[HN Gopher] Calendso: An open source Calendly alternative
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Calendso: An open source Calendly alternative
Author : baileypumfleet
Score : 293 points
Date : 2021-04-15 08:44 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (calendso.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (calendso.com)
| fzeidler wrote:
| Nextcloud also has an app called Appointments now that does this:
| https://apps.nextcloud.com/apps/appointments
|
| Might be interesting for people who need CalDAV support.
| funcDropShadow wrote:
| Your webpage seems nice. But what does it do? The features list
| mentions a lot of integrations, some only by icon. But I could
| not where find a succinct description of what it actually does.
| I've never heard of calendly. So reading it is the same as
| calendly doesn't really help. Unless you want your visitor go
| check calendly to find out what it does.
| vincentmarle wrote:
| > I've never heard of calendly.
|
| You're probably not the target audience then. Calendly is a $3
| billion bootstrapped company, it has plenty of users. I'm
| relying on it increasingly week after week.
| Hitton wrote:
| Yeah, I had to look up Calendly too to find out what this does.
| Definitely one thing to improve.
| yosamino wrote:
| > Making calendar scheduling work for everyone.
|
| Well... if that were the case then this would support caldav as
| an open standard or at the very least _mention_ it- as it stands
| it only seems to support Google Calendar. And all other
| (prorietary) solutions this software wants to integrate with are
| marked "coming soon".
|
| For a claims like
|
| > Our mission is to connect a billion people by 2031.
|
| and
|
| > What email has done to communication, we hope Calendso will do
| to meetings.
|
| Thats not a lot.
|
| Anyway I tried to run it.
|
| This is a step that should not be neccessary
|
| > 7. Open the prisma schema with [Prisma
| Studio](https://www.prisma.io/studio)
|
| to manually create a user in the database - presumably there is a
| way to have prisma create an initial "admin" (or other) user
| without making me drop into a database shell.
|
| Once in in I tried to add a google calendar, but that gave me a
| big red JSON error.
|
| This software seems to not be in a usable state.
| e12e wrote:
| You skipped the best (worst) part:
|
| > 9. Fill out the fields (remembering to encrypt your password
| with BCrypt)
|
| That's... A lot of manual work for something that surely is
| implemented in the code anyway (initialize a user).
| 3np wrote:
| This really needs CalDAV integration to be interesting for either
| enterprise or personal use.
|
| Especially with marketing like "Built for teams that need more
| control", "we're committed to give developers, small businesses
| and enterprise the power to connect with anyone and make friends
| or business", "Calendso comes with plenty of integrations, as
| well as the ability to build custom integrations for any platform
| out there"...
| z77dj3kl wrote:
| Looking very promising, I'll definitely try this once it develops
| a bit more. Some things echoed by others as well:
|
| - Need clarity/support for timezones (this is critical)
|
| - Months need to be laid out correctly
|
| - I looked around for a bit and didn't at first find any demo,
| until then I realized it was embedded in the page! Add a link in
| the navbar that says "Demo" that takes you to that page, and a
| big demo above the one on the front page saying "Demo:"
|
| - "Open source Calendly alternative" might be a good start as
| long as you're still piggy-backing off Calendly's hard work in
| popularizing this kind of idea, but eventually you want to start
| defining your own product and stand on your own two legs
|
| - I love the pretty design!
| mixxx73 wrote:
| We started investigation on o365 integration.
| PinguTS wrote:
| Fancy website that does not work in my Firefox and does not work
| in my Chrome and does not work in my Safari.
|
| The content is only shortly visible and then immediately fades
| away.
|
| Please, less fancy for more better UI and accessibility.
| _joel wrote:
| Have to refresh, it did that to me. I think it might be uBlock
| or decentraleyes, or just a broken site :)
| theon144 wrote:
| Yeah, on the first load I actually ended up with a completely
| empty page. Only on a reload I actually saw the content, and it
| still shows up painfully late when scrolling around (and
| disappears?!).
