Maple vs Cozi
Cozi has been the default answer to 'family organizer app' since 2005.
Disclosure: This article is published by Hom-I, a family organizer app that competes with both Cozi and Maple. We have tried to write the comparison we would want to read if we were choosing between them. Hom-I appears only in a clearly marked section near the end.
Cozi has been the default answer to “family organizer app” since 2005. Maple is the app that showed up in 2023 and 2024 telling Cozi users there is a better way. If you are searching “Maple vs Cozi,” you are probably already on Cozi and wondering whether the switch is worth it, or you are starting fresh and trying to figure out which one deserves your household’s data and habits.
Neither company will write an honest side-by-side. Cozi has no incentive to acknowledge what changed in May 2024. Maple has no incentive to be precise about where it is still thin. This page tries to fill that gap.
What Cozi Actually Is Today
Cozi launched as a shared family calendar and has spent twenty years adding features around that core: a shared shopping list, a meal planner, a recipe box, a to-do list. It works in a browser and has iOS and Android apps. The user base is large. The brand recognition is real.
The thing that changed in May 2024: Cozi restricted free accounts to a 30-day calendar window. If you are on the free tier, you cannot see events more than 30 days out without upgrading to Cozi Gold, which costs around 30 dollars a year. Before that change, free users had full calendar access. A lot of long-term Cozi users discovered this the hard way when they went to schedule something in the fall and found their calendar truncated.
Cozi Gold removes the 30-day limit and removes ads. The free tier still runs ads. That is the full picture of the free-vs-paid split as of this writing.
The other honest criticism of Cozi: the product has not moved fast. The meal planner is functional but not connected to a real grocery workflow in a meaningful way. Chore assignment is weak. The interface looks like it was last redesigned several years ago. That is not automatically a bad thing, but it matters if you are comparing it to a newer product.
What Maple Actually Is Today
Maple launched positioning itself explicitly as the modern alternative to Cozi. It covers shared calendars, lists, and family coordination. Its free tier is genuinely free with no calendar window restriction, which makes it a direct response to the May 2024 Cozi change.
Maple’s interface is cleaner and more contemporary than Cozi’s. The onboarding is smoother. If you have tried Cozi recently and found it visually dated, Maple will feel like an upgrade on first use.
Where Maple is still building: the feature depth is thinner than Cozi in some areas. A meal planning workflow as mature as Cozi’s (even with Cozi’s limitations) is not something Maple has fully matched yet. Recipe management, chore rotation, and some of the household-management features that Cozi has had time to build out are areas where Maple is still catching up. Maple is a younger product. That means momentum and a better roadmap attitude, but also gaps that exist right now.
Maple’s pricing structure should be verified on their own site before you commit, since it is a product still developing its model.
Feature Comparison Table
| Feature | Cozi (Free) | Cozi Gold | Maple (Free) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shared calendar | Yes, 30-day window only | Yes, full | Yes, full |
| Ads | Yes | No | No |
| Shared shopping list | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Meal planner | Yes | Yes | Developing |
| Recipe box | Yes | Yes | Limited |
| Chore assignment | Weak | Weak | Limited |
| Browser access | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Mobile apps | iOS and Android | iOS and Android | iOS and Android |
| Approximate cost | Free with ads | ~$30/year | Free tier available |
Feature details are accurate as of this writing. Verify current pricing and features on each product’s own site before signing up.
The Honest Verdict by Household Type
You are a current Cozi free user who hit the 30-day wall
Maple is the practical answer. The core reason you are looking is probably the calendar restriction Cozi introduced in 2024, and Maple does not have that restriction. If your household primarily needs a shared calendar and lists, Maple gives you what Cozi used to give you for free, with a better interface. The switching cost is low enough to try it.
You are on Cozi Gold and getting value from it
There is less urgency to switch. Cozi Gold removes the main complaints about the free tier. If the meal planner and recipe box are things you actually use and have built habits around, Maple is not obviously better there yet. Cozi Gold at roughly 30 dollars a year is cheap. The honest advice is: if it is working, the case for switching is mostly about aesthetics and momentum, not features.
