Best Calendar Apps for 2024
18th Sep, 2024
Finding the perfect calendar app can be hard. Picking a calendar application that helps you plan your week, or schedule your next meeting, or just to keep yourself organized ahead of time. We've shortlisted the best calendar apps for you.
Time is the center of the universe.
Does that make calendar apps the best productivity app?
You don't have to be a time management fiend to want to use a calendar application to better organize your events, meetings & maybe even time-block. Calendar apps are some of the most common productivity tools as at the core they focus on time.
Navigating calendar applications is like buying a car, so many brands, so many offerings. Which one to pick right? We feel you. The range of calendar applications is expansive and we've now seen the rise of tools like meeting planners, chrome extensions for your calendar, and smaller calendar apps too.
Best Calendar Apps for 2024: Our Recommendations
As you look into these tools, these are the most recommended:
- Fantastical - a long-standing giant in the calendar management space
- Notion Calendar - the well-designed, clean calendar that connects with Notion
- Morgen - A combination of tasks, calendar & smarter AI features
- Amie - A sleek, fast calendar and task combination
- Vimcal - a fast calendar application that presents AI features for time plotting
- Reclaim AI - A team-focused calendar with AI scheduling functions
- Hey! Calendar - A productivity focused calendar with unique perspective
- Rise Calendar - a new calendar app with a vision to increase focus time
- Calendars by Readdle - world-known Readdle created this friendly calendar app
- Google Calendar - a solid free choice for managing your calendar
- Moleskine Timepage - One of the most stunning calendar experiences on mobile
What makes a great calendar app?
Calendar apps are hard to pick because they look the same and present many of the same features like ability to time-block, adding events, descriptions, reminders & video conferencing optionality. Here's what we believe make a calendar app brilliant:
- Scheduling Functions - The best calendar apps should allow you to better plan meetings and events with people using meeting scheduling functions. This is becoming much more common and not every calendar app has it, but that's what makes them better. There's nothing worse than investing your time into a calendar app and using a 3rd party service like Calendly to book meetings. Two tools can become one.
- Super Mobile Apps - Calendar is hard to get right on mobile thanks to the tiny real-estate when compared to a wide screen desktop display, so the best calendar apps make it easy and resourceful of the space on their mobile app version. Cracking examples are ones that make it easy to navigate between dates and don't overwhelm with features but deliver what's needed to view, schedule in and even plan meetings.
- Increasing AI Abilities - There's more need for AI to do smaller errands in the background of your calendar apps. The more prevalent calendar apps will need and activate AI to do things like plan your tasks into your calendar, save time with suggested dates & recommend the best slots for you and people to work with. Less meetings, more focus time is the best motto.
These are the best recommendations going into 2024.
Calendar applications are used to better manage your time and produce better focus time. Let's explore the best of the breed of calendar apps and which one is best for you.
Tools Reviewed
Struggling to choose from the lists above, we've curated our opinions on why these are the best in the list below - go get your calendar app!
1. Fantastical
Best All Round Calendar
- Pricing: Free with $6.99 upgrade
- Platforms: macOS, iOS & Apple Watch
- Scheduling Link: Yes, in Premium
Why is Fantastical one of the best calendar apps?
Ever since we've been reviewing calendar apps, Fantastical continues to shine. Fantastical is developed by Flexibits who've created an easy, fun and approachable calendar application.
Fantastical is free and offers a good way to get started adding meetings, events and even weather forecasts too. It is simple in nature, with "natural language input" for quickly adding events.
Fantastical offers a premium experience which does give you better and bolder access to conferencing, productivity features like sets for managing your tasks and calendar in one and even a meeting scheduling link that you can send out externally to book meetings. This is just one of the classics in the productivity space as far as calendar apps.
Worth exploring our guide to beginners for Fantastical to learn more.
Should I Consider Fantastical?
For those Apple centric (iOS and macOS) users, that want a great all-round calendar app. This is one of the best one the market. Fantastical is brilliant for managing events, using natural language to add quick tasks, and managing light tasks alongside events.
