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The 8 Best Calendar Apps of 2023

After exploring all the different calendar apps available, we put together a list of the eight best calendar apps that will help you and your team thrive in 2023.
Kathryn Leslie
Insights
January 1, 2023
8 minute read

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.

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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.

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Related reading:

Whether you’re a sales superstar, in-demand consultant, busy recruiter, or someone who simply needs to schedule a lot of meetings, one thing’s for sure—you’ve probably booked a lot of them over the past two years.

Hybrid work has forced the majority of our meetings online, and while we appreciate being able to wear sweatpants during normal work hours, the time-consuming ballet that is sharing your availability, finding a time to meet, and adding it to your calendar isn’t quite as enjoyable. 

Speaking with everyone from solopreneurs to seasoned professionals, it seems like a lot of people find meeting scheduling software either costly, impersonal, or just plain boring. And Calendly and other alternatives don’t always cut it.

We hear you. 

Everyone is different, and so is how they work. Making good first impressions is important, and you shouldn’t have to pay a premium for them or basic customizations and integrations with your meeting booking system.

Nook Calendar’s meeting proposal feature is already used by tons of high-performing teams for selecting and proposing meeting times outside of their organization. 

Now, we’re making things even easier by letting you build personal pages with shareable calendar-booking links, right in Nook Calendar. Add them to your LinkedIn profile, email signature, website, or messages when finding a time to meet.

We think it’s the best meeting scheduling software out there, and we’re excited for you to give it a try, so let’s get started.

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Here’s How to Set Up a Personal Booking Page in Nook Calendar

First off, if you’re new to Nook Calendar—hello! (If you’re already a Nook user, you can skip ahead.)

You’re going to start by syncing your calendar—either from Google Calendar or Microsoft Outlook—and entering your work email address.

Once you approve any necessary permissions, you’ll set up your People Bar. Search for any connections and add the people you interact with the most when scheduling meetings.

From there, you can add any additional calendars you want to see (add your personal one, if you like, to further prevent any overlaps when scheduling meetings), integrate with Zoom (so you can launch calls straight from your calendar), and choose your preferred display setting—select Match OS, Light Mode, or Dark Mode.

Launch Nook Calendar, and you’re ready to set up your online meeting scheduler.

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Now, the fun begins

You’re going to start by claiming your unique URL for sharing your meeting availability page. 

Your first name appears by default, but really, it can be anything. We recommend using your full name (e.g., /john-smith).

(You can always change your URL in the future, as long as it’s still available.)

From there, you want to complete your profile. 

Your profile pic is automatically pulled in from your Microsoft or GCal account.

But you can add your name, job title, welcome message, and links to social media profiles or professional website, so guests know a bit more about you when booking a meeting. 

Then, you can start setting your weekly availability.

Nook Calendar defaults to traditional time blocks—9–12 a.m. and 1–5 p.m. These are the hours someone can book a meeting from your personal page. Adjust them based on your availability. 

Your timezone is automatically set to your local time, but you can change it if you primarily work with people in a different timezone and it’s better to visualize that when setting your availability.

Choose which calendar you want to accept meetings in—it can only be booked in one, but Nook Calendar will automatically reference your availability in other calendars you’ve synced to prevent double-bookings when someone schedules a meeting.

Now, it’s time to set up some paramaters. 

You can set up your preferred meeting duration in either 15, 30, 45-minute or one-hour increments (or a custom time).

You can also add buffer time to give yourself a break between meetings, or set a lead time of up to 24 hours, so no one can book any last-minute meetings.

And you’re all set! You can preview what the page will look like, then share it with contacts or add it to your LinkedIn profile (we suggest adding it as a secondary URL), email signature, and anywhere else you do business.

Once someone books time in your calendar, you’ll receive an email and get a notification in the Pulse.

If you ever need to make any changes, you can access your personal meeting page in the bottom of the Magic Panel and make any adjustments—either to your weekly availability or personal information.

You can also remove your availability by simply creating events in Nook Calendar and marking them as Busy to block off time and prevent any bookings.

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Nook Calendar’s new personal pages for sharing meeting availability are available on Web, iOS, and Android. 
If you have any questions or thoughts, we’d love to hear them. Hit us up in our Slack Community or contact us through Support.  

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