If you’re a meticulous planner like me, you’d agree that a calendar app is much more than a scheduling tool.
It helps me (and hopefully you) stay organized, motivated, and productive, and is the memory keeper of the most important events in our daily lives, both personal and professional.
You must have encountered Cron, a calendar app that was acquired by the planning app Notion in 2024.
With basic calendar functionalities such as repeating events and time zones, Cron (now Notion Calendar) found users in individuals and businesses looking to manage their busy schedules.
However, Cron’s major drawback—that it works only with Google Calendar accounts—has made users look for more flexible Notion Calendar alternatives.
Here, we explore the key features to look for in a Cron alternative calendar app and the best alternatives, including their pros, cons, and pricing, to help you find the best solution for your needs.
Top 10 Cron (Notion) Calendar Alternatives in 2024 (Tried and Tested)
- What Should You Look for in Cron Calendar Alternatives?
- 10 Best Cron Calendar Alternatives for 2024
- 1. ClickUp (Best for AI-powered project management and calendar scheduling)
- 2. Calendly (Best for freelancers, small-scale agencies, and businesses)
- 3. Google Calendar (Best for Google and Workspace users)
- 4. Outlook (Best for users with a Microsoft 365 subscription)
- 5. Fantastical (Best for users who prefer a great design and UX/UI experience)
- 6. Morgen Calendar (Best for consultants and freelancers)
- 7. Rise Calendar (Best for project managers)
- 8. Timetree (Best for personal use or for collaborating with a community)
- 9. Moleskine Timepage (Best for individual use)
- 10. Motion (Best for project managers of smaller teams)
Summarize this article for me pleaseWhat Should You Look for in Cron Calendar Alternatives?
- Better integration capabilities: Since Cron has limited integrations with other software, look for a calendar app that offers extensive compatibility with tools in your tech stack, including productivity apps, project management software, and other communication tools you use
- Reliable syncing: One of the frequent issues with Cron is syncing problems. Choose an alternative that guarantees robust and reliable synchronization across all your devices and calendars (like Google Calendar, Outlook, and Apple Calendar). This means updates happen in real-time, and there are no mismatches in your schedule across platforms
- Consistent mobile performance: Given the problems with Cron’s mobile app, you should seek a calendar application that performs well on desktop and mobile devices. The app should offer a smooth, bug-free experience, allowing you to manage your appointments easily on the go without crashes or delays
- Intuitive user interface: Cron’s interface, while modern, can be complex for new users. An intuitive interface will minimize the learning curve and help you start efficiently managing your appointments and schedule meetings immediately with the integrated calendar
- Customization flexibility: I started looking for a Cron Notion alternative because it offered limited customization. Look for a calendar where you can adjust the visuals and settings to match your personal preferences. This could include color schemes, view types (day, week, month, agenda), and start-of-week settings, all adjustable according to your liking
- Collaboration: Whether you plan to use the calendar app for team-based projects or family planning, make sure it allows everyone to collaborate, share their ideas, and add comments in real-time
With these features, let’s help you find the best Cron Calendar alternatives to manage your time like a pro.
Read more: 10 Best Notion Integrations to connect your apps in 2024
Summarize this article for me please10 Best Cron Calendar Alternatives for 2024
Here are the 10 best Cron alternatives to help solve your scheduling meeting and team collaboration needs.
1. ClickUp (Best for AI-powered project management and calendar scheduling)
ClickUp is an AI-powered productivity platform with an integrated Calendar feature that streamlines tasks, schedules, and events in a centralized location.
With an intuitive interface and a drag-and-drop feature, ClickUp’s Calendar View allows you to organize projects, plan timelines, and visualize your team’s workload on a flexible calendar that keeps everyone on the same page.
Whether you’re looking to manage multiple calendars, schedule meetings, or add sub-tasks, comment threads, tags, checklists, and recurring events, ClickUp Calendar has your back.
Its ability to manage your work by sorting tasks by status, priority, and assignee makes it one of the best online calendars and Cron alternatives.
Since I use Google Workspace, ClickUp syncs with my Google Calendar and lets me view all my ClickUp tasks alongside my Google Calendar with two-way sync.
As a manager, I use the ClickUp Calendar Template to keep my team organized and on top of all the tasks, meetings, events, and deadlines. Knowing what everyone is working on is critical for capacity planning, work allocation, and overall workflow and progress visibility.
Pro tip💡: You can color-code tasks in the Calendar View according to priority, assignee, and time tracked.
ClickUp Integrations with third-party business apps facilitate a quick and easy exchange of information between different systems.
You no longer have to juggle between different apps to schedule meetings, stay on track with the tasks discussed and assigned during the meetings, and manually enter data between disconnected systems.
An added bonus: Save time by performing task and project management tasks within a single interface instead of toggling between different systems using the best ClickUp integrations.
