The Best Free Online Calendars: 7 Options Compared

You don't need lots of fancy productivity tools. If deployed correctly, a simple online calendar should suffice for most of your organizational needs.

There are lots of free online calendars to choose from. At one end of the scale, there are well-known apps like Google Calendar. At the other end, you'll find several niche apps that are worth considering.

Here are some of the best free online calendars.

1. Google Calendar

Starting with Google Calendar is a no-brainer. The free app is tightly integrated with Gmail, Google Contacts, Google Keep, and the rest of the company's suite of productivity apps.

The feature list is extensive. Sharing calendars with other users is a breeze, you can color-code single appointments and entire calendars, and there's a helpful Find a Time meeting scheduler which can scan all invitees' calendars for a mutually available free slot.

But while Google Calendar is the most recognizable app in the sector, it is not without its drawbacks. Power users complain about the lack of labels and tags, and---critically for some users---there's no offline support when using the calendar on a desktop.

Google Calendar is also available on Android and iOS.

2. MyStudyLife

If you're a student (or a teacher!), you need to check out MyStudyLife.

As a sector, education relies heavily on calendars. Thing such as class timetables, homework deadlines, revision sessions, exam dates, and coursework submission all need to be logged and monitored.

The developers have created MyStudyLife with these types of agenda items in mind. The app supports week and day rotation timetables, comfortably manages school holidays and new academic years, and offers a full-featured task manager.

The app has a central dashboard which displays information from all your categories at the same time.

MyStudyLife is available on the web, Android, and iOS. All the platforms have an offline mode and sync to the cloud.

3. Cozi Family Organizer

Running a family is a full-time job. Juggling kids' extra-curricular activities, planning meals, organizing shopping trips, and visiting doctors arguably requires even more careful attention to agendas than typical 9 to 5 employment.

If you want to make sure your family is all on the same page, you could sign up for Cozi Family Organizer.

It's a free web calendar that has separate sections for activities such as meals, birthdays, and health appointments. There's also a contact manager, a family journal, and a built-in way to send SMS messages to other family members.

The free version of Cozi is ad-supported. It's $20 per year for the Gold version. It removes ads and introduces a few extra features such as month view on mobile and a birthday tracker.

4. TimeTree

If support for calendar collaboration is essential to you, check out TimeTree. It's another of the best free online calendars.

The app's specialty is being able to share an event with anyone else, even if they are not a TimeTree user. You can also share and collaborate on entire schedules, such as a kid's calendar or a work agenda.

To aid collaboration and event organizing, TimeTree lets you pick what type of calendar you are working on. For example, there are relationship calendars (for two-person sharing), a friends' calendar (which has a built-in chat feature), work calendars, and more.

TimeTree also has a native reminder and note functionality. Like the calendars, you can share your notes with other users and work on them collaboratively.

5. Outlook Calendar

There are three big names in the world of free web calendars---Google, Microsoft, and Apple. Although there are some differences between them, you can't go far wrong whichever of the three you decide to use.

Some of Outlook Calendar's best features include a shared family calendar for your Microsoft family group, automatic integration with your Outlook email address for events and other calendar entries, and support for Cortana.

Cortana support is particularly noteworthy. You can add events, set reminders, and more, without needing to open the main site.

6. Jorte

Japanese company Jorte is another company which offers a free online calendar with paid extras for those who need them.

The app attempts to recreate the flexibility of a paper schedule in a digital form. That means you can use each day's slot in a variety of ways, including for pictures to make the calendar function more like a diary or journal.

And if you've already got an existing calendar with Google, iOS, or Yahoo, you can easily sync it with Jorte from within the app.

Jorte also lets you follow other people's calendars; they will appear directly in your schedule. You can find calendars for everything from garbage collections dates to local event listings.

Three pro plans are available. They cost $1.99, $2.99, and $3.99 and offer more features.

7. Any.do

Any.do includes a free web calendar that's tightly integrated with the much-loved note and task management app. The former standalone app is now part of the broader suite; you cannot download it separately.

The main benefit of using the Any.do calendar comes from its impressive notifications. You can take advantage of location-based reminders, daily task preview alerts, and manage travel-time notification delays.

All the usual suspects---like Google Calendar, iCloud, and Outlook---can be made to sync with the Any.do interface.

And the Any.do Moment feature lets you plan each new day in seconds after you wake up by combining your calendar appointments and task list.

Finally, Any.do supports one of the widest number of platforms. In addition to accessing your calendar online, you can also use it on Android, iOS, Mac, Windows, Wear OS, Apple Watch, Amazon Alexa, and Google Assistant. It even works with Slack!