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Endearist vs Queue
A fair, specific comparison — written so you'd be comfortable if a Queue engineer read it.
Fairness pledge
First, a correction to what some comparison sites claim: Queue (queue.community) is not dead. As of June 2026 it's alive, cared for, and good — an iPhone personal CRM by indie developer Jeremy Lubin that 9to5Mac spotlighted in June 2025. Its import story is the best in the lightweight class: pull people in from your Google Calendar meetings, Gmail threads, LinkedIn, and iPhone contacts, then get gentle reminders to reach out and a place for catch-up notes. It even ships a one-tap export of all your data, which most subscription apps never bother with. The honest trade-offs are structural, not quality: it's iPhone-only, it's a hosted service whose $4.99/month explicitly keeps the servers running, and it's built and operated by one person — wonderful while it lasts, with a bus factor of one.
Where your data lives
Queue: a hosted service — your reach-out queue, imports, and notes live with the app's backend (the subscription, in the developer's own words, keeps the service running), with the iPhone app as the window. The redeeming feature: a one-tap export of all your data, anytime. Endearist: your device first — sync optional via your own cloud (Google Drive, iCloud, WebDAV) or Endearist Cloud (EU-hosted), end-to-end encrypted with a key only you hold.
How AI is accessed
Queue has no AI features that we could find as of June 2026 — its pitch is deliberate simplicity, and reminders are schedule-based rather than LLM-driven. Endearist's AI is opt-in and the app fully works offline without it: bring your own key (GPT, Claude, Gemini), or use Pro Cloud Light (~250 EU-routed actions/mo, €4.99) or Pro Cloud (~600 actions/mo + voice transcription, €9.99).
3-year total cost
Queue: $4.99/month after a one-week free trial — ~$180 (~€165) over 3 years, no free tier, no lifetime. Endearist Pro Lifetime: €69 once. Endearist Pro Cloud Light: €4.99/month (~€180 over 3 years) — the same monthly shape, but it adds Android, desktop, and EU-routed AI.
What we don't do
We don't have Queue's automatic import from Gmail threads or LinkedIn — Endearist's intake is read-only calendar plus manual share-sheet capture, which means more typing on day one. Queue is also simply lighter: if you want one screen, one habit, and nothing else, our journal, warmth score, and depth fields are weight you didn't order. And paying Queue directly supports an indie developer, which is a real reason some people choose it.
Feature matrix
Side-by-side.
| Feature | Endearist | Queue |
|---|---|---|
| Local-first data storage | Yes — your device is the primary store. | No — a hosted service; the subscription funds the servers. |
| End-to-end encrypted sync | Yes — AES-256-GCM, you hold the key. | Not advertised — imports are processed service-side. |
| Mobile native apps (iOS / Android) | iOS, Android (native Flutter). | iPhone only — no Android. |
| Desktop native apps | macOS, Windows, Linux (native). | No desktop client — the iOS app runs on Apple-silicon Macs. |
| AI features | Opt-in: bring your own key (on-device) or Pro Cloud Light (~250 EU-routed actions/mo) or Pro Cloud (~600 actions/mo + voice). | None found — deliberately simple, schedule-based reminders. |
| Active development & support | Actively developed — paid tiers fund the roadmap; source-release pledge if we ever shut down. | Yes — actively developed (9to5Mac spotlight, June 2025), but by a single indie developer: bus factor of one. |
| Self-host option | Not currently — the desktop app is the local store. | No. |
| Pricing | Free up to 25 contacts. Pro Lifetime €69 once, Pro Cloud Light €4.99/mo, or Pro Cloud €9.99/mo. | $4.99/mo after a one-week free trial. No free tier, no lifetime. |
| Open source code | Source-release pledge on shutdown/acquisition. | No — proprietary. |
| Plain-Markdown export | Yes — readable without any app. | One-tap export of all your data — genuinely good; no Markdown though. |
| Voice-note transcription | Yes — on Pro Cloud (60 min/mo) or your own key. | No. |
| Journal / reflection | Built-in journal + weekly ritual + appreciation prompts. | Catch-up notes per person; no journal surface. |
| Relationship depth (how-we-met, pets) | How-we-met, pets, custom pronouns, life events, debts, attachments. | Deliberately minimal: people, cadence, notes, search. |
| Calendar / messenger integrations | Read-only calendar (Google/Apple/Outlook); manual share-sheet capture for messenger context. | Best-in-class import: Google Calendar meetings, Gmail threads, LinkedIn, iPhone contacts. |
When to pick Queue
When Queue is the better fit.
If you live on an iPhone, want exactly one habit — "reach out to the next person in the queue" — and love that your Google Calendar, Gmail, and LinkedIn populate the app for you, Queue is the most frictionless start in the category, and supporting an indie developer with your $4.99 feels good. Pick Queue when simplicity is the feature and you're comfortable with a hosted service run by one person (the one-tap export keeps that bet reasonable). We're the heavier tool: journal, depth fields, desktop, Android, local-first storage. If you don't need any of that, Queue does the core job with less.
Switching
Coming from Queue?
Queue makes leaving unusually easy for a subscription app: use its built-in one-tap export (in the app's settings) to pull all your data — people, cadences, and notes. Endearist imports the file via Settings → Import; contacts and notes map across, and Queue's reach-out cadences become Endearist's per-person reminder rules. If anything in the export doesn't map cleanly, your people are also still in iPhone Contacts, which Endearist reads on first run. Allow a few minutes for a few hundred contacts to settle on the first device before enabling sync — and consider cancelling the Queue subscription only after you've confirmed the import looks right.
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Prices and positioning verified 2026-06-10.
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