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Show HN: Someday, Open-Source Calendly Alternative for Gmail / Google App Script
Free and open-source. Simple alternative to cal.com / calendly, built on Google-App-Script for Gmail users. Built with modern technologies like React, TypeScript, Shadcn/UI, and Vite.
- Brajeshwar 2y agoI believe Cal.com is the Open-Source Calendly Alternative! https://github.com/calcom https://github.com/calcom
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- ko_pivot 2y agoYeah, you know the “open-source X alternative“ branding has gone too far when we get to this point. With that said, this seems cool as far as being built on Google app scripts.
- behruzbek 2y agoOoh
- adunsulag 2y agoWas excited about this and then saw AGPL on it. Note the OP's software is MIT. My personal preference is GPL, but MIT is better than AGPL in my opinion.
- ribhu97 2y agoIsn't cal.com open source already?
- pvg 2y agoShow HN is more about showing and discussing something someone has made than an inquiry into the existence of things like the thing being showhn.
- ar_lan 2y agoIt never stops people from commenting “why didn’t you use X obscure technology I made?” unfortunately.
- dangtony98 2y agoIt’s a valid question though; I’m also curious what the motivation was here given Cal.com is also open source hmmm
- pvg 2y agoIt's a perfectly valid question if one does the minimum to engage with the thing being showhn otherwise it's a reflexive and, as you can see in the several near-identical comments, repetitive trope.
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- DoctorOW 2y agoYes, but the difference isn't purely that this one is open source. It's also way cheaper (in terms of both money and also effort) to host because you can do as the demo does and use the free Google Apps Script for your backend and any of the free static web hosts for your frontend.
- jjordan 2y agoCal.com is free open source too. React+TS, shadcn-style components. Built on Nextjs though. https://github.com/calcom/cal.com https://github.com/calcom/cal.com
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- zephyreon 2y agoGoogle also revamped their appointment scheduling feature in Google Calendar, though I believe it is limited to Google Workspace subscribers. It’s basic but works quite well. https://workspace.google.com/resources/appointment-scheduling/ https://workspace.google.com/resources/appointment-schedulin...
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- alex_suzuki 2y agoHuh. Google Workspace user here. I didn’t know this existed! Thank you.
- tyrw 2y agoWe really wanted to use this, but having an appointment link creates a permanent vertical "event" in your own calendar that you can't get rid of. So adding multiple appointment links (e.g. one for 30mins and one for 60mins) completely destroys your own calendar view.
- asah 2y agoI create two: 30min and 45min, then for longer (rare) I just ask people to book two adjacent slots. I've had no pushback.
- DreaminDani 2y agoIn the desktop version of the calendar, you can click the view settings in the upper right and turn off calendar appointments They still show up on the mobile version of Google calendar though :/
- usbsea 2y agoYes sort of enough to be useful to use, and I do use it, but not complete enough to be perfect. A bit like Google tasks! It does the main things though - it can check other calendars, people can book into your calendar, it deals with time zones and schedules. It fits into the valley of "use if you are already using Google stuff alot, but not worth it as a solo feature if you don't". Cal.com is way better. But then that is no suprise, it's their only job.
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- riiii 2y agoDark mode calendar letters are too dark to read.
- behruzbek 2y ago[flagged]
- xyst 2y ago[flagged]
- DandyDev 2y agoCaldendly/cal.com don't compete with/replace CalDAV. They solve different problems. CalDAV is a protocol for exchanging calendar data. Calendly and alternatives are tools to let people outside your organization schedule an appointment with you.
- dartos 2y ago> besides a fancy UI Well… this… Not everyone knows about the CalDAV protocol, let alone how to interact with it. The extreme vast majority of calendar users probably wouldn’t care to learn either.
- justinrubek 2y agoIt's a bit rough around the edges, but I made precisely this. You bring your own CalDAV server, and it will create a REST API that allows for scheduling. Alternatively, the CalDAV functionality is separated into a library, so you don't have to use the provided REST endpoints. The front-end is separate, and I haven't put much love into making it useful for other people. But it does work. https://github.com/justinrubek/calendar-scheduler https://github.com/justinrubek/calendar-scheduler
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- oezi 2y agoThe challenge to replace Calendly is to build a brand that users feel comfortable clicking. Microsoft (Microsoft Booking) and Google (https://calendar.app.google/weird-hash-value https://calendar.app.google/weird-hash-value) both dropped the ball here, even though they offer scheduling features, which can compete with calendly.
