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Best calendar app of 2023

The best calendar apps make it simple and easy for you to set reminders, schedule events, and overall better organize your time.

Whether you’re running your own business or an employee, chances are there aren’t enough hours in the day to get everything you want done completed. Having a normal calendar app is great if you want to simply make note of big individual events such as business meetings or even time off, but there’s more to calendar apps than this. The best go beyond creating basic timeblocked entries by making reminders, scheduling meetings, and planning out your days, weeks, and months to ensure you’re using your time as efficiently as possible. 

At the same time, the best calendar apps will allow you to plan seamlessly across all of your devices with cloud syncing. This means you can add an entry to your calendar on your smartphone and then later review or edit it on your desktop computer or laptop when you’re back at work. While this requires an active Internet connection, viewing and even editing a calendar can usually be done offline, with the app then handling the sync when it reconnects later on.

Additionally, the best calendar apps allow you to see your work calendar, personal calendar, and even your shared calendars all in the same place. The ability to switch between these can help with productivity because when you’re working you probably don’t want to be distracted with personal events, and conversely when you’re at home and trying to relax you don’t want to work to intrude on that.

Overall, the best calendar apps are more than just calendars, but more like a simple form of virtual assistant that makes it simple and easy to organize your busy life.

Below we’ve listed what we think are the best calendar apps currently available.

The best calendar apps of 2023 in full:

(Image credit: Google)

The best cloud calendar app

Reasons to buy+

Free to use

+

Sleek interface

+

Integrated into Google Workspace

Reasons to avoid-

No location-based reminders

If you have a Gmail account, then you already have access to and are likely familiar with Google Calendar. This calendar app is available on the web and the company’s own operating systems: Android and ChromeOS. Given the company’s strong foothold, plenty of other apps are available for all of the major operating systems including iPhone users. Just like with Gmail, Google Docs, and the rest of Google’s products, Google Calendar is completely free to use making it one of the most attractive propositions, though you do get access to a few more features when you sign up for a business-focused Google Workspace subscription.

Unlike other calendar apps that try to cram in as much as possible, Google Calendar relies on a simple and professional design to keep your calendar tidy. It’s certainly aesthetically pleasing, but some power users may find it hard to find all the settings and options they may require. You can view one day, four days, a week, a month, or even a whole year at one time.

It’s designed to work with the rest of Google’s services, which are becoming increasingly integrated in an era where the company is focusing on saving users time with artificial intelligence, like its chatbot Bard. There are colorful cards for each month, and events like flights from your Gmail automatically show up in your calendar as well as video calling entries from the company’s own platform, Meet. Events can also be organized by sorting them into separate calendars or color-coded by their category.

The biggest strength of Google Calendar is that it’s a cloud-based app that syncs across all of your devices. This means that whether you’re at your computer or on your smartphone, as long as you’re signed into your Google account, you’ll have access to your calendar with notifications as well. Like many of its rivals from leading tech companies, it has some unique limitations that require you to have a Google account to get the most out of it, so while you can certainly sync a Google Calendar with most other clients and apps, it’ll be at its best on its own.

Read our full Google Calendar review.

(Image credit: Calendar.com)

Best calendar for users that want a simplified experience

Reasons to buy+

A good number of features available

+

Multiplatform support

+

Different pricing tiers

+

Company is committed to AI investments

Reasons to avoid-

Integration with other services could be improved

–

Has become an expensive option

After testing out every other calendar app on the market and discovering that most users weren’t happy with the solutions available, the developers of Calendar.com first released their own calendar on the web, Android, and iOS back in 2009. 

Calendar.com includes all of the features you’d expect from one of the best calendar apps. You can view your schedule by day, week, month, or year and easily share your calendar with others. It clearly has business customers in mind with handy additions like analytics (breakdowns of how you spend your time), easy scheduling and syncing with colleagues, and even some small AI boosts to make scheduling slicker.