|
| Like, it's not even that important. Just disable the effects,
| and you'll improve the presentation 100x.
| Peer_Rich wrote:
| it's working for me. even with uBlock
| baileypumfleet wrote:
| I've tested it on Chrome, Firefox and Safari and all three
| work. We've removed the animations regardless. Does it work
| now?
| I_am_tiberius wrote:
| FYI: On the landing page I was able to book an appointment
| without filling in a name or email address - at least it told
| me that the booking is confirmed - not sure if that is on
| purpose.
| sebmellen wrote:
| Works great for me, this is of course after you disabled the
| animations. Quick work! And a much needed idea and nice site
| :)
| wahlis wrote:
| It took me quite a long time to find out what the product
| actually does. There is a lot of info on why to choose it, but
| only a quote from a customer mentions that it is a "scheduling &
| booking platform".
|
| I'm still not sure that's what it is, but I'll take Mehmet
| Arziman's word for it.
| rodolphoarruda wrote:
| Does it offer multi-language support, or is it English only? I
| couldn't find that information anywhere.
| exabyte wrote:
| https://youtu.be/gPUVKcM4ug8?t=109
|
| "we have a whole host of features on our roadmap that have all
| been suggested and voted on by the community which we plan to
| bring in the near future"
|
| One of the features displayed is multilingual support, but may
| not be available right now according to the vid.
| satya71 wrote:
| Looks great! A tool like this which a business uses to interact
| with prospects and customers needs to be rock solid. Please
| prioritize stability over features.
| claytongulick wrote:
| I applaud this project! I think there's a huge appetite for this
| sort of thing, and I think you're starting off well.
|
| Some feedback: 1) It seems premature to launch without API docs
| for an API driven product (or, at least, I couldn't find them)
|
| 2) The choice of React for UI seems strange since this is
| intended to be embedded within other apps. Wouldn't Web
| Components have been a better choice?
|
| 3) Not being able to specify timezone in a calendar app is a
| deal-killer for most, I would think.
|
| 4) The installation instructions state that you add your first
| user manually in the database. This would be fine for pre-alpha
| software, but seems a bit rough for 1.0 - though I understand
| that your business model isn't focused on the self-hosted
|
| 5) The primary reason I'm interested in the product is because
| I'm a CTO for healthcare companies. HIPAA compliance is top of my
| list of priorities. I love that you call it out in your
| "enterprise" offering, but it would be helpful (to me) to have
| more details about what the difference in offering is as well as
| pricing for HIPAA compliance. What are you doing differently for
| hosting in that case? Is it single-tenant?
|
| Very cool product, I'm looking forward to seeing it evolve!
| kenrick95 wrote:
| When I try the product by clicking on to booking your time [1],
| my first question that pops up in my head is: What is the time
| zone? I couldn't find this information anywhere. Thanks
|
| [1] https://app.calendso.com/bailey/1
| mfkp wrote:
| Also, what an odd calendar layout. Starting with the first day
| of the month at the top left means all the days are off for
| most months. Why would Thursday be at the very left side (as is
| the case in April)??
|
| (I was initially trying to find out if the layout was Sunday or
| Monday starting, but apparently it's neither)
| jimafisk wrote:
| Good catch, I just opened a ticket for this:
| https://github.com/calendso/calendso/issues/24.
| kylecordes wrote:
| This bit makes me think the project is very early days, not
| ready for adoption - or for the sharp eye of HN feedback -
| yet. This weirdness is surely an obvious blocker to most/all
| possible users, but a team (open source or otherwise) can't
| do everything on day 1.
|
| Still, I'll bookmark Calenso for a look later!
| yunohn wrote:
| I have never in my life used a calendar with such an annoying
| layout. Why would they omit the Day and then misalign the
| Dates for the month.