You are starting fresh with no existing Cozi history
Maple is worth trying first. The free tier is more useful than Cozi’s free tier today, and the interface will not create friction the way the older Cozi design might. If you run into feature gaps in Maple that matter to your household, you can reassess. Starting on Cozi free today means starting with a restricted calendar, which is a poor first impression for a new user.
You have a household that needs chore management and meal planning as a real workflow
Neither Cozi nor Maple is particularly strong here. Cozi has more time in the category, but “more time” did not produce a great chore system. Maple is building toward it. If chore rotation and a connected meal-to-grocery workflow are the primary jobs you need done, both products will leave you doing more manual work than you probably want. This is a gap in both products as of this writing.
You want to avoid ever seeing an ad in a family app
Maple. Cozi’s free tier runs ads today. That is a design choice that reflects how the product funds itself at the free level. If ads in a family organizer bother you, the choice is either pay for Cozi Gold or use Maple.
What Each Product Does Well
Cozi does well: brand familiarity, a large recipe database, a mature (if not great) meal planner, and the fact that it has been stable long enough that your extended family has probably heard of it. If you need to convince a reluctant co-parent to use an app, “it’s Cozi” sometimes closes that conversation.
Maple does well: a genuinely free and unrestricted calendar, a more modern interface, cleaner onboarding, and the energy of a product that is actively being developed. If you care about whether the product you choose will look better in two years than it does today, Maple has more apparent momentum.
Where Hom-I Fits
This section is about us. We are the publisher. Read it with that in mind.
If you looked at the “chore management and meal planning” verdict above and recognized your household, that is the gap Hom-I is designed to fill. Hom-I connects calendar, meals, recipes, grocery lists, chores, and a few other household features (garden tracker, memories, notes, kiosk mode) into one product, with an AI assistant that works from your actual household data.
The pricing is 12 dollars a month, flat, for unlimited household members, with no metered AI charges and no ads. It works in any browser without an app store.
Hom-I is not the right pick if you want a free tier, since there is not one. It is also not the right pick if you primarily want a simple shared calendar and lists, because Maple gives you that for free and Hom-I is a more involved product.
If you want to see how Hom-I compares directly to each of these products, those comparisons are at Hom-I vs Maple and Hom-I vs Cozi. A broader look at the category is at family organizer apps compared.
FAQ
Did Cozi really restrict its free calendar in 2024?
Yes. In May 2024, Cozi changed its free tier so that free users can only view 30 days of calendar events. Events beyond 30 days require a Cozi Gold subscription. This was a significant change from how Cozi had operated for most of its history.
Is Maple free to use?
Maple offers a free tier without the calendar window restriction that Cozi’s free tier now has. Whether a paid tier exists or what it covers should be confirmed on Maple’s own site, since the product is still developing its pricing model.
Which is better for a large family?
Neither charges by household member at the free tier. If size is your concern, the relevant question is features. For a large family with chore management needs, neither Cozi nor Maple is particularly strong, as noted in the verdict section above.
Is Cozi Gold worth paying for?
If you are already using Cozi and the 30-day restriction is the main pain point, Cozi Gold at roughly 30 dollars a year resolves it cheaply. If you are also bothered by the dated interface or weak chore tools, paying for Gold does not fix those things.
Can I use both Maple and Cozi at the same time to compare them?
Practically, yes. Both have free tiers and neither requires a long commitment to try. Running both for a few weeks with your actual household is a reasonable way to decide, especially if your household has mixed opinions.
Does Maple sync with Google Calendar or iCloud?
Maple’s sync capabilities should be verified on their own site, as these features can change. Cozi has had Google Calendar sync available as part of its product.
What happened to Cozi’s development pace?
Cozi has had the same core product for most of its history. The May 2024 free-tier restriction was a monetization change, not a feature addition. Criticism of Cozi’s development pace is fair, though it should be balanced against the fact that a product that has not changed much is also a product that longtime users know how to use.
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