Calendly Alternatives 2025: What’s New and Worth Trying

Calendly has long been a leader in this space, but it’s no longer the only game in town. The market for scheduling tools is fast-growing, and many competitors have emerged with unique features and pricing. Calendly is feature-rich and widely used, yet some users seek alternatives due to its limitations. These days, many alternatives to Calendly can better fit specific needs or budgets.

Why Look for Calendly Alternatives?

Calendly remains one of the top scheduling tools, but it isn’t perfect for everyone. Individuals and organizations might look for alternatives for a few key reasons:

• Cost and Feature Access: Calendly’s free version has limited features, and advanced capabilities require premium plans. Some competitors offer more functionality on their free tiers or cheaper plans. Switching to a Calendly alternative can sometimes save money while unlocking more features.

• Team Scheduling Needs: Calendly’s team-based features are only available in higher-cost plans. Teams on a budget might seek other team scheduling software that provides collaborative features at a lower price point or even for free.

• Customization and Branding: Businesses often want their scheduling pages to match their branding or have specific booking workflows. Calendly offers some customization, but certain online booking platforms provide more flexibility.

• Integration and Ecosystem: Calendly integrates with many calendars and apps, but an alternative might fit better if you’re deeply invested in a certain ecosystem. Some calendar apps for professionals now include built-in scheduling features, but dedicated scheduling tools typically offer more robust automation.

• Privacy or Self-Hosting: A few users prefer self-hosted or open-source solutions for control over data. There are Calendly alternatives for teams that allow self-hosting or are built with privacy compliance.

  
  

The meeting scheduling tools you choose should align with your specific requirements – whether it’s minimizing costs, scheduling group meetings, integrating with CRM, or supporting a larger team.

Integration Capabilities: How Leading Alternatives Connect with Your Tools

When selecting a scheduling tool, integration capabilities are often a deciding factor. The right platform should seamlessly connect with your existing calendars, communication tools, CRM systems, and payment processors to streamline workflows and minimize manual effort. Here’s how the leading Calendly alternatives stack up when it comes to integration options:

Cal.com stands out for its open-source flexibility and broad integration support. Out of the box, it connects with major calendar providers like Google Calendar, Outlook, and Apple Calendar. Its plugin system and public API allow for deep customization, enabling teams to connect Cal.com with CRMs, video conferencing platforms, and automation tools like Zapier. Notably, Cal.com offers a built-in video conferencing solution (Cal Video), but also supports integrations with Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams for meeting links. This makes it a strong choice for organizations that want granular control and the ability to self-host or build custom integrations.

HubSpot Meeting Scheduler is tightly integrated within the HubSpot ecosystem, making it ideal for sales and marketing teams already using HubSpot CRM. When a meeting is booked, the contact’s record is automatically updated, and meeting details are logged in the CRM timeline. Beyond HubSpot’s own suite, it syncs with Google Calendar and Office 365, ensuring calendar availability is always up to date. While it doesn’t offer the breadth of third-party integrations as some competitors, its deep CRM connection is a significant advantage for businesses focused on lead management and sales automation.

Zoho Bookings is part of the broader Zoho suite, offering seamless integration with Zoho CRM, Zoho Meeting, Zoho Calendar, and other Zoho business tools. It also connects with external calendars like Google and Outlook, helping prevent double bookings. Zapier integration extends its reach to thousands of other apps, while payment integrations (Stripe, PayPal) allow for revenue collection during booking. This makes Zoho Bookings an attractive option for businesses already invested in the Zoho ecosystem or those needing a versatile, all-in-one solution.

Doodle keeps things simple, focusing on core integrations that support its group scheduling and polling features. It connects with Google Calendar, Outlook, and Apple Calendar, ensuring your availability is reflected accurately. For video meetings, Doodle integrates with Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet, making it easy to include conferencing links in invites. While Doodle’s integration set isn’t as extensive as some, it covers the essentials for most professional scenarios.

Acuity Scheduling offers integration capabilities, particularly for service-based businesses. It connects with major calendars (Google, Outlook, iCloud), payment processors (Stripe, PayPal, Square), and video conferencing tools like Zoom. Acuity also supports integration with email marketing platforms (Mailchimp), accounting software (QuickBooks, FreshBooks), and automation tools (Zapier), enabling businesses to automate reminders, follow-ups, and client management tasks. YouCanBook.me is designed for simplicity and reliability, integrating directly with Google and Microsoft calendars. Its integration with Zoom automates the creation of meeting links, and Zapier support opens the door to connections with CRMs, email marketing tools, and more. YouCanBook.me’s approach is to keep the setup lightweight while still offering the flexibility to connect with key business tools.