However, it also includes the ability to embed calendars in web pages and has integrations with both Zapier and Zoom. Free users also have the ability to set up meetings with five other people. Similarly, it can sync with Google Calendar and Microsoft Calendar, however iCal and Yahoo Calendar are currently off the cards. While the company promises to be working on those, it’s advised that you don’t base your decision on potential future additions because technical hitches can cause significant slowdowns and even cancellations of projects.

The Calendar.com app has a minimalist design where UI elements that aren’t frequently used are hidden from view to avoid unnecessary clutter. Color coding allows you to keep your personal and work events separate though there is also a unified calendar feature that allows you to view multiple calendars at once. In fact, you can connect up to 10 different calendars which you can view from the app’s dashboard.

Calendar.com offers three separate plans in the form of Basic, Standard, and Pro, and while some additions and improvements have been made, the pricing has significantly increased presenting a higher barrier to entry for SMBs in particular. Basic, which is free, comes with all the essentials and lower limits. Standard and Pro improve limits but expect to pay $25 and $30 per user per month unless you’re willing to pay annually for a 20% discount. 

Read our full Calendar.com review.

(Image credit: Microsoft)

Best calendar for Windows users

Reasons to buy+

Completely free

+

Intuitive and familiar design

+

Integrates with Outlook, Windows, and Microsoft’s other products

Reasons to avoid-

Lacks customization

–

Exchange server needed for some features

Although Outlook Calendar was initially designed for corporate users and large organizations, Microsoft has revised this calendar app over the years to make it an excellent product for both personal and professional users. The best part about Outlook Calendar is that it’s completely free and you only need to create a Microsoft Outlook account to get started. In addition to email and a calendar, if you’re a paying user you also get access to Microsoft Office apps like Word, Excel, and OneNote.

Outlook Calendar may seem a bit limited in terms of features but the app supports all of the standard view modes including day, week, month, and schedule. It’s great for people with busy calendars because it allows you to view multiple accounts at once. It’s also a neat tool for organization freaks, with plenty of folders and sharing options.

Scheduling is one of the things Outlook Calendar does really well. Using the app, you can easily preview scheduling conflicts and view suggestions for alternative time slots. What makes it such a powerful tool is that people you share events and calendars with don’t need to have Outlook Calendar themselves, so they can continue to use their favorite calendar app.

Outlook Calendar forms part of the wider Outlook email client for desktop users including a fairly new version specifically designed for oft-forgotten macOS users. There’s also a web app and mobile apps for both iOS and Android. Microsoft also keeps all of these apps updated regularly and all versions share the same features so you’ll be right at home regardless of which platform you’re using.

It’s worth noting that you will miss out on some features if your email account doesn’t use an Exchange Server, like color-coded tags, so even though the service will work with third-party accounts it has a unique way of forcing its own services upon you.

Read our full Outlook Calendar review.

(Image credit: Appgenix Software)

Best calendar for business users that need advanced features

Reasons to buy+

Advanced widgets

+

In-depth customization options

+

Can be used to manage multiple calendars

Reasons to avoid-

Free version has adds

–

Can be overwhelming for new users

Business Calendar 2 from Appgenix Software is primarily aimed at business users that need access to loads of advanced features and customization options. In fact, some users might feel a bit intimidated by the sheer number of options available and just how complex it looks compared to its minimalist rivals. Fortunately, Appgenix provides professional customer support and a knowledge base with a lot of information on a wide variety of topics.

Unlike some of the other options on this list that offer web apps and support multiple platforms, Business Calendar 2 is an Android app that can be downloaded from either the Google Play Store or the Huawei App Gallery for Huawei smartphones. Great for on-the-go organizing, but not so good for companies whose workers are running a variety of operating systems.

Still though, Business Calendar 2 offers more than enough in terms of features and customization. The app allows you to view your calendar in a day view, a week view, and a month view. Multiple events can be moved, copied, or deleted at once using its agenda feature. There are also 22 themes available and seven beautiful widgets that can be customized down to the last detail.

