After using Calendly, Topmate, Bookingpress and many other tools, I’m finally making the switch to cal.com. Appointments and calendars are an important part of professionals and freelancers like us. But having a clean and efficient booking system, which should be perfect in user experience and serve the purpose, is rare to find.
In my recent exploration of finding free/open source alternatives to industry-standard productivity tools, I found this great platform.
Let’s have a side-by-side comparison of Cal.com with other tools such as Calendly, Topmate, BookingPress, Google Calendar and let’s find out who wins!
| Feature / Tool | Cal.com | Calendly | Topmate | Google Calendar Booking | BookingPress (WordPress Plugin) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 💰 Pricing | Free (self-host) or Paid (SaaS) | Free + Paid (starts ₹840/mo) | Free (10% cut on earnings) | Free (with Google Workspace) | Free + Pro |
| 🌐 Branding / White-label | ✅ Full branding & white-label | ❌ Paid plans only | ❌ No branding | ❌ Google branded | ✅ Full control (your website) |
| 💳 Payment Gateway Support | ✅ Stripe, PayPal, | ✅ Stripe, PayPal | ✅ Razorpay, Stripe, PayPal, UPI | ❌ None | ✅ Native Razorpay (Pro), Stripe, PayPal |
| 🌍 Self-host Option | ✅ Yes (via Docker) | ❌ No | ❌ No | ❌ No | ✅ Yes (WordPress plugin) |
| 📅 Multiple Calendar Sync | ✅ Google, Outlook, iCal | ✅ Yes | ❌ No | ✅ Google only | ✅ Google Calendar (Pro/Paid feature) |
| ⚙️ API & Dev Friendly | ✅ Full API + Plugins | ❌ Limited API (Pro only) | ❌ No | ❌ None | ❌ Basic shortcodes only |
| 📹 Meeting Integration | ✅ Zoom, GMeet, Jitsi, Teams | ✅ Zoom, GMeet, Webex, Teams | ✅ Zoom, GMeet | ✅ GMeet only | ✅ Zoom (Pro), GMeet (via plugin) |
| 🧠 Manual Confirmation | ✅ Yes (toggle on/off) | ❌ No (Pro only) | ❌ No | ❌ No | ✅ Yes |
| 📱 Mobile App | ❌ Browser only (for now) | ✅ Android/iOS | ✅ Android/iOS | ✅ Google Calendar app | ❌ No native app, mobile responsive only |
| 🌟 Unique Features | Open source, plugins, workflows | Creator monetisation platform | Creator monetization platform | Native with Gmail + Meet | Freelancers with a WordPress site |
| 🎯 Best For | Devs, agencies, freelancers | Teams, consultants | Creators, coaches, influencers | Teachers, internal meetings | Freelancers with WordPress site |
🔄 Cal.com
- 💰 Pricing: Free (self-host) or Paid (SaaS)
- 🌐 Branding / White-label: ✅ Full branding & white-label
- 💳 Payment Gateway: ✅ Stripe, PayPal
- 🌍 Self-host Option: ✅ Yes (via Docker)
- 📅 Calendar Sync: ✅ Google, Outlook, iCal
- ⚙️ API / Dev Friendly: ✅ Full API + Plugins
- 📹 Meeting Integration: ✅ Zoom, GMeet, Jitsi, Teams
- 🧠 Manual Confirmation: ✅ Yes
- 📱 Mobile App: ❌ Browser only
- 🌟 Unique Features: Open-source, workflows, plugins
- 🎯 Best For: Devs, agencies, freelancers
📆 Calendly
- 💰 Pricing: Free + Paid (starts ₹840/mo)
- 🌐 Branding / White-label: ❌ Paid plans only
- 💳 Payment Gateway: ✅ Stripe, PayPal
- 🌍 Self-host Option: ❌ No
- 📅 Calendar Sync: ✅ Yes
- ⚙️ API / Dev Friendly: ❌ Limited API (Pro only)
- 📹 Meeting Integration: ✅ Zoom, GMeet, Webex, Teams
- 🧠 Manual Confirmation: ❌ No (Pro only)
- 📱 Mobile App: ✅ Android/iOS
- 🌟 Unique Features: Creator monetisation tools
- 🎯 Best For: Teams, consultants
🧑🏫 Topmate
- 💰 Pricing: Free (10% cut on earnings)
- 🌐 Branding / White-label: ❌ No branding
- 💳 Payment Gateway: ✅ Razorpay, Stripe, PayPal, UPI
- 🌍 Self-host Option: ❌ No
- 📅 Calendar Sync: ❌ No
- ⚙️ API / Dev Friendly: ❌ No
- 📹 Meeting Integration: ✅ Zoom, GMeet
- 🧠 Manual Confirmation: ❌ No
- 📱 Mobile App: ✅ Android/iOS