While all these alternatives offer core calendar and video conferencing integrations, platforms like Cal.com provide broader automation and customization potential, whereas HubSpot and Zoho Bookings excel within their respective business ecosystems. Evaluating integration capabilities in the context of your existing workflows ensures a smoother, more efficient scheduling experience.

Scheduling Scenarios Supported by Leading Alternatives

When evaluating Calendly alternatives, understanding the scheduling scenarios each tool supports is essential for choosing the right fit for your needs. Different professionals and organizations require a variety of scheduling workflows, from simple one-on-one meetings to complex group events, recurring appointments, or even polls for finding the best time with multiple participants. Cal.com stands out for its flexibility, supporting unlimited one-on-one meetings, group events, and advanced team scheduling scenarios such as round-robin assignments, making it ideal for both individuals and organizations with diverse requirements. Its support for recurring events and custom questions further enhances its adaptability. HubSpot Meeting Scheduler is deeply integrated with CRM workflows and excels at individual and group scheduling, especially for sales teams that benefit from automatic meeting logging and round-robin assignments, ensuring leads are distributed evenly among team members. Zoho Bookings offers robust support for multiple services, staff assignment, and group appointments, making it a strong choice for businesses that need to manage several team members or resources. Its ability to automatically allocate meetings based on staff availability streamlines the booking process for both clients and internal teams.

Doodle is particularly well-known for its group scheduling and polling features, allowing users to propose multiple time slots and have participants vote on their preferences, which is an invaluable function for coordinating meetings with large groups or external stakeholders. In addition, Doodle provides a personal booking page for straightforward one-on-one scheduling. Acuity Scheduling caters to service providers and small businesses by supporting one-on-one appointments, group classes or workshops, and recurring sessions. Its intake forms and payment collection during booking are especially useful for consultants, coaches, and wellness professionals. YouCanBook.me is designed for simplicity and reliability, supporting individual bookings, round-robin scheduling across teams, and even allowing multiple people to book the same time slot—a feature not always available in other tools. This is particularly useful for webinars, open office hours, or events with flexible attendance.

These scenarios matter because they directly impact how efficiently you can coordinate meetings, avoid double bookings, and provide a seamless experience for your clients or colleagues. By matching your specific scheduling needs to the scenarios each platform supports, you’ll maximize productivity and ensure a smoother booking process for everyone involved.

Ease of Use and User Experience

Many popular Calendly alternatives have invested heavily in making the onboarding process as seamless as possible, recognizing that users want to spend less time setting up and more time booking meetings. For example, platforms like Cal.com are designed with simplicity in mind. After signing up, you’re typically guided through a straightforward setup wizard that prompts you to connect your calendar (Google, Outlook, or others), set your availability, and customize your booking page. These guided steps minimize confusion, making it possible for even non-technical users to create a functional scheduling link within minutes. Cal.com, in particular, is praised for its clean interface and logical flow; users can quickly define meeting types, add buffer times, and configure automated reminders without digging through complex menus. The open-source nature of Cal.com means tech-savvy users can further customize their experience, but the default setup is accessible right out of the box.

Acuity Scheduling and Zoho Bookings also offer efficient onboarding experiences. Acuity walks new users through a series of prompts to define services, set up payment options, and create client intake forms, making it a favorite among service-based businesses that need to collect information or payments at booking. Zoho Bookings, while part of a larger suite, keeps the initial setup focused and clear: after connecting your calendar, you can easily create different appointment types and assign staff, with helpful tooltips and sample templates to guide you. Creating a poll is as easy as selecting a few proposed times and sharing a link—invitees don’t even need an account to participate, which reduces friction for external participants. The interface is intentionally uncluttered, and the results are automatically tallied to highlight the best option. YouCanBook.me’s lightweight approach means users can launch a basic booking page in just a few steps, with optional customization for branding and notifications.

Most platforms provide onboarding checklists, contextual help, and real-time previews. While some advanced features may require a bit of exploration, the core scheduling flow—connecting a calendar, sharing availability, and generating a booking link—is typically clear and fast. Cal.com proves to have the edge due to its ease of onboarding. This focus on ease of use ensures that both organizers and invitees enjoy a hassle-free scheduling process from the very first login.

Cal.com (Open-Source Scheduling)

One of the most talked-about new options is Cal.com, an open-source scheduling platform. They include all the essential scheduling functions like shareable booking links, calendar integrations, and reminders, but their standout feature is flexibility. Being open-source, their code is publicly available and can be self-hosted and customized extensively to fit your needs. This means businesses can tweak the workflow or appearance, add custom features via plugins, and even ensure data is stored on their servers if desired.