2. Notion Calendar
Best Simple Calendar App
- Pricing: Free, no premium
- Platforms: iOS, Windows, macOS & Web
- Scheduling Link: Yes
What makes Notion Calendar a good calendar app?
Notion Calendar, formerly Cron, is a powerful, lightweight calendar app.
Perfect for those who want a simple calendar experience, Notion Calendar connects with Google Calendar and allows you to time-block, send meeting scheduling links out, manage your tasks and meetings with video conferencing to Google Meet and Zoom.
Notion Calendar brings powerful ways to connect with Notion without leaving your calendar in two ways. With pages, so you don't loose important pages that could be useful for a meeting, and with databases, so you can bring in important dates to your calendar.
Notion Calendar also brings a brilliant way to manage your events on the go with a reliable, fast and easy to use mobile application that many people continue to credit.
Should I Consider Notion Calendar?
Notion Calendar is free, works with Google Calendar and brings a stunning design on both desktop and mobile. Notion will likely continue to integrate this with Notion and bring more features to enhance it, whether they bring it into a pricing model is open to debate, but for now Notion Calendar is fantastic and works great even more so for Notion users.
3. Morgen
Great for All-Round Use
- Pricing: Free with $9 per month
- Platforms: iOS, Android, Windows, Linux, macOS & Web
- Scheduling Link: Yes, Limited to 1 in Free
Why Morgen is a good calendar app?
Since we last reviewed Morgen Calendar it now wants to be much more.
Morgen helps you plan tasks, manage your calendar and connect with other integrations like Todoist, Google Tasks and beyond, with a Notion integration coming too. Alongside your calendar events and meetings you can see a task list with the ability to create tasks and create lists for better planning, you can then use this to time-block into the schedule.
Morgen is one of the fastest growing calendar apps on the market and continues to have us impressed with the pace of their building and development equally.
Is Morgen Suitable for Me?
Morgen is probably even better as an all-rounder than the likes of Fantastical to be honest. It brings a wide variety of devices, good design and a speedy app for adding tasks and calendar items with ease. Much like Fantastical it offers a clean and simple design, and with the same freemium limitations too that you'd expect to see in Fantastical.
Morgen has been growing their offering with AI and experimenting. One of the reasons we named Morgen as our Mayday alternative to explore is thanks to the nature of investment into AI calendar management.
4. Amie
Email + Tasks + Calendar
- Pricing: Free with $15 per month (monthly) upgrade
- Platforms: iOS, macOS, web
- Scheduling Link: Yes
Why Amie is a good calendar app?
Amie brings a new fresh take on calendar management.
Amie allows you to manage calendar events, tasks and even email (in the premium) allowing you to combine those experiences in one, time-block and get managing tasks alongside calendar items and meetings. People also seem to really like the integrations which offer ways to connect with popular apps like Todoist, Notion and Spotify.
There's plenty to like about Amie and with their email experience, it really tests the boundaries at what we believe a calendar application should be in 2024. This is definetly one to watch in this next year of productivity apps.
Should I get Amie?
Amie much like Morgen and Mayday has abilities to plan tasks with calendar too.
This makes it a compelling option in this list and that comes with a higher price, this allows people to manage both their tasks and calendar in one, this is more common in daily planning apps and this is where Amie looks like it is heading.
If you want something clean, easy to use on mobile and has light task management, with some good integrations, then Amie is one of your options to look at.
5. Vimcal Calendar
Best for Advanced Calendar
- Pricing: Free for mobile, $15 per month
- Platforms: iOS, Windows, macOS
What makes Vimcal a good calendar app?
Vimcal is one of the faster calendar apps on the market and really for more serious calendar app users. This is more premium but does have a solid free experience for mobile calendar application with a clean and easy to use design on the go.
Overall Vimcal wants to be the fastest way you manage your calendar and they do this with features that span into AI, team management and better collaborating with others externally. There's a few notable features, the first of those is AI Time Finder that helps you share dates, or a Calendly link, or even a screenshot - it will pick all the meetings out and plot them out on the calendar making it easier to plug them in right away.
