Best Calendar Apps 2023

Motion is a tool that I've been looking for ever since Sunrise Calendar was acquired by Microsoft, more than a decade ago. Since that faithful day, I've been on the never-ending journey of evaluating every single calendar/scheduler/task manager on the market, in search for what I once had.

We believe that Motion is creating a new category entirely, and while you'll see us compare it with the best project management software on the market, you'll see that it isn't just a traditional project manager. And with that, let's dive in:

Features & Differentiation

Rating: _A+

Motion isn't just a calendar, scheduler, or task manager. It's really an AI assistant that takes all of this unique information, and uses it to build your perfect day:

Other project management tools require you spend chunks of your day re-evaluating deadlines and shifting back work. Not to mention, they have no actual reference of your calendar, so actual focus time available doesn't even take into account when you're in meetings... 😅

That's where Motion is different, and in some ways, in a category of its own. What they are doing is unmatched in the project management space, and when you compare Motion vs Asana amongst others in the category, you see how outdated traditional task management tools truly are.

They've also taken this whole time management category and leveled up your project management software with a baked in calendar scheduler that takes into account all of your tasks and hard deadlines, along with time blocking to only recommend the best times for you to meet with others, ensuring that you can still get your work done on time. Something that no other project manager can do.

User Interface (UI)

Rating: _B-

Motion has a functional calendar/task interface that has your most important tasks on the left, and a calendar on the right. When comparing Motion and Cron, you start to see where the UI could be improved:

The plus side here is that the UI could be improved with some pretty minor tweaks, like making it more obvious as to what the current day is, having less harsh and lighter color pallet for events and tasks (in both light and dark mode), displaying calendar text in a more useful/way (versus getting cut off sharply), amongst other modifications.

We have faith that the team will make the much needed improvements here, and since it would require such minor modifications, we can't weigh this section too heavily against Motion. With these modifications, we feel Motion can pretty easily get to a _B+ rating in this category.

User Experience (UX)

Rating: _B

The main benefit of Motion, and how it differentiates from every other project management tool on the market is you add your tasks to it, then you forget about it. It will automatically schedule your tasks into your calendar to ensure that you get them done by the time they need to be completed.

With other tools like Asana, you need to manually reschedule your tasks manually on a daily basis, wasting anywhere from 20–60 minutes per day—something you don't even need to think about with Motion.

We would have actually rated Motion as an _A in the UX area back when it was a Chromium extension, because it would do incredibly impressive things like automatically pulling up your calendar when visiting a calendly link within the browser, showing you in Motion what times work best for you.

The problem was, there's just too much limitation as a Chromium extension versus being a fully standalone app, so they made the right directional move, they just need to bring some of these super thoughtful experiences back to the desktop app.

Motion is always a keyboard shortcut away (OPT + C), and that's one of the things we love most about using it. Once you're in the app though, it would be nice to have less clicks to get to where you're trying to get.

There's also a few times where you'd actually want to open back up Google Calendar, in things like proposing a new time for example, or editing a team's calendar event (even if you're invited to it), so fixing these things will greatly improve the UX. We're confident that they can actually get this up to an _A in the next 6–18 months.

Mobile App

Rating: _B-

Motion has an iOS and Android app that is fully-featured, including the full calendar functionality, along with your complete project task lists, and quick access to booking links while on-the-go.

Things we'd love to see to bring Motion up to an _A is a proper widget to replace the need for Google Calendar entirely. Some quality UX improvements could be made with having a way to more easily create tasks from other apps, by say sharing a screenshot to Motion, or highlighting text and sharing it with Motion (or even using Siri/Google Assistant to create tasks while on-the-go).

One little knit-pick is the time it takes for the mobile app to load, although this is something that the team is aware of, and we feel pretty confident that the mobile app will hit _B+ category in the months to come.

API & Integrations

Rating: _C+

We have to hand it to the team at Motion on this one—they launched an API, and then almost immediately spun up a Zapier integration to make their API even more accessible to others, something that newer tools in the space haven't invested in which makes Motion stand out, and something we greatly appreciate.

The API is surely to improve with time, adding in more functionality, although it does allow for the major things you'd want to use it for already, like create/find/update of tasks, and most importantly, creating the magic auto-scheduled task.

The one thing that the API is lacking though is on the appointment scheduling side of things. For example, you can't get the same type of API functionality that a tool like Calendly will give you on that front, although you can actually build some of the same functionality (like logging new appointments into your CRM upon booking) using a tool like Mailparser alongside Zapier (although I will say, it's not that straightforward). 😅

If Motion added in API functionality for their scheduler, we'd put Motion's API at a solid _B, which is all you'd really need it to be.

Competition

If you're anything like me and just starting the quest of your own (or in the middle of it), let me save you some time: you'll likely stumble upon calendar tools like Cron, Vimcal, Magical, Fantastical, Woven (acquired by Slack), and many more scheduler-focused tools like Calendly, ChiliPiper, and Cal.com (amongst many others), along with no shortage of all-in-one task management tools (e.g. Sunsama and Akiflow), heck, even "time management" tools like Clockwise and Reclaim.

Well I'm here to tell you that I've tried them all—extensively.

Each and every tool mentioned does some aspects to time management well, but fall apart when done together.

And that's where Motion is different. Motion is more than just a calendar, scheduler, or task/project manager—it is a platform for time management. Because at the end of the day, we're all just managing time—sometimes by way of projects and tasks, and at other times meetings and events. Motion understands this fact first-and-foremost, and with a small sprinkle of AI, you're given your perfect day planned out for you, no rescheduling or rearranging necessary.

Final Thoughts

We've actually fully switched to Motion from Asana after using Asana for 7+ years.

If you're looking for a deeper dive comparison on the project management of Motion, you can check out a deep dive project management comparison that covers all of that here.

That said, I've finally found what I've been looking for. (Oh and there's actually quite a bit more to the story if you're interested in hearing more)

User Interface (UI)

Rating: _A+

Cron has one of the most beautiful calendar interfaces, it genuinely sets the bar for the entire calendar category. Every shade of color and component was meticulously designed, and for that, we have huge appreciation for the team at Cron.

Although, it's relatively limited when looking beyond the beauty of what it is.

Pricing

Since it is free, it's a no-brainer to use in-place of checking Google Calendar directly (assuming you value getting a bit more enjoyment out of your daily calendar experience).

(They were also somewhat recently acquired Notion—oddly enough—likely because they didn't really have a business model and Notion saw benefit to acquiring their customerbase).

Cron also has a well-built, native iOS app, which is something to consider.

Final Thoughts

If you're looking for calendar + scheduler (to replace something like Calendly), you'll definitely want to check out a more time-management tool tool like Motion.

It's not uncommon for someone to use Cron on mobile, and something like Motion or Vimcal on their computer.

We initially loved the idea of Vimcal, as they are trying to portray themselves as the "Superhuman of calendar"—and we love Superhuman.

The thing is, they missed the mark on what actually makes Superhuman special in our eyes.

Vimcal confuses "productivity" with having keyboard shortcuts for everything (talking every single UI component).

This is at the cost of simplicity, making Vimcal feel quite a bit more overwhelming and over-engineered than it needs to be.

And when you're dealing with the monthly cost, we've found that Motion has a far superior scheduler and calendar (all for a similar monthly price), which even includes a time-blocking task/project management for individuals and teams.

Vimcal does have a nice mobile iOS app, although Cron takes the cake in that area (iOS only for both). Motion on the other hand has both an iOS and Android app.