| bigsparky wrote:
| Thanks for making this
| mfts0 wrote:
| Congrats on releasing it. You definitely see how much work went
| into Calendly once you parse Calendso's source code. But where
| there's a will there's a way. Super excited what's possible with
| Calendso.
|
| I made a quick video to explore the open source project
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaIQhG8AL0w
| chrisofspades wrote:
| Click on "Get Started" and I have to fill out a survey? And after
| I finish filling it out, nothing happens. What a horrible
| workflow. I would expect that "Get Started" take me to
| installation instructions.
| ckwalsh wrote:
| I have to echo everyone else here that the homepage could be much
| more effective.
|
| My first impressions without scrolling:
|
| * Calendso has something to do with calendars, based on the name.
|
| * It has a popular paid competitor called Calendly.
|
| * It's open source, and there is a hosted version as well.
|
| I do not yet know what problem it is solving for me or its
| existing customers.
|
| Scrolling down slightly further, I see the testimonials, and see
| people find it when looking for a "scheduling & booking
| platform". I assume that's what it is, but I don't know why I
| need a "scheduling & booking platform".
|
| When I scroll further or click "Features", I am jumped down the
| page, and I find out it is easily customizable, and has a bunch
| of integrations. I don't entirely understand what I can do with
| it or how I can interact with it as a user.
|
| I have never heard of Calendly, and thus head over to their
| website. The first thing I see is "Calendly helps you schedule
| meetings without the back-and-forth emails". Clicking their
| "Features" link, I find claims they are "The best automated
| scheduling software" and without scrolling I learn it
| "automatically check[s] availability and help[s] you connect with
| your best contacts, prospects and clients".
|
| Based on my glance at Calendly, I'm not a potential customer or
| user, but I only learned that from your competitor, and I only
| learned about your competitor from you.
| indymike wrote:
| I think their home page is just fine given Calendly's market
| position and level of stagnation. Will be trying Calendoso
| today as it will not only save my company money, but will
| enable some very powerful new workflows.
| stefandesu wrote:
| This happens to me with so many new services. I guess a lot of
| people will just leave because they don't understand what it's
| about even if it's something they might actually want to use.
| leokennis wrote:
| Also, what's up with this stock photo suddenly appearing
| halfway down the page?
|
| https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1556761175-5973dc0f32e7
|
| It's some picture of employees of "proof" (juding by the
| "proof.quip.com" URL in the guy's browser) watching a
| presentation by a guy in shorts holding a small statue of a
| whale with legs? What does that have to do with a calendar?
| pvitz wrote:
| I agree with everything you have written and I would also
| suggest that they improve the video. It has the same
| shortcomings as the rest of the website and the charts
| presented are totally meaningless without proper axes and axes
| titles.
| scottfr wrote:
| I think you and others on this thread are being much too harsh
| on their messaging.
|
| Most people who have the need this product is meeting will have
| already encountered Calendly as it is ubiquitous in the space.
| It's basically a generic term like "Zoom" at this point. "I'll
| send you my Calendly link" is something people will understand
| to mean send you a meeting scheduling link.
|
| So "An open source Calendly alternative" is quite clear for
| most people who want to make use of this.
|
| Their messaging is focused on reaching people who might use it,
| not the people who won't. As you note, after going through the
| site, the product is not something relevant to you.
| okamiueru wrote:
| A strange take to say that was too harsh, when, the whole
| point was that it could be clearer? That's rather mild and
| constructive.
|
| The counter argument that clear communication isn't all that
| necessary, because the people looking to receive this
| knowledge already should know this?
| edoceo wrote:
| the message is clear, if you're in the target group.
|
| that's good communication.
|
| filters out non-prospects early.
| notahacker wrote:
| yeah, it's pretty much how "Twitter clone" tells you as much
| about the expected feature set as half a page on
| microblogging, follow and share protocols, tagging and push
| notifications.
