Key takeaways
- Searches for a history timeline tool come from two different people: one wants to build a timeline from their own research, the other wants to read a timeline somebody else assembled.
- Authoring tools and browsing tools are not substitutes, and a tool that is excellent for one job is useless for the other.
- TimelineJS from Northwestern University's Knight Lab is open source and part of a free suite of lightweight storytelling tools, which makes it the natural choice where embedding on a web page matters.
- Tiki-Toki documents a free tier limited to a single timeline, with embedding and group editing on its paid accounts, plus a three-dimensional display mode.
- Preceden documents a free tier capped at ten events per timeline, with export to PDF, image, presentation and spreadsheet formats and collaboration on its higher tier.
- Our own app is a browsing tool with a pre-built corpus, not an authoring tool: you cannot build your own timeline in it, and that limitation is the point of this comparison.
Two different people search for a history timeline tool. One has research of their own and needs somewhere to put it. The other wants to see what happened when, across the world, without assembling it themselves. Those are opposite requirements, and a tool that serves one serves the other badly — so the first question to answer is which of the two you are.
Disclosure: World History Timeline Sim is our own app, built by Reign Creative, and it appears below. It is a browsing tool with a pre-built corpus, not an authoring tool: you cannot build your own timeline in it. Saying so up front is more useful than pretending these are substitutes. Everything here comes from each provider's own public documentation as checked on the research date at the top of this article, and there are no ratings, popularity figures or overall verdicts.
The two jobs, stated properly
Authoring. You supply the events, the dates and the descriptions. The tool arranges, styles, publishes and exports. The value is in your research; the software is a presentation layer. This is what almost every school or university project needs.
Browsing. Someone else supplied a corpus and you move through it — by era, region, country or theme. The value is coverage and navigation. This is what you want when you are orienting yourself in an unfamiliar century rather than producing something.
Confusing the two wastes real time. People spend an evening hunting for a "timeline app" that will already contain the eighteen events they need for an assignment, and no such thing exists, because those events are the assignment.
The authoring tools
TimelineJS — Northwestern University Knight Lab
Knight Lab describes TimelineJS as making "easy-to-make, beautiful timelines", and lists it among its "open-source, adaptable, and lightweight tools for media makers", with the project code published on GitHub. It launched in 2012 and is one of the lab's longest-running tools.
Practically, it is the option to reach for when the timeline needs to live inside a web page — a blog post, a project site, a digital exhibit. Being open source also means the output is not locked to a vendor's hosting, which matters if the work has to survive past a term. The trade-off is that it expects a little more setup than a consumer app with a drag-and-drop editor.
If you are already working with historical data in a digital-humanities context, The Programming Historian's peer-reviewed open-access lessons are a good independent check on what is worth learning: it publishes substantial sets of lessons on data visualisation, mapping and data manipulation for historical sources, under a CC-BY licence with named authors and a review process. That is a different standard of documentation from a product page, and it is worth using when you are deciding how much to invest in a toolchain.
Tiki-Toki — Webalon Ltd
Tiki-Toki describes itself as letting you "create beautiful interactive timelines that you can share on the web", and markets a distinctive three-dimensional display mode, claiming to be the only online timeline creator offering timelines in three dimensions.
Its documented tiers on the research date: a free account limited to one timeline with basic features; paid monthly tiers allowing progressively more timelines, with a discounted student rate on the entry tier; and an annual teacher account for classroom use. Embedding is documented as a paid-tier feature, and collaborative "group edit" — described as getting friends or colleagues to contribute to your timelines — sits on premium accounts.
That shape suits a single showcase timeline you intend to publish, or a class where the teacher account covers the students. It is less suited to someone who wants several throwaway timelines.
Preceden — Preceden LLC
Preceden describes itself as a timeline maker used for project management, legal cases, education, research and creative writing — a broader remit than history teaching, which shows in its output formats.
