With so many calendar apps available, it can be difficult to understand which one is best for you, your work, and your productivity.
To make things easier for you, we’ve put together a list of the 8 best calendar apps leading into 2023.
But before we get started, let's look at what makes a calendar app stand out.
What makes an incredible calendar app in 2023?
- People-centric: People need to be at the forefront when designing modern calendar apps. Calendars are capable of so much more than just managing your time—they can help people and teams collaborate and connect with one another. This is what makes the best calendars stand out nowadays.
- Ease of use: A good calendar app shouldn’t be complicated to use. Ease of use is critical—from the onboarding flow to daily use, things should be elegant but simple. The user’s experience should be seamless, requiring minimal clicks or searching to do basic tasks like booking meetings or scheduling a time to meet.
- Mobile-first: There is no doubt that being mobile-first is important, especially for busy professionals. Since we are often glued to our phones, we need to have a calendar app that can follow us around, and not just be available on our laptops.
- Sync capability: Calendar apps shouldn’t have to work in silos. So, we need calendar apps that can bring in information from other tools and software we are already using—whether that be big calendar clients such as Google Calendar, web conferencing tools like Zoom, or asynchronous communication apps like Slack.
With that in mind, let’s dive into our list of the 8 best calendar apps of 2023.
The 8 Best Calendar Apps for 2023
Google Calendar
Google Calendar is the most widely used digital calendar available on mobile, tablets, and the web. You can access your calendar from multiple views, have your data backed up, and create events by using smart suggestions for event titles, people, and places. Google Calendar will also automatically add events in your calendar coming from your Gmail. It is completely free and easy to use. Plus, millions of applications sync and integrate with Google, so chances are you’ll be able to add your current favourite apps to your calendar.
Users can also use Google Hangouts for video conferencing, colour code different calendars, and sync across multiple time zones.
Pricing: For personal use, Google Calendar is free. To use Google Calendar for business (which includes all Google Apps), there is a fee of $6 per user per month.
Platforms: iOS, Android, web
Outlook
Microsoft Outlook is primarily an email and calendar client, but also provides other features and services like contact management, task management, journaling, and note-taking available through Microsoft Office. Outlook is available on both mobile (Android/iOS) and desktop (Web, Mac, Windows) devices, but is most suitable for Outlook and Windows users. This calendar client is often used by companies for its shared calendar, scheduling, calendar management and information consolidation capabilities.
Pricing: For personal use, Outlook Calendar is completely free. For business use, there is a yearly fee as part of Microsoft Office 365.
Platforms: iOS, Android, web app, desktop (Mac and Windows)
Fantastical
Fantastical is a calendar app available to Web, Mac, iOS, Android, and Apple Watch users. This calendar app has been awarded the 2020 Mac App of the Year and also received the 2016 Apple Design Award Winner. Fantastical allows you to view your calendar from multiple views (daily, weekly, monthly) and across different devices. You can create events using their menu, through Fantastical’s natural language keyword entry or using an audio note. Fantastical is multilingual, has the ability to send geo-fenced event reminders, so you’re only notified when you’re in a specific location, and has robust event and task templates. This calendar app also comes along with 14 widgets that go directly on your device’s home screen, a weather forecast integration, and improved time zone support.
Pricing: In combination with Cardhop, the monthly subscription fee for individuals is $6.99 and $10.99 for families up to five. A 14-day free trial is also provided.
Platforms: iOS, Android, Mac app, Web app
Vimcal
Vimcal strives to be the world’s fastest calendar app, using hot keys, quick commands, and keyboard shortcuts to make every action lightning fast. It is a web calendar app with a sleek and fast scheduling system, allowing users to suggest times to meet and share availability with colleagues in a few short clicks. Vimcal also has an interesting time travel feature, making coordination across time zones seamless. Designed for a remote world, Vimcal allows users to launch virtual calls (Zoom and Microsoft Teams) directly from their calendar.
Pricing: Free trial for 14 days, then $15 per month afterward.
Platforms: web app
Mayday
Mayday, although only available via early access request, is a calendar, scheduling tool, and personal assistant. It is a desktop calendar application that helps with scheduling by creating links that reflect your availability, uses smart notifications (like knowing when certain days are overbooked), and allows you to protect your time when you need to focus on certain tasks. They also offer calendar templates, allowing you to customize your calendar for your role.
Pricing: N/A
Platforms: desktop app
Cron
Cron is known as the next-generation calendar for professionals and teams. It is available by request and was built to make people more productive and intentional with their time. (That said, it is currently only available as a desktop app.)
Similar to Vimcal, Cron offers shortcuts to make scheduling easier and helps with cross-time zone scheduling.
Pricing: N/A
Platforms: desktop app
Calendar
Calendar is a calendar app that is available through its web application and on iOS and Android devices. It is known for learning pieces of your calendar, like your contacts, schedule, and tasks, making scheduling and arranging meetings easier. Calendar integrates with Apple Calendar, Office 365 and Google Calendar, ensuring that you’ll see everything on Calendar that you see elsewhere.
Pricing: Calendar has a free version, a Pro version ($8 per month) and a Team version ($6-$8 per month).
Platforms: iOS, Android, web app
Calendars 5
Calendars is a calendar app made for iPhone and iPad devices. Its specialty is making viewing calendar events at a glance easy and quick. Users can sync the calendars they already use directly to Calendars including Apple Calendar, Google Calendar, Exchange, Yahoo, Facebook, Outlook and AOD.
Calendars 5 also integrates with video conferencing tools and has a neat natural-language input feature that allows you to schedule events automatically.
Pricing: Available for 3 months free, then $2.99 every 3 months or $8.99 as a one-time purchase.
Platforms: iOS (iPhone and iPad)
Find the calendar app that works for you
That’s a wrap on the 8 best calendar apps of 2023.
With many calendar apps out there, it’s important to take the time to evaluate the options available and find the one that works best for you. It all boils down to what you prefer and how you want to use the calendar app.