|
| I think they could improve the below-the-fold description
| quite a bit, but the two words "Calendly alternative" convey
| the important bit about it being a customer-facing time-slot
| picker that connects to all your calendars, CRMs and
| webconferencing tools more precisely than "appointment
| scheduler" which might miss these features and lock you into
| various others, and probably gets more relevant search
| traffic too.
| nednar wrote:
| Wow. Maybe take a break, walk or smoke. The only thing I can
| really take from this long post is that you didn't know the
| category of product before. So, you don't work as coach,
| consultant, recruiter or similar. That's fine.
|
| If you are not a customer and the page makes you not want to
| engage further, then it is a good page, isn't it?
| j4yav wrote:
| This is a tangent, but is there somewhere you can get this sort
| of feedback for your own apps/landing pages?
| ckwalsh wrote:
| Find friends, the less familiar with the space the better.
| Ask them to write down facts about the product, in the order
| that they learn them. After each navigation, ask them to
| summarize what the product is and what problems it solves.
|
| That's basically the approach I took when writing that up.
|
| I think the unfamiliarity is the most important part. It's
| incredibly easy to be blind to what you know and others
| don't. It also simulates a non interactive cold sell for the
| product, as opposed to trying to convince your competitor's
| customers to jump ship.
| shivenigma wrote:
| You can post and seek feedback at IndieHackers site.
| HatchedLake721 wrote:
| Have a look at https://www.roastmylandingpage.com/ and
| https://www.usertesting.com/
| Taurenking wrote:
| >https://www.roastmylandingpage.com/
|
| 150 pounds for a 20 minute roast seems a tiny bit much
| an_ko wrote:
| Clearly you can get it here. :) Post a "Show HN"?
| r_singh wrote:
| Indiehackers community is sometimes helpful IMO
| mchusma wrote:
| As a counterpoint, I instantly knew 90% what this was by using
| the term.
| pferde wrote:
| This describes also my "journey" within the homepage, to the
| letter.
|
| I see this often on similar small product homepages. Many of
| them describe the product for someone already familiar with it,
| and could do with taking a step back and trying to describe it
| for someone who, figuratively speaking, accidentally stumbled
| onto it and has no idea what's going on.
| divan wrote:
| Came here to write the same.
| Radim wrote:
| Have you considered that in some cases (though probably not
| Calendso's), that may be on purpose?
|
| The VC crowd would have you believe that _every product must
| disrupt the whole world_ - for the casual visitor, their
| gradma and their dog.
|
| But niche products have to ward off tyre-kickers and what-if
| time-wasters, as much as entice their target audience. Using
| industry-specific jargon kills both flies at once.
|
| If you "don't get it", you may not be the target audience.
| jjeaff wrote:
| This is our strategy exactly. We get a lot of outsiders or
| investors critiquing that we have industry jargon on our
| landing page that only insiders understand. That is 100% by
| design.
|
| Not only does it signal to insiders that we know what we
| are talking about and that our software was built with them
| in mind, but it also scares away people that it is not
| built for. Which helps us avoid answering countless
| inquiries as to whether this software can work for this or
| that.
| ivan_gammel wrote:
| Exactly. Home page belongs to the marketing team, not to
| engineering, and those wizards of target audiences quite
| often find counter-intuitive ways to reach their goals. If
| message ,,we are like X, but better" gets visits and
| reaches the expected conversion rates, then who we are to
| challenge that work?
| alexf95 wrote:
| Seems interesting (looked at it on ProductHunt since Website was
| broken for me as well).
|
| A well working scheduling, open-source tool would be great. And I
| also read that you can integrate it easily into other stuff?
| murbard2 wrote:
| There's a long list of simple features that calend.ly users have
| been asking for a long time. There is a good opportunity to
| capture by offering them. Top of my list: limit the total number
| of hours that can be booked per day.
| benjaminwootton wrote:
| Am I the only person who hates receiving calend.ly links?
