Google Calendar vs TidyCal

Google Calendar is the official calendar app that comes with your Google account (along with Google Workspace and Gmail). You can schedule events, set task reminders, and share your calendar with others, all the stuff you'd expect from a calendar.

For most people, Google Calendar is more than enough. But the truth of the matter is, it’s built for the masses, which means the interface is cluttered and it's less thoughtfully designed than newer purpose built calendar apps. It has looked the same for the past 6+ years, but it's because they are building the web app, Android app, and iOS app for billions of users. With that, they can't be that innovative without upsetting tons of their users. Move one button and the whole world is up in arms.

Its biggest strength is being the universal backbone of some of the best calendar apps and best daily planner apps on the market.

• Works on desktop, iOS, and Android
• Deep integration with Gmail and Google Workspace
• Allows multiple calendars in one place
• Serves as the backbone for most third-party calendar apps
• Excellent mobile app experience

• UI feels built for the masses (can feel cluttered)

Many calendar apps on this list rely on Google Calendar as a foundation for syncing, permissions, and event management. If you upgrade to another calendar app later, you'll still be using Google Calendar underneath.

While Google Calendar is a great foundation, it's not the nicest-looking calendar app out there.

Google Calendar is the most feature-rich calendar you can get, and they've done a great job of integrating natively with Gmail, Google Meet, and Google Workspace. So that means it's easy to create events directly from emails, gaining it some productivity points. You can also attach Meet links automatically and share calendars across teams, essentially locking you into their ecosystem.

Google Calendar’s mobile app is one of the best free calendars. It almost seems like they put more care and effort into the mobile app because the UI is very clean and responsive compared to desktop or web.

• Free: For those who have created a Google account
• Included in Google Workspace plans (Business Starter, Standard, Plus, Enterprise — pricing varies by tier)

TidyCal might have caught your attention because it offers a one-time payment of $29 instead of a subscription model. It includes scheduling and payment features, which can be tempting...but let us tell you, it's not worth it.

First, we generally don’t recommend purchasing software with one-time payments because they often lack ongoing updates and support. Subscriptions ensure that a team is continuously improving the product and driving innovation, whereas a one-time fee usually means little to no advancement.

The other reason it's not worth it is because a newer scheduler called Cal.com offers everything that TidyCal does on their free tier 😅

TidyCal was more appealing when it only competed with Calendly, but now, with Cal.com on the market —well — you do the math.