Cal.com
Scheduling tool for booking meetings, from the open-source Cal.com project (MIT). Free plan for one user with unlimited event types and calendars; the Teams plan costs $12 per user a month billed annually.
Cal.com is itself open source: the replacement is hosting it yourself. A small server with Docker, a database and access to your calendar is enough to offer booking pages without a per-user subscription. What you lose: managed hosting, updates, the connected-app marketplace kept working for you, and support. For one person or a very small team, self-hosting is an afternoon; the cost is maintenance and the reliability of calendar connections.
What you lose
- Managed hosting, updates and backups
- Support and the maintenance of calendar and video connections
- The simplest setup, with no server
Existing alternatives to Cal.com
- Cal.com (auto-hébergé)Open source
The same open-source software (MIT), installed on your server: booking pages, calendar connections and reminders.
- Easy!AppointmentsOpen source
Self-hosted appointment scheduler (GPL-3.0): providers, services, online booking.
- RalllyOpen source
Date polls to find a common slot (AGPL), self-hostable.
The prompt to build it yourself
Set up self-hosted Cal.com to replace the hosted subscription for my booking pages. Do not build a scheduler: deploy the open-source Cal.com. To do: - A docker-compose.yml with Cal.com and PostgreSQL, volumes in ./data, automatic restart. - Caddy in front, automatic HTTPS on a subdomain that I will give you. - Connection to my calendar (Google or Microsoft) with the minimum permissions, keys in .env, never in the repository. - Email sending for confirmations and reminders through a transactional service that I will give you. - Registration closed after my account is created. - A nightly encrypted backup of the database, copied off the server, with restore.sh and a restore test. Out of scope: team features, payments, workflows. README: launch, calendar connection, update, restore, and a reminder that I am now responsible for updates and for the reliability of bookings.
Frequently asked questions
- Can Cal.com be replaced by a custom-built tool?
- casevibecode verdict: Replaceable. Cal.com is itself open source: the replacement is hosting it yourself. A small server with Docker, a database and access to your calendar is enough to offer booking pages without a per-user subscription. What you lose: managed hosting, updates, the connected-app marketplace kept working for you, and support. For one person or a very small team, self-hosting is an afternoon; the cost is maintenance and the reliability of calendar connections.
- What is Cal.com used for?
- Scheduling tool for booking meetings, from the open-source Cal.com project (MIT). Free plan for one user with unlimited event types and calendars; the Teams plan costs $12 per user a month billed annually.
- What alternatives to Cal.com already exist?
- Cal.com (auto-hébergé) (open source), Easy!Appointments (open source), Rallly (open source). Options to compare before committing to a custom build.
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