|
| I know it's unreasonble, but I find it somehow rude when someone
| asks me to go hunting around in their calendar, even though it's
| more efficient than agreeing on meeting slots.
|
| I have even passed on some good opportunities simply because I
| have an aversion to calend.ly!
| thewojo wrote:
| I'm the opposite. I hate when people don't use Calendly or the
| like. The back and forth is time consuming. I like the ability
| to choose a time and always receive a calendar invite (so I
| don't have to create one).
| michaelbuckbee wrote:
| I have an aversion to sending them and always say: "Hey, I'm
| happy to work a time out over email, or if it's easier for you
| here's my [link]"
| nrmitchi wrote:
| I don't particularly mind it, mostly because as you mentioned,
| it is _much easier_ , as long as the sender is aware that it
| doesn't always work; a Calendly link isn't the solution to
| every scheduling situation.
|
| It also has to be sent with some sort of message/introduction,
| otherwise yes, it does feel like I'm being pushed aside.
|
| Finally, the person sending the Calendly link has to keep their
| calendar _actually up to date_. There is nothing worse than
| setting an appointment through Calendly, and then being told
| "Oh sorry, I actually have a conflict".
|
| I think the "rudeness" interpretation comes from an
| interpretation that the person sending it "doesn't care
| enough", which isn't always true.
| ryanar wrote:
| That problem is being solved by Derrick Reimer with
| https://savvycal.com/
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| I'm intrigued by the proposition but I don't understand in
| which way this is any different from calendly.
|
| That said, despite a brief first negative emotional response
| (like the parent said, it kind of feels impersonal), my
| rational side appreciates the convenience of calendly and not
| having to type more emails to agree on time.
| harshgupta wrote:
| Great product, much awaited! Feature request: Maybe consider
| adding terraform scripts or such for easier self hosting?
| yowlingcat wrote:
| As this is HN, to the authors, if they're reading this -- I know
| you may be getting some pretty critical feedback here (hopefully
| it's useful!) but I will say this would have handily solved an 8
| figure problem for me at a previous company. There are a lot of
| companies where scheduling appointments in many ways /is/ the
| product -- being able to have good open source tooling for
| appointment scheduling is worth its weight in gold. I would
| definitely have sprung for something like this if it was
| available in, oh, 2017. Keep going!
| klausjensen wrote:
| Congrats on launching - this looks very promising!
|
| I immediately understood what this was. That is not a brag at
| all, but I just happen to be a paying user of Calendly, so "Open
| source Calendly" was perfect for me.
|
| I an curios to see how complicated it is to wire it up with
| Coogle Calendar and Office365 connections.
|
| I will take it for a spin. :)
| nrmitchi wrote:
| I like this, and the fact that it is self-hostable (I have a
| project that I was considering trying to integrate with Calendly,
| but this looks like a significantly better option for my use
| case), but I do have one comment about the pricing: there doesn't
| seem to be any type of trial/free-tier.
|
| Yes, I could go to the effort of deploying it myself to try it
| out, but that is still significantly more effort than just
| signing in and trying it out.
|
| It feels like there is a very large gap between "It's free
| forever by self hosting" and "12/user/month".
|
| I'm not suggesting that you have to have a free-tier-forever kind
| of plan, just that the requirement of hosting it yourself just to
| be able to poke around at it is a pretty high bar (especially if
| someone had to pay someone else to install/set it up for them).
| k2xl wrote:
| I used to work at Calendly (fantastic company out of atlanta).
|
| Around the "rudeness" of back and forth in Calendly. One of the
| most powerful features we built was the ability to show
| availability both ways. Meaning if the person who is booking with
| you has Calendly too, they will be able to see times where both
| you and them are available - which I think helps with the booking
| etiquette since Calendly will save time for both parties. It's a
| powerful feature since it makes it becomes more useful the more
| Calendly becomes the de facto scheduling platform (chances that
| someone you send a Calendly link also has Calendly grows)
| aidenn0 wrote:
| I may be wrong, but I think the overwhelming majority of
| meetings are sufficiently asymmetrical that one side will not
| have the need to put their free time in a calendar.