ClickUp’s built-in AI writing assistant, project manager, and knowledge manager—ClickUp Brain makes your job easier. For example, ClickUp Brain’s AI project manager summarizes meetings instantly, provides progress updates on tasks, and lets you create project reports with a few clicks.
We’ve come to rely on ClickUp Brain for writing reports, summarizing notes, pre-filling ClickUp templates, and creating project brief outlines and descriptions.
Case in point: Vida Health saved 8 hours weekly in meetings for event stakeholders with ClickUp
ClickUp best features
- Calendar management: Use ClickUp’s Calendar View for planning, scheduling, and resource management. Drag and drop tasks, customize category tasks, and plan your schedule days, weeks, and months in advance
- Google Calendar and ClickUp sync: The two-way sync is the perfect way to manage your team’s timelines, deadlines, and overall schedule for projects and tasks
- Integrations: Add your most used communication, collaboration, and automation apps to ClickUp and automate your data transfer, tasks, and workflows
- Pre-built templates: ClickUp’s reusable pre-built templates integrate with your project management tasks, calendar, and processes. For example, ClickUp’s schedule templates, with features such as version history, meetings, and status updates, allow employees and team managers to stay on top of tasks draining their day so they can adjust workflows accordingly
- AI-writing assistant and project manager: Automate repetitive and tedious tasks of writing meeting notes, summarizing conversation threads, creating project brief descriptions, and allocating tasks to your team members with ClickUp Brain
ClickUp limitations
- ClickUp’s AI assistant ClickUp Brain, is available only on paid plans
ClickUp pricing
- Free Forever
- Unlimited: $7/month per user
- Business: $12/month per user
- Enterprise: Custom pricing
- ClickUp Brain is available on all paid plans for $7 per Workspace member per month
ClickUp ratings and reviews
- G2: 4.7/5, (4,000+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.7/5, (9,700+ reviews)
Read more: ClickUp vs Notion—The best docs and project management tools
2. Calendly (Best for freelancers, small-scale agencies, and businesses)
Calendly is one of the most popular calendar apps for booking meetings for freelancers, smaller teams, and agencies.
Share your schedule through a link with people to see your availability and book a time with you. Paid plans offer advanced features such as automated reminders, conference calls, round-table discussions, and customizable event types.
Calendly stands out as a Cron alternative because it can connect with my organization’s Microsoft Outlook, iOS, and Google Calendar for a hassle-free experience between the host and invitee.
The Calendly + ClickUp integration lets you automatically import event information into ClickUp whenever anyone books your time in Calendly.
Calendly best features
- Add Calendly scheduling links to your websites, social media profiles, and emails based on your availability, where people can book time with you in one click
- Team-based scheduling from 15-minute Zoom calls to 30-minute in-person meetings where you can include other team members and route the meeting to the right person in your team
- Send reminders and followups, and connect your CRM, video conferencing, and billing platforms to Calendly
Calendly limitations
- The free plan lets you schedule only one event type for 1:1 meetings
- The free plan allows you to connect to one calendar provider
Calendly pricing
- Free
- Standard: $12/seat/month
- Teams: $20/seat/month
- Enterprise: Starts at $15K/year
Calendly ratings and reviews
- G2: 4.7/5, (2100+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.7/5, (3400+ reviews)
3. Google Calendar (Best for Google and Workspace users)
Whether in the office or standing in line at Starbucks, the Google Calendar app allows you to schedule meetings with a few clicks.
You can create and manage upcoming events, set meeting reminders and subscription renewals, and invite other team members to join meetings. I can see the team members’ schedules to determine the best time that does not overlap with other meetings.
The ability to add colorful themes and personalize the calendar view makes me feel like it’s my own app.
Google Calendar integrates with my other Gmail apps, converting appointments and flight schedules into calendar entries.
Pro tip💡: When using ClickUp + Google Calendar sync:
Tasks from your ClickUp Workspaces, folders, and lists are displayed in your Google Calendar. You can add start and due dates and bulk sync to Google Calendar up to 60 days in the future.
Google Calendar best features
- Share your calendar or specific events, send invites, manage RSVPs, and adjust permission levels within the calendar interface
- Use Google Calendar templates to optimize workflows and stay on top of your tasks, projects, and deadlines
- Create personalized booking appointments from your Google Workspace and share them over email, social media profiles, and websites
Google Calendar limitations
- All the tasks and meetings are in the same color, making visualization difficult
- Integrates with Gmail and Google Meet but lacks integration with other video conferencing tools
Google Calendar pricing
- Free for all users with a Google account
- Integrated as part of Google Workspace, which comes in three pricing models:
- Business Standard: $12/month per user
- Business Plus: $18/month per user
- Enterprise: Custom pricing
Google Calendar rantings and reviews
- G2: not enough reviews
- Capterra: 4.8/5, (3100+ reviews)
Pro tip💡: Learn about these Google Calendar hacks that can completely change how you arrange your time, collaborate with others, and increase productivity.