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- whiplash451 2y agoCalendly has become completely enshitified in less than a year. It used to be great due to its simplicity. It has now turned into a shitshow of a platform with user accounts, settings, and a load of features nobody asked for.
- tonymet 2y agoAre you talking about the host (calendar owner) or the client (subscriber)?
- tonymet 2y agoit’s great to see more utilities taking advantage of Google App Script. It is one of the best things about Google’s Ecosystem, basically a server-side AppleScript for Google’s products, and not enough people take advantage of it.
- chii 2y ago> not enough people take advantage of it. given how google just discontinues services on a whim these days, i'd be afraid to have a bunch of stuff in app script that i depend on.
- jstummbillig 2y agoThis is simply confusing the relative importance of different products. Sheets + Apps Script powers the business world. The amount of critical business logic that would simply stop working and the trust that would be lost, if Google decided to pull Apps Script from Google Workspace's 10 million businesses, is hard to fathom. Gmail is going nowhere. Google Sheets, Docs and Calendar is going nowhere. Apps Script is going absolutely nowhere.
- chii 2y ago> the trust that would be lost you'd think so, but lots of this trust has already been lost when google started pulling highly used services like rss! And what if somehow, they find appscript to be too burdensome, when it does not derive much, if any, revenue?
- jstummbillig 2y ago> lots of this trust has already been lost when google started pulling highly used services like rss! The people making decisions in businesses who use Google Workspace, as a category, literally do not care at all about what Google did to Google Reader and most other end user project that Google shut down. They only care about stuff that is critical to their business and how reliable Google is in that regard. > And what if somehow, they find appscript to be too burdensome, when it does not derive much, if any, revenue? If you make unreasonable enough assumptions, anything is thinkable.
- adobrawy 2y agoThis project is awesome! Using Google Apps Script for an appointment link is such a clever idea—just the right balance of simplicity and functionality. Google Apps Script is such an underrated tool. I use it all the time to link up different services, and it’s truly “serverless” in a way that makes sense. No added complexity—just webhook handling and periodic tasks, which is usually all I need to sync ticket systems with Slack, pull in data from Sentry, and so on. Plus, it’s straightforward, no extra layers to worry about. LLMs are actually pretty handy for getting these scripts going too. I use Google Calendar’s scheduling and think it’s great, but it does have limits. I still have to scrape calendar events to keep an ongoing list in a spreadsheet, which helps for billing clients by month. Google Apps Script makes all this work reliably without extra cost or maintenance. There are other options, sure, but asking someone to set up PostgreSQL, Next.js, or Docker just for a personal scheduling link seems like overkill. For a solution that just works without needing constant attention, Apps Script is more than enough.
- tonymet 2y agoI agree with you, and I’d like your opinion on working around the cpu budgeting. Whenever I’ve needed to run a long task, like exporting gmails , I’ve needed to run it via a web browser on a loop. Have you found a workaround for long-running tasks that isn’t terribly complex?
- adobrawy 2y agoI'm not sure what operations you're doing that you're CPU bound. When exporting Gmail and hitting an execution timeout, I would implement partitioning by date. Google Apps Script has a lock mechanism ( https://developers.google.com/apps-script/reference/lock https://developers.google.com/apps-script/reference/lock ), and you can use user properties for progress tracking ( https://developers.google.com/apps-script/reference/properties/properties-service#getUserProperties https://developers.google.com/apps-script/reference/properti...() ). Therefore, you can schedule a task every x minutes to pull x days of data and keep the cursor in user properties.
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- totallykvothe 2y agoI'm still waiting for someone to make a calendar that fills the hole in my heart that Sunset left when Micro$hit bought it.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- neerajdotname2 2y agoWhat was so special about Sunset?
- Jonathanfishner 2y agoReally interesting to see this built on Google Apps Script such an underrated gem for quick, reliable automations! Cal.com is already out there and doing great, but it’s still cool to see this lightweight approach. Sometimes simpler is just better, especially for folks who don’t need a full setup and just want a scheduling tool that ties right into Gmail. It may be early, but great job putting it out there! Appreciate seeing alternatives that keep things lean and accessible-nice work!
- ilrwbwrkhv 2y agoI prefer something like this over Cal because Cal is VC funded and we all know what happens with those.
- JamesMck 2y ago[dead]
- winrid 2y agoHas anyone built this but for fastmail?
- acidburnNSA 2y agoIdeally wouldn't this just integrate over a standard like CalDAV rather than be service specific?
- winrid 2y agoideally
- Geep5 2y ago[dead]
- sciencesama 2y agoI use it to delete emails in my inbox that have ads in them