I’d like to hear of an alternative to google calendar. I just need a calendar-based event tracker that is able to sync between at least my phone (android) and PC (Linux). Are there any alternative services? (other than Outlook)
Nextcloud is my best pick. Of course, it does much more than calendars, so if you’re looking for a calendar service that does only that it may be a bit overblown.
Big pros:
-
Native WebDAV integration out-of-the-box - which means that you can easily export your calendars through WebDAV URLs in any supported app
-
Support for importing external calendars
-
If you also use other Nextcloud products (like mail, contacts or office) the integration betweren them is quite well designed
On Android then I use DAVx5 to synchronize calendars and contacts from Nextcloud with my phone, and Etar as a multi-provider calendar app.
-
Tutanota calender app. Works offline. Encrypted. Sync with tutanota login so very easy to setup.
Use tutanota webb to view calender on pc. Might work as well with their desktop app(not tried)
I recently went through the process of separating from Google as much as possible here.
As others have said, Nextcloud or Radical or Baikal are all good calendar server options to self-host
On your Android phone, DAVx5 for syncing CalDAV and CardDAV (which the servers listed above use), ICSx5 for any public Google calendars you want to subscribe to (you can almost always get an ICS calendar file link for those), and Etar to interact with said calendars on your phone.
On your computer, Thunderbird is the easiest way to go. There is also the web interface for whatever server you decide to host. There are other options, too. On Linux, I use pimsync + khal/khard.
Caveats:
- In Etar, khal, AND the Nextcloud web UI, I have had lots of trouble with being able to apply updates to calendar events, like a new ICS file containing an updated time or place. The only calendar app I’ve found that handles this correctly is Thunderbird on the desktop.
- Doing things this way separates your email account from your calendar account, which can create some annoyances. Every mainstream mail service these days tightly couples itself with a calendar. For instance, to send invitations for a calendar event that I create on Nextcloud, I also have my email account linked to Nextcloud. You can’t do this if you have Proton or Tuta because of their encryption. When I had Proton, I used Postmark to have a send-only email account from Nextcloud to send out invitations.
- If you want to subscribe to PRIVATE Google calendars (my partner still has Google, so I need to do this), you need to sync a Google account with each device you want to subscribe to that calendar on. There is no way to add it to one of these self-hosted servers. The way that I handle this is by making a throwaway Google account that is only for subscribing to calendars, syncing that to my phone with DAVx5, and while I could sync to Thunderbird on my computer, I pretty much only use Thunderbird when I need to update a calendar event. So, in my case, I use pimsync. To sync a Google account to pimsync, you need to create a fake “app” using a Google account on the Google Cloud Platform, add the CalDAV API and generate credentials, add your calendar sync account to the allowed testing users, and then add the generated credentials to pimsync. It sucks.
- As usual, you can’t sync any Microsoft calendars with anything other than Outlook.
I have the Tuta calendar.
tuta indeed
Same (till today) but then the only way you can access your calendar is in the Tuta apps, and then you can’t share appointments with others, invite them, and so on. Bit of a limited option, unless your calendar security/privacy is really important to you.
seems like you can only share calendars, not events and only with other tuta users
it works for me but i can see how inconvenient it may be for others
Radical on the server, Davx5 on the phone to sync, Thunderbird on your desktop. The combination has worked for me over many years.
Man, I’ve read this like so many times. So… I just set it up and it’s working a treat. I installed radicale via radicale-docker, got it confogured with my user, set it up in Thunderbird and install/configured Davx5 and Fossify calendar (via F-Droid) on my android phone. <phew>
Docker for radicale (which is unofficial but they don’t offer one, so…)
https://github.com/tomsquest/docker-radicale?tab=readme-ov-fileThe only thing I might have to get used to is the sync delay with davx5. How often do you have yours setup to sync, if you don’t mind me asking?
I don’t know, it was always quick enough for me so I never went looking for a setting.
Nextcloud, self hosted. But it is maybe overkill, unless you need it otherwise, for family photo album, docs or such. Davx5 also needed on android. Thunderbird for desktop calendar client. Can recommend etar for android calendar app.
I self-host baikal and use davX5 on android with whatever calendar app i want, and on desktop i use betterbird but you can use any calendar app you want.
Proton has a good calendar service but if you want to change color labels you need to be on the more expensive tier - and they don’t really tell you that ahead of time. Which p’ed me off so much I moved my calendar to a Nextcloud server instead, which works great. It also got me off Keep, Drive, and I’m working on Gmail.