Designed to be a scheduling app for business and individuals alike, aiming to be “scheduling infrastructure for everyone.” Out of the box, it supports unlimited one-on-one meeting types, group events, and even round-robin team scheduling. Going a step further by including a built-in video conferencing tool (Cal Video) that all users can use for free, with no time limits and up to 300 participants. This native video feature is unique, meaning you don’t need Zoom or Google Meet for your appointments if you use it. They also offer features like buffer times, recurring events, and custom questions for invitees. 

Who is it best for? Ideal for those who want maximum control over their scheduling system. Tech-savvy users, developers, or any organization that wants an automated booking system they can deeply customize will appreciate it. It has a generous free plan for individuals, and paid plans or self-hosting options for teams. Suppose you value open-source ethics, branding control, or want to avoid subscription fees by hosting your scheduler. It is definitely worth a try as one of the best appointment booking apps in the open-source category.

HubSpot Meeting Scheduler

If you’re already using HubSpot’s CRM or looking for a scheduling tool tightly integrated with sales and marketing workflows, the HubSpot Meeting Scheduler is a top choice. It’s part of HubSpot’s Sales Hub and is available even on HubSpot’s free plan (with some limitations). What sets HubSpot’s scheduler apart is its native connection to your CRM data. When someone books a meeting, their contact record in HubSpot can be automatically created or updated, and the meeting is logged in your CRM timeline. In other words, scheduling is tied directly into your sales pipeline and contact database, which is a massive plus for sales teams. It can even trigger follow-up tasks or emails through HubSpot’s workflows.

HubSpot Meetings is ideal for teams that are using (or plan to use) HubSpot CRM. Sales and marketing teams will benefit from having scheduling linked directly to their lead and customer data. It’s one of the top Calendly alternatives for teams focused on sales, since it automatically keeps track of meetings with prospects. For solo users or those not in a CRM-centric workflow, HubSpot may be less compelling than standalone schedulers. But if you need your meeting scheduler apps to feed data into a CRM and support your sales process seamlessly, HubSpot is a fantastic alternative.

Zoho Bookings

For those in the Zoho ecosystem, Zoho Bookings is a strong contender. It’s part of the Zoho One suite, which means it connects nicely with Zoho CRM, Zoho Meeting (for video calls), Zoho Calendar, and other Zoho apps. Zoho Bookings lets you set up a booking page where clients can self-schedule appointments on your calendar. You can define multiple services or meeting types, each with its own duration, availability, and assigned staff. A notable strength is its team scheduling capabilities: you can display your whole team’s availability and let the client pick who they want to meet, or have Zoho automatically allocate the meeting to a team member with open time.

As an appointment scheduling software, Zoho Bookings covers features like automatic email/SMS reminders to reduce no-shows, integration of popular calendars (Google, Outlook) to avoid double-booking, and even accepting payments during booking. It also supports adding buffer times and setting cancellation or rescheduling windows to enforce your policies.

The user interface is clean, and you can embed the scheduling page on your website or share it via a link. Customization options allow adding your branding, adjusting colors, and asking custom questions when people book. On the free plan, Zoho Bookings is somewhat limited. The paid plans are tiered per staff member and can get pricey at the highest tiers, which might be overkill for small businesses. However, for a booking app for business that needs to handle multiple staff, resource booking, or integration with a larger suite of business tools, Zoho Bookings is highly robust.

Doodle

When it comes to coordinating meetings with multiple people, Doodle is a classic and still one of the best meeting schedulers for groups. Doodle is well known for its polling feature: you propose several possible time slots, and a group of participants votes on what works best for them. This makes scheduling board meetings, team calls, or any multi-party event much simpler. In 2025, Doodle has expanded beyond just polls – it also offers a one-on-one booking page similar to Calendly. But its group scheduling prowess remains the standout. Doodle’s free plan lets you create group polls for meeting times, where invitees can vote on their preferred times, and also provides a basic personal booking page for one-on-one appointments.

Using Doodle is very straightforward. To schedule a meeting, you pick some candidate dates/times and send a poll link to participants (they don’t even need to register to respond). Doodle tallies the results and highlights the option that suits everyone. This eliminates endless email threads like “I can’t do Monday, how about Tuesday at 3?”, which is a lifesaver for busy groups. For one-on-one meetings, Doodle’s booking page allows you to share your availability and let people book you directly, much like Calendly.

Acuity Scheduling

Acuity Scheduling has been a popular appointment booking app for years, especially among small businesses, freelancers, and service providers. Now owned by Squarespace, Acuity offers a very comprehensive suite of scheduling features that go beyond just booking a time slot. It truly tries to be an all-in-one appointment management solution: you can let clients book online, set up intake forms for them to fill out when scheduling, automatically send customized reminder emails or texts, and even collect payments at the time of booking. 