They don't stop there with the "team slots" function - it allows you to book slots with others and even use AI to find the best slots they think will work out. You can use group voting for your meeting times and also use a Calendly link link for automatic bookings.
Is Vimcal a good choice?
If you're hunting for something more progressive in the realm of AI then we'd say checkout Vimcal, it reminds us of the Superhuman for calendar apps - speedy, packed with features and eager to be adding more at a rate of knots.
6. Reclaim AI
Best for Team Calendar
- Pricing: Free with $8 - $18 per month
- Availability: Web
- Scheduling Links: Yes, Limited
What makes Reclaim a good calendar app?
Reclaim AI is one of the most interesting AI calendar apps for better team scheduling, but works well for solo scheduling too. The concept is simply to better organize your schedule using machine learning and better scheduling systems.
A feature within Reclaim that is very interesting is the ability to add priorities that better help you slot the most important tasks into your calendar and that automatically moves around based on what meetings and priorities you have coming up, great for focus.
They promote focus and still account for your habits too to better manage routine items like lunch, breaks, gym routines and things that you don't really ideally want to move by hours. This is son
Should I get Reclaim AI?
For your team, this is a really interesting option that is gaining lots of attention for the focus on weaving your time with habits, tasks and smarter thinking around 1:1 time and meetings you have as a team. It gets smarter each time your team uses it, but it shouldn't be ruled out as a freelancer, or a solo individual who wants to better time manage.
7. HEY! Calendar
Calendar Productivity System
- Pricing: $99 per annum with HEY! Email
- Availability: Web, iOS, Android, Mac, Windows
- Scheduling Links: Only with HEY users
What makes HEY! Calendar a good calendar app?
Hey is new to the scene. So adding it here was an interesting addition, but combining it with the already, well respected HEY! Email system of productive emails, made it an interesting option for calendar management.
Combining habit-tracking, sometime this week tasks and time tracking in one calendar app is a very powerful way to handle your calendar and anything connected to time management. HEY brings a horizontal day view which many people are liking as a way to handle their day ahead and a week view that allows you to see a more traditional window into your week ahead.
Habit tracking and time tracking are useful features that are nested into the background and HEY! Calendar is packaged up with the already popular HEY! Email experience that people know and love for more productive approach to their inbox management.
Should I get HEY! Calendar?
As you get HEY! Email as part of this, we'd look into seeing whether their email service connects with you and your vision for productivity. HEY products are bold and opinionated, so it takes some time to research and really dig into whether they are right for you for your day-to-day productivity, as they turn the traditional concepts on their head.
8. Rise Calendar
Best New Calendar
- Pricing: Free, with $20 per month, per user team pricing (past 5 users)
- Platforms: Web, macOS
- Scheduling Links: Yes
Is Rise Calendar worth it for your calendar management?
Rise Calendar is a new edition and we've recently just added it to Tool Finder's growing collection of calendar applications, but the experience has impressed us very much.
Rise offers a better way to plan your calendar with more control in mind. They have features that want you to take your time back and better focus on the task at hand, a concept really pushed by time-blocking and deep work, a classic book by Cal Newport.
Rise Calendar does this by introducing you to FocusGuard - a system they use to block time in your calendar and make it blocked for people trying to book it if your calendar goes over a certain amount of meetings a week. They want your focus time to be protected and then automatic feature, that can be adjusted in the settings, can be moulded to you.
They also have other features like flexi time slots, 1:1 internal and external meeting scheduling links. Rise Calendar won't break the bank too - with a generous free plan and a premium plan that is steeper but only for adding more than 5 members to Rise.
Should I get Rise Calendar?
If you're a solo user and open to trialing a public beta, Rise Calendar is a great macOS experience and comes with a brilliant, performing calendar app that you will love. For team users, the pricing is a little steep past the likes of 5 members, but before that, people will love this for personal calendar management.
