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 2.5 vs 0.0), with 0 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. 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 Phorge?
Top Phorge alternatives in PM are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Phorge alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/phorge for the full list with editorial commentary on each.