Cal.com review
Cal.com is an open-source scheduling platform for booking links, team and round-robin scheduling, available as a hosted service or self-hosted.
Verdict
Independent users treat Cal.com as the free or cheap Calendly alternative: the free tier covers most of what solo users need, it syncs several Google and Outlook calendars without double booking, and several users prefer it to Calendly. The trade-offs are setup effort, since its flexibility takes more configuration than people expect, and costs for advanced needs such as OIDC or enterprise features, plus isolated reports of O365 busy-status sync failing and reminder emails not landing. About a quarter of the Reddit mentions are promotional, mostly self-promotion posts that carry the poster's own cal.com booking link or plug another product.
Evidence
15 positive2 mixed5 negativeacross 22 rated independent comments
27 of 100 comments read as promotion or coordinated seeding and were excluded.
What users like
- The free tier covers most of what Calendly charges for, and several users prefer it to Calendly[1][2][3][4][5][6]
- Connects several Google and Outlook calendars and blocks double booking; one user runs 4 Google and 2 Outlook accounts without issues[1][2][3][4]
- Booking pages and embeds feel smooth and clean, and users switching from Calendly, Harmonizely or Acuity found it cleaner[1][2][3][4]
- Workflows handle reminders and recurring bookings reliably[1][2]
- Round-robin team booking costs less than Calendly once you have several seats[1][2]
What users complain about
- Flexible, but takes more setup than most people expect[1][2]
- Advanced features get expensive: OIDC needs a paid plan, and one user found the enterprise features cost 100x their Acuity bill[1][2]
- One user could not get it to mark them busy on O365 calendars and moved to another tool[1]
- One user had 6 no-shows from 8 bookings and believes the reminder emails were not delivered to Gmail[1]
Best for
- Solo founders, consultants and freelancers who want a free booking link
- Small teams that want round robin for less than Calendly
- Developers who want an open-source, self-hostable scheduler
Skip it if
- Teams that want a no-setup tool and won't spend time configuring
- Buyers who need enterprise features or SSO on a small budget
Pricing
From $12/user/mo
Free plan for 1 user with no usage limits. Teams $12/user/mo and Organizations $28/user/mo, billed yearly (yearly saves 25% versus monthly); both have a 14-day free trial. Enterprise is custom, annual pricing.
Vendor-stated · Source · checked 2026-10-15
In their own words
Cal.com does 90% of calendly for free. I use it myself for my own business. You can set up “workflows” to set reminders. I have 24h and 1h before reminders.
Fair point, this is referred more to dev tools. Even though there are some good examples of open-source projects that are not specifically for devs like [cal.com](http://cal.com) which is in my opinion a better alternative to Calendly.
edpecially when I can just use cal.com for free and I’m pretty happy with it.
Cal.com has an awesome freemium tier and its pretty easy to set up!
[cal.com](http://cal.com) could be a good option. They have the necessary capabilities you've mentioned, the free tier is good.
This is exactly the right mindset - ruthless focus on time allocation. Couple additions that might help: \*\*Zapier/Make\*\*: Automate repetitive workflows between your tools. Even something simple like auto-posting investor updates to Slack or syncing meeting notes from Notion to your CRM saves 2-3 hours weekly. \*\*Cal.com\*\*: Instead of back-and-forth scheduling emails, just send a booking link. Free and much c…
Where Cal.com ranks in Scheduling & Lead Routing
Cal.com is #1 of 3 ranked scheduling tools. Scores are the confidence-adjusted share of favourable independent comments.
| # | Tool | Score | Pricing |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cal.com | 52/100 | $12/user/mo |
| 2 | Calendly | 45/100 | $10/seat/mo |
| 3 | Chili Piper | 30/100 | $1,250/mo |
Alternatives
Calendly
Chili PiperFrequently asked questions
Evidence base: 225 independent comments kept from 410 that mention Cal.com, after removing vendor accounts, self-disclosed employees and founders, affiliate links, service pitches and repeat promoters. Methodology.