9. Calendars by Readdle
Great for Routines
Why is Calendars by Readdle one to consider?
Readdle make some of the best productivity software and Calendars is one of them. We'd recommend exploring this if you don't want anything too fancy as a calendar application.
This calendar experience focuses on the basics but with some gems within like "routines" that help you to create quick adds to your calendar. Say you run often, then you can use routines to help save time adding that event and the metadata accordingly each time. Just drag it into your calendar for easy calendar management and no excuse mentality.
Formerly Calendars 5, this calendar app comes with a great reliable nature, views like Calendars 5 did well on mobile and a solid development experience.
Should I get Calendars by Readdle?
For lightweight calendar use, this is a perfect balance between the more advanced calendar apps we've seen in this list and the more basic ones like Google Calendar. We'd recommend Calendars for the reasoning that Readdle have developed it as an all-round way to handle your calendar and routines in one.
10. Google Calendar
Best Free & Easy
- Pricing: Free
- Platforms: Web, iOS and Android
- Scheduling Links: Yes
Should I stick with Google Calendar?
A free, reliable Google Calendar offers what you need to better manage your calendar in the Google ecosystem. Only working with one calendar at a time, this works great. You can't beat some of Google's services but some like to have 3rd party experiences to remove and improve the design elements.
With Google Calendar on web, one of the underrated things is opening up Google Tasks and using them alongside each other, your calendar & tasks in one place. Then pop open the likes of Google Keep and you're laughing.
11. Moleskine Timepage
Most Beautiful on iOS
- Pricing: Part of Moleskine Suite pricing starting from $11.99 annually
- Platforms: macOS, iOS
- Scheduling Links: No
Why Moleskine Timepage is one of the best calendar apps?
This stunning calendar application is perfect for those who love well-designed iOS applications because Moleskine Timepage is a stunner.
It doesn't just stun your eyes, features like time-to-travel help you to get ready and notifications for weather too make it easier to pack an umbrella. There's also some colour-coding setups and great visual effects making it one of the most experience based calendar apps on mobile we've ever seen.
Should I get Moleskine Timepage
Well worth exploring if you need a reliable, beautiful calendar app on iOS. Here's our review of Moleskine Timepage to go deeper.
Which Calendar App to Pick?
Here's our best recommendations for your specific scenario:
Best for All Round
Simple and easy to get round, this free calendar app has some powers in pro but packs a good all-round experience in Morgen free.
Best for Apple Users (iOS & macOS)
Hands down the best for Apple users who want to stick in the Apple ecosystem.
Best for Design Lovers
This is one of the best looking calendar apps. Many look fantastic in this list, but Cron has to be the best looking out of them all and one we vote as the nicest looking.
Best for iOS users
Moleskine Timepage is a stunning choice for iOS users who lover visuals and gestures.
How to Get Started Finding Calendar Apps
Calendar applications are perfect for managing your meetings, events and time.
These are good pillars to start with and to rank on how important they are for how and what you pick as your calendar application. They have become popular in the last few years due their ability to add conferencing to them for quick and easy creation of meetings and joining them with ease. Is that important for your calendar app? Keep that in mind.
There are so many calendar applications and shapes and sizes, so making sure you choose one that best suits your needs and everyday practicalities as important. Our recommendations for calendar apps below span many different areas but offer you a broad calendar app experience to get you started.
What Makes the Best Calendar App?
Think of calendar apps as the home for your time. You want them to be reliable, easy to use and play nicely on your devices as three core rules for picking the best calendar apps.
Here are some more features to look out for:
- Colour Coding - see your calendar in a colour-coded system. Popular with those who like to plan events and meetings around colour schemes - eg. red for meetings.
- Multiple Calendar - seeing all your calendars in one base might be valuable to many people so seeking a calendar app that does that will be important.
- Scheduling functions - booking external meetings on email is hell. So a calendar app that offers scheduling functions inside could be an option.
These are all good things to look out for on the hunt for your next calendar app.
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