Want to jump straight to the answer? The best calendar apps for most people are Amie and Google Calendar, because they’re accessible, easy to use, and full of helpful integrations.
We could all benefit from being more organized, but most of us are using 10 different apps to keep our lives together. Calendar apps offer a clean solution to help you organize everything, from your work events and meetings to your to-do lists, contacts, and doctor’s appointments. We’ve put together a list of the best calendar apps to help you stay organized and productive in one place.
The Top 5 Best Calendar Apps
- Amie — Best For Productivity
- Google Calendar — Best for Keeping it Simple
- Fantastical by Flexibits — Best For iOS
- TimeTree — Best For Collaboration
- Calendly — Best For Professionals
We’ve chosen our recommendations based on their features, design, intuitiveness, and ease of use.
Here’s our breakdown of the features you should know about to help you to choose the best one for you.
Amie — Best For Productivity
- Intuitive to-do list features
- Sends scheduling links
- Timezone tracking included
- Team calendars included
If you’re looking for a calendar app that will keep you streamlined and organize everything in your life, Amie is exactly that.
With a calendar that integrates with your to-do lists and your contacts, and sends out scheduling links, Amie is pretty all-encompassing. It focuses on trying to help you use the calendar to both organize business and your personal life, with as much ease as possible.
Amie shows your to-do lists in a sidebar, where you can then pull tasks directly into the calendar. It also syncs with your other calendars, like your Gmail accounts, to help you organize and schedule tasks. You can also create profiles for each of your contacts, where you can add important information like birthdays and upcoming meetings.
For team and project work, you can manage and join meetings directly through the app, share your availability, and track your team’s activity. It’s a really clean, powerful calendar that has features for just about every productivity need.
The only downside is, as it’s a new launch, Amie is only available right now on iOS and desktop. (Amie has said that Android is launching soon, though.) There’s a free version of Amie, or there’s an option to upgrade to a professional account for $10 a month for more features.
Google Calendar — Best For Keeping Things Simple
- Works with all Google apps
- Set recurring events
- Hosts multiple calendars
- Customizable design
Google Calendar is a classic for a reason – it might not have as many features as some of the other calendars on this list – but it’s clean, it’s easy to use, and it’s accessible.
The main draw of Google calendar is being able to use it with the other free Google tools. If you sync your Google tasks, Gmail, Contacts, or Google Meet, a lot of your organization is done automatically. This can be great for someone who wants to keep it simple and just wants a calendar for help with remembering dates.
Google Calendar also functions well on both Android and iOS, on desktop and in the app, and it’s clean and easy to use. While the customization and design options aren’t the best, you can at least have multiple different calendars per account and color code them accordingly.
The biggest drawback of Google Calendar is its simplicity. It’s easy to use and reliable, but it doesn’t have many extra features. Technically, if you upgrade to Google Workspace for a fee, you can then access a few premium features on Google Calendar (mostly sharing features for teams). The cost of upgrading to Google workspace starts at $6 a month.
If all you want is a tool that will tell you what you’re doing and when, Google Calendar is a great choice.
Fantastical by Flexibits — Best For iOS
- Syncs across devices
- Customizable widgets
- Includes light and dark mode
- Secure privacy settings
Fantastical by Flexibits is a calendar app specifically designed for iOS users with an incredibly powerful range of features. Like Amie, the app focuses on productivity and helps you streamline tasks. You can join Zoom calls directly through the calendar, it has an intuitive language feature that helps create events for you, and it even helps you check the weather!
Just like with Google Calendar and Google Suite, Fantastica users can sync other iOS apps like contacts or notes. There are also options to share the calendar with teams, schedule conferences, send invites, and even let your team vote on when they’d like to have a meeting.
The design is really sleek and user-friendly. Just like with other Apple apps, users can choose between dark and light mode, customize colors, and choose how they would like widgets or notifications to display across their devices.
Obviously, the biggest drawback is that only iOS users have access to this calendar app. The basic version is free for all iOS users, but it is missing a good chunk of the features a premium subscription, starting at $3.33 a month, would get you.
TimeTree — Best For Sharing
- Effortless calendar sharing
- Interactive news feed
- Group calendars
- Minimalist, clean design
TimeTree is a different type of calendar app. Unlike most others on the market that focus on productivity, TimeTree focuses on collaboration. The goal of the app is to help you manage your time around and with other people—whether that’s a team, your family, or even your friends.
The features focus on helping you create groups and coordinate your tasks, meetings, or events with others on the app. You can share your calendars with other people, who can then leave comments underneath. There’s also a memo feature, which lets you create notes or lists and then share them with your contacts for feedback.
