DormWay vs myHomework: The Honest Comparison (2026)

I used myHomework for two semesters before I built DormWay. It's a genuinely good app: $4.99 a year, it runs on basically every device ever made, and it's been around longer than most of us have had smartphones. But every August I'd sit down with five syllabi and spend an evening typing every assignment, every exam, and every due date into it by hand. That hour of data entry is the whole reason DormWay exists, because a planner shouldn't make you build it before it helps you. Here's the honest, no-spin comparison, including the real places myHomework still wins.

The short version

myHomework is the better pick if you want the cheapest possible cross-platform planner and you're fine entering assignments by hand, especially on Android, Windows, a Chromebook, or a Kindle Fire, which DormWay doesn't support yet. It's also a solid choice for K-12, not just college.

DormWay is the better pick if you'd rather not type anything. It reads your uploaded syllabus with AI to pull assignments, exam dates, the grading breakdown, and the late policy, and it live-syncs Canvas, Blackboard, and Moodle read-only into one prioritized timeline. It's free for students, with no ads.

Short version: myHomework is the cheapest manual planner, and DormWay is the one that fills itself in. If you just want the answer, jump to the table and the "Who should use what" section below.

DormWay vs myHomework at a glance

What myHomework actually does well (no spin)

I'm not going to pretend myHomework is a bad app, because it isn't. There are real reasons it has stuck around for so long.

• Price. Premium is $4.99 per year. That is dramatically cheaper than any monthly auto-planner (Shovel, for example, runs around $10/month). If raw cost is your deciding factor, myHomework is hard to beat.
• Reach. It runs natively on Android, Windows, Chromebook, and Kindle Fire, which DormWay does not cover. If you live on a Chromebook or an Android phone, that matters more than any feature comparison.
• Maturity. It's been refined over more than a decade, it's stable, it has a low learning curve, and it offers a deep set of themes and home-screen widgets.
• Audience. It works for K-12 through college, not just university students. That's a genuinely broader audience than DormWay serves today.
• A usable free tier. Core task tracking, reminders, and cross-device sync all work on the free (ad-supported) plan.

If those are the things you care about, this comparison can stop here and myHomework is your app. The rest of this post is for the people whose actual problem is the typing.

Where myHomework leaves work on your plate

The thing myHomework can't do is build itself. Everything in it gets there one of two ways: you type it, or you import a calendar feed.

• No AI syllabus reading. There's no auto-extraction at all. You enter each assignment, exam, and class yourself, or you import an ICS calendar feed.
• The ICS import is thin by design. A calendar feed carries standard event fields, which means titles and due dates only. It cannot pull grading weights, exam dates that live in the syllabus, or your late policy, because those aren't in the feed.
• Auto-refresh is paywalled. On the free tier, the ICS import is a one-time manual pull. Automatic refresh when a professor adds or changes an assignment requires the $4.99/year premium account.
• No Moodle. Moodle isn't a supported import source.

This is the friction reviewers consistently point at: the "spend an evening typing your syllabus into the app" problem. It's exactly the evening I kept losing every August.

How DormWay fills itself in

DormWay starts from the opposite premise: the planner should do the setup, not you.

• It reads your syllabus. Upload a syllabus PDF and DormWay's AI reads it to pull assignments, exam dates, the grading breakdown, and the late policy into your planner. You can review what it found, but you're starting from a populated timeline instead of a blank one.
• It syncs your LMS live, read-only. DormWay auto-syncs Canvas, Blackboard, and Moodle and refreshes on its own, so it's not a one-time manual ICS pull, and Moodle is included.

• It prioritizes for you. Everything lands in one timeline: Do Now / Up Next / Due Soon, instead of a list you have to build and babysit.
• It captures the parts a calendar feed can't. Grading weights and late policy come from the syllabus, not the LMS calendar, so DormWay sees course details a feed structurally can't carry.

To be clear about scope: DormWay reads your syllabus reliably on the large majority of real syllabi, but it isn't magic, and it's worth a quick glance to confirm. And the AI boundary is narrow on purpose. We use AI for dates, not essays.

One honest note on breadth: myHomework's ICS importer actually lists more sources than DormWay's three native LMS connections. DormWay's edge here isn't the number of platforms, it's the depth: live API sync instead of a one-time feed, Moodle support, and pulling the full syllabus, not just titles and dates.

Price and privacy, side by side

Let's be precise, because $4.99/year is objectively cheap and I'm not going to spin that.

• myHomework: the free tier is ad-supported. Premium is $4.99/year to remove ads and unlock auto-import, attachments, and sharing.
• DormWay: free for students at the core level, with no ads and no data selling. (Pro features are planned; the core student experience is free for students.)

The real question isn't which number is smaller, it's what you trade. With myHomework you trade an evening of manual entry and some ads for a near-zero price. With DormWay you trade native Android/Windows support (more on that next) for automatic setup and an ad-free, no-data-selling experience. DormWay never sells your data.

Platform coverage: the one place reach beats automation

This is the section where myHomework wins outright, and I want to say it plainly.

• myHomework covers more devices: Android phone and tablet, Windows, Chromebook, and Kindle Fire. DormWay is web, iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
• If your primary device is Android, Windows, a Chromebook, or a Kindle, myHomework is the more available option today, full stop.
• DormWay runs on the web in any browser, so you're not locked out, but it doesn't have native Android or Windows apps yet. I'd rather set that expectation honestly than have you find out after signing up.

Switching from myHomework to DormWay

The good news about switching is that you don't re-type anything.

• Connect Canvas, Blackboard, or Moodle (read-only) and upload your syllabus PDFs, and the planner populates itself from there.
• The whole setup is about two minutes: sign in, connect your LMS, upload your syllabi, then review the auto-pulled timeline and your assignment list.
• The sync is strictly read-only. DormWay never writes back to your LMS and doesn't touch your grades.

If you're curious how the grading breakdown gets used once it's pulled in, that feeds DormWay's grade tools too.

More than a task list — it plans around your world

Every other app here is a place to *store* your deadlines. DormWay is the only one that knows the world they live in: it factors your campus’s academic calendar (finals, breaks), campus events, your city, and the day’s weather into the plan it builds for you — so "what should I do today" accounts for the exam next week, the event on campus tonight, and the storm rolling in, not a flat to-do list. It even knows the local language on hundreds of campuses — your school’s slang, acronyms, and building nicknames — so it talks about your campus the way you do, not generic “school.” myHomework can’t do that — it doesn’t know your campus.

Who should use what

Choose myHomework if you want the cheapest cross-platform planner, you're fine entering assignments by hand (or your school exposes a clean ICS feed), and especially if your main device is Android, Windows, a Chromebook, or a Kindle Fire, or if you're in K-12.

Choose DormWay if you'd rather never type a due date again: you're on web, iPhone, iPad, or Mac, you use Canvas, Blackboard, or Moodle, and you want your syllabus (assignments, exams, grading, late policy) read for you automatically into one prioritized timeline, free for students and with no ads.

If your deciding factor is device reach or rock-bottom price, myHomework wins. If it's automation and getting your evening back, DormWay wins.

Stop typing your syllabus into a planner. Upload it to DormWay and watch it fill itself in, with assignments, exams, grading, and late policy pulled for you, free for students. Connect Canvas in about two minutes. Get started free