Business Calendar 2 is available in both a free and premium version. The main difference between the two comes down to the features available as premium users can simultaneously manage multiple events and also get access to media attachments, private event invites, priorities, templates and other advanced customization options. Instead of being a monthly subscription, the premium upgrade for Business Calendar 2 is just a one-time payment that costs less than $10.

Read our full Business Calendar 2 review.

(Image credit: Any.do)

Best calendar for users that want to improve their productivity

Reasons to buy+

Customized themes

+

Sleek and fast interface

+

Wide range of supported devices

Reasons to avoid-

Full experience requires a premium subscription

Any.do is known for providing several productivity tools which in addition to a calendar include a daily planner, a to-do list, a grocery list, and reminders. The company’s calendar app also integrates with Google Calendar, iCloud, Outlook, and more and is available on Android, iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, Wear OS and even on smart home devices like Amazon Alexa and Google Home.

While Any.do is free by default, upgrading to a premium subscription gives you access to advanced recurring reminders, customized themes, WhatsApp reminders, color tags, location reminders, and an unlimited daily planner which costs the equivalent of $3 per month billed annually.

Any.do features a smooth, award-winning interface that works as expected. Switching between different tasks and views is also easy just as it is to edit events. Speaking of tasks, the app also lets you create sub-tasks and configure them with options like a reminder, linked tasks, labels, and more. The company hopes that combining all of the tedious day-to-day organization tasks in one place helps users to focus and ultimately, get more done.

It’s not just a family organizing tool, though, because integrations with video conferencing services like Teams, Zoom, and Google Meet; project tracking software like Monday.com, Trello, Asana, and plenty of others, make it a powerful hub.

If you’re looking for a calendar app that works seamlessly across all of your devices, browsers, and even your smart home, Any.do just might be for you.

Read our full Any.do review.

(Image credit: Moleskine)

Best third-party calendar for Apple users

Reasons to buy+

Packed with features

+

Unique integrations

+

Moleskine brand appeal

Reasons to avoid-

Only available for Apple devices

–

Requires a paid membership

Timepage is a unique-looking, standout calendar app developed by notebook and calendar maker Moleskine, which takes some familiar styling cues that can make navigating the app a little challenging at first. That said, it looks slick and there are plenty of view options ranging from a daily schedule to the full month or a six-week period.

Expect the usual list of features, like color coding and event sharing. Locations, people, and other media can be added to calendar entries to help provide smart insights, and the weather integration (which is by no means unique to Timepage) is another handy tool.

Great news for Apple users is that Timepage is optimized for iOS, iPadOS, and even watchOS for on-the-go event monitoring. There’s also a dedicated macOS desktop app which is more conventional-looking than the mobile versions, however Windows and Android users are uncatered for.

While there’s no free version, the subscription isn’t as expensive as some rivals at $1.99 per month or $11.99 per year. There’s also a more expensive Moleskine Studio bundle that combines Timepage with the company’s reminders and to-do lists app, Actions, and sketching and mind-mapping tool, Flow.

Read our full Timepage review.

(Image credit: Monday)

Best task management tool

Reasons to buy+

Choice of plans

+

Free trial

+

Annual discounts

+

Choice of support contact

Reasons to avoid-

Seat minimums

–

Automations reserved for higher tiers

Using the well-known work management tool Monday.com, teams can schedule, monitor, and control their workload, and keep track of the project over time. It gives users access to a workspace that comprises boards on which groups of people can arrange tasks, projects, and workflows. It is all done to promote a culture of “Work ownership and accountability.”

Boards can be customized by adding columns that list the relevant information, such as task names, deadlines, owners, statuses, and priorities. Encourage team members to interact with one another by using Monday.com’s collaborative features, such as comments, mentions, and attachments. Teamwork on a project is facilitated by the ability to view a task more clearly, judge tasks more accurately, and work more efficiently as a result of pre-built automations. The project can then be tracked via a dashboard that compiles data from several boards, which all contributes to a collaborative and efficient workflow.

