Cal.com Has a Free Scheduling Infrastructure — Here's How to Use It

#scheduling #calendar #opensource #saas

Calendly charges $12/month for basic features. Cal.com gives you the same scheduling power — self-hosted, white-labeled, and free forever.

What Is Cal.com?

Cal.com is an open-source scheduling platform. Embed booking pages, manage availability, sync calendars, handle payments — all customizable and self-hostable.

Self-Host Free

git clone https://github.com/calcom/cal.com.git
cd cal.com
cp .env.example .env
yarn install
yarn db-deploy
yarn dev

Or use their cloud version with a generous free tier.

Key Features

Booking pages — customizable scheduling links
Calendar sync — Google, Outlook, Apple Calendar
Team scheduling — round-robin, collective, managed events
Recurring events — weekly/monthly bookings
Payments — Stripe integration
Webhooks — integrate with any system
Embeds — inline, popup, or floating button
Custom domains — white-label your booking pages
API — full REST API for automation

Embed in Your App

<!-- Inline embed -->
<cal-inline calLink="your-username/30min"></cal-inline>
<script src="https://app.cal.com/embed/embed.js"></script>

// React
import Cal from "@calcom/embed-react";

<Cal calLink="your-username/30min" style={{ width: "100%", height: "100%" }} />

Why Cal.com

Feature	Cal.com	Calendly	SavvyCal
Cost (self-host)	Free	$12+/month	$12+/month
Open source	Yes	No	No
White label	Yes	Enterprise	No
API	Full REST	Limited	Limited
Team scheduling	Free	Paid	Paid
Custom domain	Free	Paid	Paid