Its documented free tier allows unlimited timelines of up to ten events each, with export to PDF, PNG, PowerPoint, CSV and Excel. Paid tiers remove the event cap and branding and add spreadsheet import; the higher tier adds collaboration and a custom domain. Sharing options documented include a link, an HTML embed, presentation mode, and secret or password-protected URLs on paid plans.
The export list is the reason to consider it for coursework. A timeline that can leave as a PDF, a slide or a spreadsheet is a timeline you can hand in, present, and re-use — and CSV export means your data is portable if you later change tools.
Browsing a pre-built corpus: where ours sits
Our app is the other category. It ships with a large corpus of events, people, civilisations, wars and landmarks, filterable by era, region and country, with a map view and curated sets, and everything bundled locally so it works with no connection.
What it does not do, and will not do: let you create a timeline of your own events, export anything, embed anywhere, or collaborate. If your task is "make a timeline of the causes of the First World War for Friday", the app is at best a place to remind yourself what happened in what order before you build it somewhere else.
Two further limits belong in an honest comparison. The app's content carries no citations and has had no external scholarly review, so it is a revision and orientation aid rather than a source, and it is not a substitute for teachers, scholarly books, archives or primary sources. And its map view is a static illustrative image with approximate marker positions — its own footer states that coordinates "are approximate and intended for learning, not navigation" — so it should not be used as a geographic reference.
Getting useful work out of a pre-built timeline is a skill in itself, and our guide to reading a world history timeline covers what that kind of tool is and is not good for.
The comparison
Documented attributes only, as verified on the research date.
| TimelineJS | Tiki-Toki | Preceden | World History Timeline Sim | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Category | Authoring, open source | Authoring, hosted | Authoring, hosted | Browsing, pre-built corpus |
| Your own data | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Free tier | Open-source tool | One timeline, basic features | Unlimited timelines, 10 events each | Free download, ads and optional purchases |
| Embed in a web page | Yes, designed for it | Paid tiers | HTML embed documented | No |
| Export | Open-source output | Not documented as file export | PDF, PNG, PPTX, CSV, Excel | No |
| Collaboration | Via your own workflow | Group edit on premium | Higher tier | No |
| Works offline | Depends on your own hosting | Not documented | Not documented | Yes, content bundled |
Choosing, in one page
- The timeline has to appear inside a web page or a project site. TimelineJS, for the embedding and because open source means nobody can take your output away.
- You want one polished, visually distinctive timeline and do not mind a subscription. Tiki-Toki, with the caveat that embedding sits behind a paid tier.
- You need to hand something in, or to get your data out again. Preceden, on the strength of its documented export formats.
- You are not building anything yet and need to know what happened when. A browsing app, ours or another, used for orientation and then closed.
Two practical cautions for anyone about to start. First, check the export path before you invest hours: a timeline you cannot get out of a tool is a timeline you will rebuild. Second, keep your events in a plain spreadsheet as the master copy, whatever you publish with. That way the research survives the software.
For the wider question of picking learning tools on criteria rather than features, see choosing a history app for students; for the research habits that produce a timeline worth building, how to study history on your own. More tool and method comparisons sit in the history learning methods hub and across our education and brain training writing.
Pricing, tiers and features change. Confirm current terms with each provider before committing to one.
Good to know
Frequently asked questions
Do I want to build a timeline or browse one?
Which timeline tool is free?
Can I embed an interactive timeline in a web page?
What should a student use for a school history project?
Sources
- TimelineJS (opens in a new tab)Northwestern University Knight Lab — accessed
- Tiki-Toki Timeline Maker (opens in a new tab)Webalon Ltd — accessed
- Preceden Timeline Maker (opens in a new tab)Preceden LLC — accessed
- Lessons (opens in a new tab)The Programming Historian — accessed
About the author
Reign Creative LLC — The independent app studio that builds the apps covered on this site and publishes every article here. On Google Play it publishes as Reign Collective Apps.
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