We like that there are five different plan tiers available, including at the bottom a free one, which gets limited to two seats and three boards. The Basic Plan, which has a minimum of 3 seats, is the starting point for the paid plans. When purchased annually as a discount, each seat costs $8 per month. Access to automations, which are available for $10 per seat per month with a cap of 250 automations per month, requires moving up a tier to the Standard Plan. The completely configurable Enterprise Plan is at the top of this tier structure.

There are multiple ways that support can be accessed: through chat, email (which is actually a support portal that supports sharing files such as an annotated screenshot), or by requesting a callback via phone.

Along with mobile apps for iOS and Android, we appreciate that there is a free trial available.

Read our full Monday Work Management review here.

(Image credit: Flexibits)

Best third-party calendar for Apple users

Reasons to buy+

Intelligent suggestions

+

Beautiful interface with smooth navigation

+

Loads of useful extra features

Reasons to avoid-

Desktop version only available for Mac

–

Premium subscription required for many features

Fantastical is a calendar app that is designed to bring all of your events, tasks, and meetings together in one place. The app is primarily geared towards Apple users and is available on macOS, iPadOS, iOS, and even watchOS so you can quickly check your calendar using your Apple Watch. 

While there is a free version available, you’ll need a Flexibits Premium Subscription to take full advantage of Fantastical’s features. There are two premium plans available with one designed for individuals and the other for families. The individual plan pricing also applies to business users, on a per-user basis. For the price though, you also get access to Flexbits’ Cardhop which integrates with your device’s contacts and serves as a digital rolodex you can use across all of your Apple devices.

In addition to helping you keep track of your personal and work calendars,  Fantastical also has an innovative feature called Interesting Calendars that syncs external calendars based on your interests. This way you can stay up to date on your favorite shows, sports, and more automatically.

Fantastical is well known for its beautiful design and interface. Everything inside the app is laid out logically and there are also plenty of customization options to make your calendars your own. Fantastical also provides three themes to choose from so you can have the standard Fantastical theme, a light one, or a dark one that provides you with a consistent view of your calendar across both desktop and mobile.

While calendar sharing works to alleviate some of the compatibility issues, there is one clear drawback and that is that there are no Android or Windows versions, so unless you have an entire Apple ecosystem then you’ll want to find an alternative.

Read our full Fantastical review.

(Image credit: Calendly)

Best calendar for scheduling complex meetings

Reasons to buy+

Streamlined user interface

+

Can create rules based on your availability

+

Excellent scheduling options for one-on-one and group meetings

Reasons to avoid-

Few customization options

Calendly is a calendar app with the aim of making scheduling a breeze for both your professional and personal life. It does this by first having you fill in your availability from which it creates simple rules so that it can do the work for you. From here, you can send guests your Calendly link or even embed it directly on your website for easy appointment scheduling. Calendly could be the perfect tool for hybrid workers as it lets you create and schedule meetings over Zoom or in person.

Events can be categorized by type, meetings can be set up as either recurring or one-off with specific options for both, and there is a great deal of automation available to make scheduling very hands-off. Premium subscribers also get access to integrated metrics that can provide a comprehensive overview of how you’ve been using your calendar as well as changes you could make to your schedule to improve your daily life.

Although Calendly has a relatively simple user interface, its developers have put a lot of thought and attention into making the app both streamlined and accessible. The only downside is that there aren’t a lot of customization options though you can tweak how the app looks.

There’s a free tier, however three additional paid plans at $10, $15, and $20 per user per month offer many more features for business users. 

Read our full Calendly review.

(Image credit: Thunderbird)

The best calendar for Linux users

Reasons to buy+

Free and open source

+

Large and supportive community

+

Runs well on older systems

Reasons to avoid-

Dated interface

–

Not available as a standalone app

Lightning Calendar is the only open source option on this list and it’s offered as part of Mozilla’s email client, Thunderbird. In addition to working on Windows and macOS devices, Lightning Calendar is one of the best calendar apps for Linux.