4. Outlook (Best for users with a Microsoft 365 subscription)
Microsoft Outlook Calendar helps you keep track of your personal and work events. It combines email, calendars, contacts, tasks, and notes into one app, making it easy to stay organized.
What I like about Outlook is that I can click on any time slot in the scheduling app and start typing, create appointments and events, organize meetings, and view group schedules.
While you can auto-block slots on Notion Calendar, that feature is unavailable in Outlook.
You can link your Microsoft 365 account to ClickUp to send and receive emails within ClickUp Tasks.
Outlook best features
- Integration with email, contacts, and other Microsoft apps makes it a hub for both communication and scheduling
- View group schedules and calendars of other Outlook users side-by-side, and share your own calendar with other Outlook users
- With the delegate access feature, an administrative assistant can manage their manager’s calendar and book meetings for team members
Outlook limitations
- You need to subscribe to the Microsoft 365 to access Outlook
Outlook pricing
- Personal: $69.99/year (billed annually)
- Family: $99.99/year (up to 6 people) (billed annually)
- Business plans: Custom pricing
Outlook ratings and reviews
- G2: 4.5/5, (1,900+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.5/5, (2,700+ reviews)
5. Fantastical (Best for users who prefer a great design and UX/UI experience)
Let’s start by calling Fantastical a fantastic calendar app for iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and Apple Vision Pro.
Fantastical stands out with its natural language event creation compared to other Cron alternatives in this list feature. For example, start typing “a meeting with my manager at noon,” the app will parse your words into calendar fields by pulling relevant information.
Fantastical has endless sync options, including iCloud, Notion documents, Exchange, Google, Office 365, and Yahoo.
Another standout feature is its appointment scheduling. Considering Fantastical integrates with Apple’s Calendar, it works well for me.
Fantastical best features
- Upload the files and attachments directly from Fantastical to your iCloud, Google, and Exchange events
- Get an overview of your day, week, month, quarter, or year, regardless of the device you’re using
- Design and complete your tasks within Fantastical, add tasks along the calendar events, and get notified about overdue tasks
Fantastical limitations
- Limited to users within the Apple ecosystem—a disadvantage for those who use Windows or Android devices
Fantastical pricing
- For individuals: $4.75/month (billed annually)
- For families up to 5: $7.50/month (billed annually)
- For teams: $4.75/month (billed annually)
Fantastical customer ratings
- G2: Not enough reviews
- Capterra: Not enough reviews
6. Morgen Calendar (Best for consultants and freelancers)
Morgen integrates calendars, task managers, and scheduling tools into one accessible app across all devices and calendar platforms.
Morgen is a Notion Cron calendar alternative that simplifies coordinating all your calendars by consolidating them into a single interface. It is compatible with Google, Outlook, Notion, Todoist, Exchange, Fastmail, or another calendar provider.
My most useful Morgen features are Open Invites, Scheduling Links, and Personalized Booking Pages to communicate my availability to others. Morgen checks real-time availability across all linked calendars, reducing the risk of scheduling conflicts.
Use Morgen’s built-in integration with ClickUp to bring your Morgen Calendar to ClickUp Spaces to plan, prioritize, and track time.
Morgen best features
- Select, configure, and deploy no-code workflows with your travel time, focus time, and Slack integration using Morgen Assist
- Automatically handles the time zone conversions for international meetings, making it ideal for remote teams
- Drag and drop tasks from the task manager into your calendar and set recurring scheduling rules that come up frequently
Morgen limitations
- Multi-calendar syncing is not available on the free plan
- The free version does not offer task integration, time blocking, and Morgen Assist Automations
Morgen pricing
- Free Version
- Pro Version: $15/month per user
- Enterprise: Custom pricing
Morgen customer ratings
- G2: Not enough reviews
- Capterra: Not enough reviews
7. Rise Calendar (Best for project managers)
The smart calendar Rise recently announced support for projects, tasks, Outlook, and mobile apps.
Rise 2.0, which accepts beta users, will allow you to manage all your tasks and projects within one app.
Users can create, modify, and drag tasks, set due dates, and duplicate any task from within the Rise app, which is integrated with their calendar.
You can view recurring events in the Board Meetings that are visible to all attendees, add new tasks, highlight open tasks, and assign them to relevant meeting participants.