|
| Example: my manager is in meetings most of the day, with the
| meetings scheduled via outlook invites, so his free time is
| pretty specified in his work calendar. The majority of his
| direct reports do not have their free time specified in their
| work calendars.
|
| I'm fine with him sending calendly links though -- and I get
| the impression that's the common view on the team. None of us
| _want_ to be in meetings all day, so having to hunt through his
| calendar from time to time is far preferred.
| rcpt wrote:
| Can doctors use calendly or this? I don't think there are HIPPA
| concerns with appointment schedules and it sure would be nicer
| that the existing process where you call 5 places to find they're
| not accepting patients.
| amelius wrote:
| > I don't think there are HIPPA concerns with appointment
| schedules
|
| I'm not so sure. The frequency/duration of appointments would
| be juicy information for insurance companies, future employers,
| etc.
| ivan_gammel wrote:
| Unfortunately, no, those solutions are not built for medical
| purposes. Even a small practice usually has different types of
| appointments with different durations and requiring different
| resources (e.g. some basics can be done by a nurse and many
| appointments won't block your X-rays room). Decent appointment
| management system (AMS) should be not only compliant with data
| protection regulations, but also have a good feature set. There
| are companies like Doctolib in Europe, which build AMS
| specifically for the healthcare. The company where I work as a
| CTO decided in the end to build our own AMS to be able to
| optimize the show rate and to connect AMS to our marketing and
| ERP - we were not satisfied by anything we have seen on the
| market. We are still active users on Calendly nevertheless - it
| is a good tool for scheduling job interviews and calls with
| external partners. Would be interesting to see UVP of Calendso
| in this field.
| nednar wrote:
| Love the look and feel, love the page, love that it is open
| source. The one thing I wonder about is whether this is something
| anybody would pay for. I mean, if GCal would have a github
| project, this would be a single `feature request` type Issue. And
| to most people both GCal (everywhere) and Outlook (at work) are
| free suites. If a user sees the whole suite as a product, then
| why would he pay for a single feature? And if the whole suite is
| already "free" in the mind of the user, doesn't that make it a
| lot harder?
|
| Maybe it would make sense as component of a niche-market CRM
| solution?
| Cenk wrote:
| People pay for Calendly, so obviously there's a market of
| people who would pay for it?
| jeroenhd wrote:
| Got a laugh out of the header "Works with all of your favourite
| tools", listing Google Calendar and five "coming soon"s.
|
| The product could do with a better slogan. Calling yourself "like
| X, but different" is a terrible strategy if someone like myself
| encounters your website having never heard of X. I don't know
| what Calendy is and I'd have to Google your competitor to find
| out what your product is offering...
|
| The demo is intuitive but I have no idea what timezone these
| times and dates are in. I'd guess they're in my timezone, but if
| they are, consider explicitly telling users that.
|
| This looks like a very nice tool that a lot of websites can make
| great use of. Due to covid restrictions, stores in my country
| need to reserve time slots for a limited amount of visitors if
| they want to open. This tool can offer exactly what nearly every
| store here needs for an affordable price, assuming those stores
| haven't found an alternative solution yet.
| cellover wrote:
| Looks promising, was considering using Calendly for a SaaS app I
| just launched to book demos but will give Calendso a try.
|
| Was wondering if there was an integration with Salesforce via
| Zapier.
| mritchie712 wrote:
| I think you could do that via a webhook
| cellover wrote:
| Oh I see now, thank you for having spotted this!
| hartator wrote:
| I hate Calendly.
|
| I don't exactly know why. The UI is nice, being able to pick a
| date is cool, and automated calendar invite does work. There is
| just something that tickle in the wrong way. Mostly because these
| don't get updated seriously, you can't pick any dates shown as
| available in reality. It's also a little passive agressive when
| finding a date/time that works is really not that hard. It feels
| like a technological solution to a human communication problem.