Just like Mozilla Firefox, Lightning Calendar is completely free to download and use. But like Outlook Calendar, it isn’t available as a standalone app which means you’ll have to install Mozilla Thunderbird to use it. This calendar app’s source code is also completely open and anyone can get involved and help contribute to it. While you can’t pay for Lightning Calendar, you can make a donation on Mozilla’s website to support its continued development.

Lightning Calendar allows you to create events, set up reminders and invite people but you can also take advantage of public calendars and add them to the app. In fact, on its website, Mozilla provides a full list of holiday calendars for countries around the world in case you want to know when your remote co-workers will or won’t be available, which is handy for organizations who work with workers, freelancers, and contractors from different parts of the globe. You can also create tasks with detailed configuration options like progress tracking and advanced postponing.

The biggest downside to Lightning Calendar is that it features an older, dated user interface which lags far behind some of the more minimalist approaches employed by most of Lightning’s competitor apps. This could be perfect for those that like to keep things simple or for those with older machines that can’t be bogged down running multiple modern applications.

Read our full Lightning Calendar review.

(Image credit: Apple)

Best first-party calendar for Apple users

Reasons to buy+

Completely free

+

Clean and smooth design

+

Integrates nicely with iOS, iPadOS and macOS

Reasons to avoid-

No Android or Windows apps

–

Lacks themes and other customization options

Just like Outlook Calendar and Google Calendar come pre-installed on Windows and ChromeOS devices, Apple Calendar is installed on iOS, iPadOS and macOS devices by default and is free to use. This means that if you have a MacBook or iPhone, you already have this calendar app installed on your device and ready to go.

Apple Calendar allows you to create and edit events with standard settings like time/date, location and recurrence though you can also invite others to your events if you have them as a contact first. Events support additional notes and links as well as file attachments, and the company also recently launched new FaceTime links for video call scheduling (along with URL support for other video call joining links).

Apple Calendar lets you view your schedule in day, week, month, and year view, and color coding makes it easy to keep your calendars and events organized. That said, there are few customization options available which is typical of Apple’s other software.

Apple Calendar offers more than enough to handle the basics but if you want more customization or find yourself working on Windows or Linux devices in addition to your Mac, you might want to look elsewhere. There’s an online version that’s laid out similar to the desktop version, however the desktop version has some differences to the mobile and tablet versions, especially in terms of scheduling which takes a smarter but less customizable approach on Mac.

Read our full Apple Calendar review.

We’ve also featured the best time management apps.

Which calendar app is best for you?

When deciding which calendar apps to download and use, first consider what your actual needs are. A number of general software platforms already include a basic calendar, but can often lack the necessary tools for a dedicated diary. Additionally, free and budget calendar apps can provide a lot of the tools you need, but higher-end software can really cater for the specialist, so do ensure you have a good idea of which features you think you may need to save on the pain of changing to a different software platform later on.

Should I pay for a calendar app?

Typically, paying for a service will give you the best results with many of the premium features locked behind a paywall. That’s not necessarily the case with calendar apps, depending on who you are. For personal use, there’s often very little need to fork out when plenty of free options have everything you need. The same can be said for some businesses, though there are some cases when paid-for features like appointment scheduling may be called for.

Can I use more than one calendar app?

Most calendar apps will be able to sync with most service providers, though it’s worth checking the small print before committing, especially if you intend on paying. While you may want to use Google Calendar for your Google account on an Android device, and Outlook Calendar for your work’s Exchange-based calendar, it’s possible to have them both showing under one app. For others, though, keeping them totally separate can help compartmentalize work and personal. It’s entirely a preference thing, and both ways are usually possible.

How we tested the best calendar apps

To test for the best calendar apps we first set up an account with the relevant software platform, whether as a download or as an online service. We then tested the service to see how the software could be used for different purposes and in different situations, such as keeping a diary and scheduling conferences. The aim was to push each software platform to see how useful its basic tools were and also how easy it was to get to grips with any more advanced tools.

Read how we test, rate, and review products on TechRadar.  

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