Read more: How to make a project management calendar + tools and templates to help you
Rise Calendar best features
- Integrates features like FocusGuard to help users block out time for deep work without interruptions
- Get a complete view of your day and tasks in a single window with the My Focus feature
- Rise syncs with your project management tool to give you a complete picture of what’s happening, and when you update tasks in your calendar, they’re automatically updated on the relevant project board
Rise Calendar limitations
- The previous version did not have an iOS app and lacked integration with Outlook and other calendars
Rise Calendar pricing
- Undisclosed
Rise Calendar customer ratings
- G2: Not enough reviews
- Capterra: Not enough reviews
8. Timetree (Best for personal use or for collaborating with a community)
Calendar sharing and communication app Timetree makes sharing and coordinating schedules easy for users.
As a working parent, the feature I particularly find the most useful is the Multi-Calendar Timetree, which allows me to create a separate calendar for each event. For example, I have a separate calendar for my work outings and business trips and one for my child’s babysitter.
Timetree best features
- A single app to organize all your information, including messaging, calendars, and photo sharing
- Create and use separate calendars for your communities, activities, friends, etc, to plan events according to each group’s schedule
- Use TimeTree Public Calendars as your official calendar website to share your schedule with others—and create it right from your phone
Timetree limitations
- Lacks an AI functionality to manage your schedules or create automated calendars
- Timetree does not directly sync with Google or Outlook calendars
- Designed as a mobile-first app, the web version is difficult to use
Timetree pricing
- Free version
- Premium: $4.49/month
Timetree customer ratings
- G2: Not enough reviews
- Capterra: Not enough reviews
9. Moleskine Timepage (Best for individual use)
If you have a weakness for beautiful design, you must try Moleskine Timepage to plan your time and projects. You can customize designs from over 70 color-coding themes.
The calendar app combines your events, maps, contacts, and calendars and integrates with your existing calendar, so you don’t need to set up new functionalities.
One of my favorite features is Moleskine Action, which lets me organize my daily, weekly, and monthly tasks and sync them with the Timepage calendar.
Moleskine Timepage best features
- Known for its beautiful design that emulates the classic Moleskine notebook
- Syncs with a variety of services like weather forecasts, which integrate into daily planning
- Offers numerous customization options to personalize the calendar appearance and functionality
Moleskine Timepage limitations
- When you have a lot going on, the Timepage view can get crowded
- Unlike some other calendar apps, it does not offer a free version
Moleskine Timepage pricing
- Monthly Subscription: $2.49 monthly
- Annual Subscription: $14.99 yearly
Moleskine Timepage customer ratings
- G2: Not enough reviews
- Capterra: Not enough reviews
10. Motion (Best for project managers of smaller teams)
Motion doubles as an AI-powered calendar, project, and task management tool for busy professionals and managers who must manage to-do lists, projects, and tasks daily.
It transforms your Google and Apple online calendars into a unified AI-driven scheduling and calendar management system with task and project management capabilities.
Motion’s intelligent calendar prioritizes and adds tasks to your calendar based on your working hours. It calculates weekly tasks and total working hours and alerts you when you lag on deadlines.
In particular, I love Motion’s AI meeting assistant, which schedules meetings based on my preferred times. The reusable meeting templates are a great time saver, and they can be customized for client, investor, or team meetings, with a unique meeting length and custom schedules.
Motion best features
- Motion’s intelligent calendar builds a schedule for you based on your working hours and prioritizes and adds tasks to your calendar
- Schedule meetings at your preferred time, set meeting limits, and use reusable meeting templates with custom schedules using Motion’s AI meeting assistant
- Use Motion’s AI project management to add tasks and projects to individual calendars, quickly view the projects on Motion boards, and take and store notes within Motion
Motion limitations
- Motion is expensive compared to other alternatives
- Heavy reliance on AI may not be ideal for every user
Motion pricing
- Individual Plans: $34/month per user billed monthly
- Team Plans: $34/month per user billed monthly
Motion customer ratings
- G2: 4.2/5 (80+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.3/5 (40+ reviews)
Read more: Is Motion the right AI scheduling tool for you? A detailed review
Summarize this article for me pleaseGo Beyond Basic Scheduling with ClickUp
When it comes to optimal time management, the need for efficient and integrative calendar scheduling tools becomes undeniable. While Cron Calendar has been a staple for many users, various alternatives have surfaced that offer better features and integrations.
One such solution that doesn’t just track your meetings and deadlines but also serves as a project management tool is ClickUp.
The best part is that you can view everything in one place, including your calendar, meetings, and tasks, adjust your schedule by moving tasks and appointments around, and set up automatic reminders.
ClickUp syncs with other calendars, such as Google Calendar, Outlook, and Apple Calendar, that you use regularly, ensuring you never miss an important date, no matter your platform. Its customization options let you view your calendar by day, week, month, or year.
If you’re looking for Cron alternatives that are more like Swiss Army knives—an end-to-end solution for staying organized and efficient- we recommend you sign up for ClickUp for free.
Everything you need to stay organized and get work done.