| Just get better at communicating! Suggest two dates/time that
| works for you well and you think should also work for the other
| person and it often does!
| erezsh wrote:
| That's a very quick diagnosis, that all their users just have a
| communication problem.
|
| Calendly can be used to hold office-hours, and to allow users
| or customers an easy way to get face time with you.
|
| Also, I have a lot of acquaintances that are always busy, and
| scheduling with them can often take several ping-pong hits. I
| like the idea of a software taking care that of that hassle for
| us.
| nojito wrote:
| Communication is the toughest problem to solve in human
| history.
|
| >Suggest two dates/time that works for you well and you think
| should also work for the other person and it often does!
|
| This assumes that both participants have their calendars under
| control and in their mind. This is impossible for someone like
| myself so I heavily lean on my EAs or automated scheduling
| tools for individuals to schedule time with me.
| hartator wrote:
| Making the assumption you work in software and not in sales.
| Do you need that many meetings? It feels if your calendar
| seems uncontrollable, you probably need to start say no to
| meetings.
| raro42 wrote:
| Rome wasn't built in a day.
|
| imho: * Calendso has the potential to become an interstellar
| spaceship, whenever it comes to scheduling a meeting without
| hassle.
|
| * Aggressive marketing/"comparing" is not my style - prefer a
| more subtil way. Can you push the first version of your spaceship
| to pole position "comparing". yes. Will it work, maybe. At least
| you are in the race.
|
| >So "An open source Calendly alternative" is quite clear for most
| people who want to make use of this.
|
| ack.
|
| * Knowing the team behind, the mentioned shortcomings will be
| resolved asap
|
| * I18N is on the roadmap/in the pipeline
|
| > 9. Fill out the fields (remembering to encrypt your password
| with BCrypt)
|
| Find this normal. Do this often. Has room for improvement. Sure.
| Will be improved, sure.
|
| imho: The most important thing about calendso is how much heart
| and love the team is putting into it. I can feel that. It makes
| me feel humble.
|
| Go, go, go ... and stay safe.
| leftnode wrote:
| Congratulations on launching. My (small) startup is a Calendly
| user for our sales and support staff. What would cause me to
| switch from Calendly to your product?
|
| I would never want to self host this. We're a small team, and no
| one technical wants to manage yet another server, nor do we want
| the responsibility for when something screws up and a salesperson
| misses a demo or a support staff member isn't reminded about a
| training session.
|
| The pricing isn't that competitive with Calendly ($3/user/month
| savings) which would translate to a savings of $108 annually for
| us, not enough to justify switching.
|
| I feel pitching this as an open source alternative to Calendly is
| the wrong angle. The only people who care about open source are
| developers who are the least likely people to need scheduling
| software. And people who do need Calendly aren't going to be
| moved to switch because Calendly works well enough already.
|
| Finally, the copy at the bottom of the page reads:
|
| > For instance, booking a COVID vaccine shouldn't happen on a
| server in another country that somebody else is in control of.
|
| Are people using Calendly to book COVID vaccines? If I used your
| product instead, wouldn't I still be booking a vaccine on someone
| else's server?
|
| I wish any small competitor success against a large incumbent,
| but I would radically change my approach to compete against
| Calendly.
| alanwreath wrote:
| Self Hosting always implies more work, generally its attractive
| to entities that have data protection requirements. Them
| offering a hosted alternative is a proven business model
| (Gitlab for example).
| claytongulick wrote:
| This. I operate in a regulated environment, self-hosting is
| critical unless I sign a BAA. Even then, I'm risk-averse to
| allowing PHI to escape the bounds of my sandbox.
| gumby wrote:
| This is a great start. I'm going to try it.
| sandGorgon wrote:
| does calendso provide an api to embed calendly like functionality
| into an app ?
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