- 🌟 Unique Features: Creator monetization platform
- 🎯 Best For: Creators, coaches, influencers
📧 Google Calendar Booking
- 💰 Pricing: Free (with Google Workspace)
- 🌐 Branding / White-label: ❌ Google branded
- 💳 Payment Gateway: ❌ None
- 🌍 Self-host Option: ❌ No
- 📅 Calendar Sync: ✅ Google only
- ⚙️ API / Dev Friendly: ❌ None
- 📹 Meeting Integration: ✅ GMeet only
- 🧠 Manual Confirmation: ❌ No
- 📱 Mobile App: ✅ Google Calendar app
- 🌟 Unique Features: Native Gmail + GMeet integration
- 🎯 Best For: Teachers, internal meetings
🔧 BookingPress (WordPress Plugin)
- 💰 Pricing: Free + Pro
- 🌐 Branding / White-label: ✅ Full control (on your site)
- 💳 Payment Gateway: ✅ Razorpay (Pro), Stripe, PayPal
- 🌍 Self-host Option: ✅ Yes (as WP plugin)
- 📅 Calendar Sync: ✅ Google Calendar (Pro)
- ⚙️ API / Dev Friendly: ❌ Basic shortcodes only
- 📹 Meeting Integration: ✅ Zoom (Pro), GMeet (via plugin)
- 🧠 Manual Confirmation: ✅ Yes
- 📱 Mobile App: ❌ No native app, but mobile responsive
- 🌟 Unique Features: Perfect for freelancers on WordPress
- 🎯 Best For: Freelancers with WordPress site
Let’s go through one by one, and find out why cal.com is the choice no freelancer or solopreneur should miss!
Calendly
The main drawback I saw in Calendly is that we can’t have more than one booking or event type, which is not fair at all, whereas Cal.com is free for individuals.
To connect Stripe or PayPal for international payment gateways, it’s a pro/paid feature in Apypal, whereas in Cal.com, it’s FREE.
Connecting with external apps and plugins is a free feature in Cal.com where whereas it’s a paid feature in Calendly.
The one thing that lacks with Cal.com is that Calendly has a mobile app, whereas cal.com as it’s a browser-based platform.
Let’s have a side by side comparision of these platforms’s pricing and come to a conclusion.
Topmate
There’s nothing negative to say about topmate, but the one reason is it’s charges. Even though the platform is free to host your services it’s not open source, plus the bookings you get from this platform you’ll be charged 10% for each transaction also if a new custoemr buys from the marketplace, then the charges are at 20%.
While I’ve my own website, depending upon topmate was not my choice at all. Embedding the cal.com’s HTML embed code in our website gives you the freedom while topmate lacks this feature and laso customizing the colors and modern layout of cal.com is lot more attractive.
Google Calendar
The appointment booking in Google calendar is available to those who have taken the google workspace subscription, So this was not my choice at all.
BookingPress
It’s a wordpress plugin, My reason not using this plugin is the load on my website server, every single feature to add on this booking system requires to install another addon which makes the server slow and not recommended at all. Expect that booking press and cal.com are free to use and you can create n number of bookings/services, but BookingPress is not as robust as Cal.com. Cal.com’s flexibility managing multiple events, calendars for free and as it’s open source, so it doesn’t affect your server at all, and works faster and loads faster on your webstie with HTML Embed linked to Cal.com’s website.
If you’re someone who is a developer and have tech knowledge and has VPS servers you can even host it locally through Docker and can use the tool completely free of cost no payment requried at all. But for a day to day hosting the cloud free plan for individuals is more than enough.
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