The drawback of this app is it doesn’t do as much outside of collaborative features. The other features are limited to creating events and sharing notes with your contacts. Also, the design is clean but not as easy or functional as some of the other apps on this list.
TimeTree works for both Android and iOS, and there’s a free version and a paid, premium version. The premium version only really includes features like hiding ads or attaching files, though, so for most people, the free version has everything you need.
Calendly — Best For Professionals
- Powerful automation tools
- Team scheduling included
- Broad availability settings
- Personalized booking links
Calendly is a calendar and scheduling app that helps you plan and organize your professional schedule. Rather than broadly helping you stay on top of everything, Calendly focuses on helping you manage and automate meetings and appointments.
Team members or clients can book meetings with you directly through the app. You can set windows where you’re available for meetings, set how long each meeting is, and connect Calendly to your other calendars (including Google Calendar) so no one books a call when you’re busy. You can also use Calendly to automate follow-up emails, invites, and reminders.
Calendly comes with lots of integration features to help you send invites, join meetings, or get paid. The design is clean and functional, which makes sense considering it’s a scheduling app aimed at professionals. You can add Calendly to iOS, Android, and desktop.
The basic version is free, but it doesn’t give you access to many features and it only lets you schedule or book one type of meeting. Aside from the free version, there are a few different premium plans for professionals or teams, ranging from $8 to $12 a month.
While Calendly might not be the best app for managing your everyday tasks or personal errands, it is great for businesses or solopreneurs who struggle to keep up with client calls and meetings.
How to Find The Best Calendar Apps For You
There are plenty of great calendar apps out there, so to narrow it down we had to be selective about the criteria.
Someone looking for help running a business is going to be looking for different things than a mother trying to manage a household. We tried to look at what different apps were offering, and then provide a list with at least one app perfectly suited to anyone.
When we were choosing the best apps, we looked for the following criteria:
- Functionality
- Collaboration Features
- Design
- Integration Options
Functionality
When looking for a calendar app, you should choose something that integrates easily with all your other apps or calendars, and provides all the features advertised. One of the reasons we chose Aime as our most productive app was because it integrated so easily with our Google suite, living up to its productivity promises.
We chose apps that have useful functions and features, like joining Zoom calls directly through Aime or Fantastical’s intuitive scheduling features. Google Calendar and Calendly have fewer features to choose from – but when it comes to automation and integrations, they made up for that.
When you choose a calendar app for yourself, read the list of features carefully and choose the one that you think will simplify your life the most. The overarching goal of a calendar app is to help you feel organized and productive and to make things easier.
Collaboration Features
It’s likely that you’ll want to share your calendar with someone else at some point—especially if you’re working in a team.
We looked for apps that provided easy sharing features, ways to invite people to meetings, and scheduling links. We also looked for apps that let you create profiles for your team members and ways to create groups for events.
If you’re just looking for an app that will help you stay organized, this might not be an important feature for you. But, if you’re on a team, or you need to plan around friends and family, then apps like TimeTree and Calendly might be the best for you.
Just keep in mind that most calendar apps, like the ones we’ve chosen for the list, only offer team features if you pay for a premium subscription. If sharing is important to you, maybe it’s worth investing in an upgraded plan.
Design
We looked for apps that have clean, easy-to-navigate designs, and lots of customization options. Can you change the colors? Are the menus well designed? Is the calendar easy to read?
Aime and Fantastical had the most aesthetically pleasing designs, while still being easy to use.
Google Calendar and TimeTree kept it clean and functional, with minimal design options, so if all you really want from a calendar app is to simplify your life, this might be the right choice for you.
The same can be said for Calendly—the design is simple, but the focus is on making scheduling easier and it feels professional. When you’re deciding on the right app for yourself, choose one that fits your needs and you find easy to use – but also choose one that you actually like looking at. You’re more likely to use an app that looks good and you want a calendar app that inspires calm whenever you open it.
Integrations
The last criteria we had when choosing our top Calendar apps was which integrations were available.
Google Calendar was on our top list because it integrates so easily with the rest of the Google suite. The same can be said for Aime, where you can link all your other calendars, your contacts, and your to-do lists.
Fantastical also has a great range of integrations—but only if you’re an iOS user. When you’re choosing a calendar app for yourself, make sure you look at which integrations are available and whether those are useful for you.
If you know that you want to sync a lot of contacts, apps, calendars, or plugins – then our recommendation would be to choose either Aime or Fantastical.
Summary
Calendar apps are a great way to get organized, save time, and get more done. And while there are plenty of great options out there, after all our research, we’d have to say that Amie and Google Calendar are the best.
They have more features than anyone could need, they’re easy and fun to use, they look beautiful, and they help you be productive and efficient, not just organized.
https://www.quicksprout.com/best-calendar-apps/
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