With Acuity, you can create a branded booking page. You define your availability and appointment types (services). For example, if you’re a consultant, you might have a 30-minute intro call and a 1-hour paid session as different options. You can ask clients to provide information during booking, which replaces the need for separate Google Forms or paperwork. Acuity will then handle sending confirmation emails, reminder messages, and follow-ups automatically, which significantly reduces no-shows. The system also supports group classes or workshops if you run sessions with multiple attendees.

YouCanBook.me

This tool is known for its reliability and simplicity. It effectively sits on top of your existing Google or Microsoft calendar: you connect your calendar, configure your booking page with available times, and then anyone with the link can book you, with appointments dropping straight into your calendar. The design philosophy is to keep things lightweight and straightforward, which is great if you find some other tools too cumbersome or feature-bloated. YouCanBook.me offers a high degree of customization for the booking experience (even on the free plan, you could do things like customize colors and basic branding).

Despite its simplicity, YouCanBook.me includes a lot of handy automation. It can send confirmation and reminder emails that you can tailor with your messaging. It can also update specific CRMs or automatically drop in video conferencing links. It integrates with Zoom so when someone books a meeting, a unique Zoom link can be created and included in the calendar invite without you lifting a finger. It supports team scheduling in a way, too: you can have multiple calendars linked if you upgrade, and even set up round-robin bookings across a team. A nice, unique feature is the ability to have numerous people book the same time slot, something Calendly’s basic tiers don’t allow.

How to Choose the Right Scheduling Tool

With so many meeting scheduler apps now available, how do you decide which one is right for you or your business? Here are a few factors to consider, which can help narrow down the best option: 

• Use Case and Features: Outline what you need. Are you primarily scheduling one-on-one meetings, or do you organize group meetings and events? Do you need to take payments for appointments? If you’re planning internal meetings or simple client calls, a basic tool might suffice.

• Team vs Individual: If you’re picking a scheduler for a team or entire company, consider Cal.com as an alternative to Calendly. They offer features like round-robin assignment, pooled availability, and admin oversight.

• Ecosystem Integration: Consider what tools you already use. Some schedulers integrate deeply with specific platforms. Those invested in open-source or who want maximum customization might prefer Cal.com. Choose a scheduling app for business that fits into your existing workflow rather than forces you to change how you work.

• Pricing Model: Decide if you’re okay with ongoing subscriptions or prefer a one-time purchase. Calendly and many others use monthly/annual subscriptions, which can add up for large teams. Also, many tools have free versions – if your needs are modest, you might get by completely free. Just be mindful of what features are locked behind paid plans. Calendly’s free plan is limited compared to some competitors’ free offerings. Identify which features you need and ensure the free or paid tier of your chosen tool covers them at a reasonable cost.

• User Experience: Consider the experience for both you and the people booking you. The tool should be easy to set up and manage on your end, and also provide a smooth, professional booking experience for your clients or colleagues. Calendar apps for professionals, like Google Calendar or Outlook, do offer some basic scheduling features. Still, dedicated scheduling platforms generally provide a more polished and automated experience for external bookings. Think about whether you need features like time zone detection, automatic DST adjustments, or multi-language support for international clientele – not all schedulers handle these gracefully, so it’s worth testing a couple to see which one feels right.

  
  

By weighing these factors, you can zero in on the best Calendly alternatives that meet your requirements. Many of the tools we’ve discussed have overlapping capabilities, so it often comes down to which aligns best with your work style and budget.

Each of the alternatives we’ve explored can streamline your calendar management in its own way. These meeting scheduling tools are all designed to eliminate the tedious back-and-forth emails and help you avoid double bookings or missed connections. Whether you choose to stick with Calendly or switch to one of its competitors, adopting a scheduling app is almost a must for efficiency in modern business. So go ahead and try out one or two of these best meeting schedulers – most offer free plans or trials. You’ll likely find one that clicks with your workflow and provides a better experience for you and your invitees. With the right scheduling tool in place, you can reclaim hours of your time and make the appointment booking process a breeze for everyone involved.

Sources:

• Maple Metric – Cal.com Review: Is this Open-Source Scheduling Tool Worth Your Time? maplemetric.com

• GPTBots.ai – Top 12 Calendly Alternatives of 2025 [Free & Paid] gptbots.ai

• Capterra – Top 10 Calendly Alternatives 2025 capterra.comcapterra.com

• OMR Reviews – Calendly alternatives 2025 omr.com