Search for a habit tracker called Habit Hero and you will not find one app. You will find a small crowd: a gamified fitness app, a routine app for kids, a minimalist iOS tracker, a free Notion template, and yes, us, Notion Habit Heroes. They share a name and almost nothing else. This post untangles who is who, what each one is actually good at, and how to pick the right one for the way you track habits.

Why so many apps share the name

"Habit Hero" is simply a natural name for gamified habit tracking: you do the habit, you become the hero. Nobody owns the name in any meaningful way, so independent developers keep reaching for it. Even Disney used it once, for a short-lived "Habit Heroes" exhibit at Epcot that closed back in 2016. The result is a confusing search page where half a dozen very different products sit side by side. Here they are, one by one.

Habit Hero PRO: the fitness one

Habit Hero PRO (habithero.pro) is a gamified fitness app for iOS and Android, built by a team in Estonia. Its angle is competition: you earn points for workouts and healthy habits and climb through competitive leagues against other users, and the app leans heavily into the fitness world, including partnerships with professional athletes.

Best for: people whose habit tracking is mostly about training and who want strangers to compete against. If your habit list is "gym, run, stretch", this is the Habit Hero aimed at you.

Habit Hero: Challenge Yourself, the minimalist iOS one

Habit Hero: Challenge Yourself is a small indie iPhone app built around self-set challenges. It is a lightweight, no-frills tracker from a solo developer, with a freemium model and a lifetime purchase option.

Best for: iPhone users who want a simple, standalone challenge tracker and don't need sync, integrations or a social layer.

Habit Hero for kids: the parenting one

There is also a Habit Hero (gethabithero.com) that has nothing to do with adult productivity: it builds visual routines and reward charts for young children, including features aimed at families managing ADHD. Parents set up morning or bedtime routines and kids check them off with big friendly visuals.

Best for: parents. If you searched "habit hero" looking for something for your four-year-old, this is the one.

Habit Hero, the automated one

Another web app under the same name (tryhabithero.com) flips the usual model: habits auto-complete unless you actively mark them as skipped. It is an interesting philosophy, optimism by default, aimed at people who find daily check-ins to be the exact chore that kills their tracking.

The Habit Hero Notion template

Inside the Notion ecosystem specifically there is a free template on the official Notion Marketplace called Habit Hero, made by an independent creator. Like most habit tracker templates, it gives you a pre-built database with views ready to go, entirely inside Notion, no account or external service required. If you are choosing between that template and us, we wrote a dedicated, honest comparison: Habit Hero template vs. Notion Habit Heroes.

Best for: Notion users who want a free, self-contained starting point and are happy to maintain it themselves.

Habitica: the one you might actually be thinking of

Habitica isn't called Habit Hero, but it is the app many "habit hero" searchers half-remember: the veteran habit RPG, around since 2013, where your real-life habits level up a pixel-art character and slacking damages your party. It is free, open source, and much larger than any of the apps above.

Best for: people who want a full game, avatar and all, and don't mind their habits living in a separate app.

Notion Habit Heroes: the one for people who live in Notion

Full disclosure: this is us, so judge the pitch accordingly. Notion Habit Heroes is not a standalone app and not a template. It is a service that connects to the habit database you already keep in Notion, syncs your checkboxes automatically every night, and turns them into streaks, points and stats you can embed as live widgets right on your Notion pages. On the Pro plan you can pull friends in: shared 30-day challenges, leaderboards, and one-on-one duels.

The difference in approach matters more than the shared name: every other app on this list asks you to track habits in their app. We assume your habits already live in Notion and add the game layer on top. If that describes you, here's how it works.

Best for: Notion users who want automatic streaks and points without maintaining formulas, and social accountability without leaving Notion.

How to choose

  • Fitness first, competitive leagues: Habit Hero PRO.
  • Simple solo iPhone tracker: Habit Hero: Challenge Yourself.
  • Routines for your kids: Habit Hero from gethabithero.com.
  • A full RPG around your life: Habitica.
  • Free and fully inside Notion, maintained by you: the Habit Hero template.
  • Your habits live in Notion and you want automatic streaks, points and friendly competition: Notion Habit Heroes.

Getting started

If the last line is you, getting started takes a few minutes: create a free account, connect your Notion habit database (or grab our free template if you don't have one yet), and your checkboxes start turning into streaks and points overnight. The core features are free; challenges and leaderboards with friends are on Pro. And if you are still building your tracker itself, start with our guide to building a Notion habit tracker.