[HN Gopher] Cal.com: Open Scheduling Infrastructure
___________________________________________________________________
Cal.com: Open Scheduling Infrastructure
Author : nateb2022
Score : 312 points
Date : 2023-01-24 18:21 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (cal.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (cal.com)
| ussrlongbow wrote:
| How do I know if username I picked is premium or not?
| Peer_Rich wrote:
| it'll show in the input box when you write it
| thedangler wrote:
| Nice, One thing that is missing from all these appointment
| bookings api's and webhooks is letting us bring our own payment
| solutions. Webhook for creating a booking but not accepted until
| they pay. After creating a booking have them redirect to my
| payment page with a callback url when payment is finished?
|
| Lots of ways to accomplish this feature. NO I DONT WANT TO USE
| STRIPE!
| eza wrote:
| you can use LNCal.com and you'll get exactly that but you'll be
| paid in Bitcoin!
| Peer_Rich wrote:
| oh thats sick! let me get in touch with the team. looks like
| a fun project
| triyambakam wrote:
| Which payment solution do you [want to] use then?
| thedangler wrote:
| I want to integrate my own, for my own services, for my own
| clients services. I own a payments agency and I write custom
| payment integrations. I want control of the payment flow.
| Peer_Rich wrote:
| you can select the setting "Require Confirmation" and then
| use webhooks to send your payment link via email or use the
| "redirect after confirmation" to put your payment gate and
| connect it
| thedangler wrote:
| Thanks for pointing this out. But I didn't see that in
| the webhooks or api. I didn't see something for pending.
| [deleted]
| Peer_Rich wrote:
| hey, peer here, cofounder of cal.com. We're in the middle of
| writing a generic payment adaptor which will enable Stripe,
| PayPal, RazorPay, Lightning Network, ...
|
| should be live this quarter
| dieselgate wrote:
| Thanks for your work - found out about cal.com a few weeks
| ago (don't remember how maybe HN or a random cal.com link
| just wondering what it is [initially thought it was uc
| berkeley related]) and it seems to work well for my intended
| purposes. I'm just curious what the intended use case is for
| a payment adaptor - it's not something that's come up for me
| yet. Edit: Is it just having folks pay for the meeting time
| or more than that
| Peer_Rich wrote:
| it is to allow people to charge for their bookings. we
| currently run stripe connect, because thats the easiest but
| we want to extend it to other payment services.
|
| for example therapists, coaches, gym trainers, etc use paid
| bookings
| alexzeitler wrote:
| Happily using it for several months now after getting frustrated
| with calendly's UX.
| samsolomon wrote:
| Curious what you dislike about Calendly's UX?
|
| I feel like the product's success is largely because they've
| used clever UX to solve a common, but difficult problem.
| mattfrommars wrote:
| I have thought the longest to build a replica of Calendly as a
| practice. And this got posted on front page.
|
| Anyone know way a guide to make a landing page like the OP has?
| yuchi wrote:
| Short form:
|
| 1. Focus on advantages and benefits of your product straight
| on.
|
| 2. Do show your product. It's hard and difficult to keep it up
| to date, but the value outweighs the cost.
|
| 3. Use short memorable phrasing, but expand as necessary.
|
| 4. If your product has nerd value baked into it (e.g. some
| powerful protocol that mainstream competitors do not implement)
| do make it a major feature but explain the benefits to the
| uninitiated ("we support JMAP, the more powerful alternative to
| IMAP that allows you to use X app and service")
|
| 5. On the visual side: keep it simple and add a single gimmick,
| such a background pattern or a strange gradient. Reuse that
| same gimmick in subtler versions with color/shape/position
| variations. Always strive for readability, not effect.
|
| 6. Pricing must be easily accessible. Explain in simple words
| if exceptions apply (student discounts etc)
| chatmasta wrote:
| I wish. Page design is one of those things where you can feel
| like an expert when looking at someone else's page, but as soon
| as you attempt it yourself, you end up making a mess and
| filling the page with all your own personal pet peeves.
|
| I think the best advice is probably to start as simple as
| possible: no more than two columns with responsiveness to one
| column, no more than a few colors, etc.
|
| But also, I wouldn't be too hard on yourself comparing your own
| work to this site. Someone spent a lot of money on a three
| letter domain, and they probably spent some more on the design
| for it.
| mbaytas wrote:
| The landing page is indeed very good design.
|
| As an experienced web designer I can tell you the design and
| implementation are straightforward, but very competently done.
| There are many things like the typography and UX writing that
| suggest this is the work of a fellow experienced designer.
| There's much more here than what can be captured in a "guide" -
| it's just an overall high level of design competence.
| Merciernmon wrote:
| As a user without any web design experience, the site felt
| very nice to me... except that the demo ("schedule meetings
| without the email tennis") hijacked my scrollbar. That felt
| awful.
| emadabdulrahim wrote:
| Design is a function of your content. Start there. Write the
| content for your website. Edit it. Structure it in logical
| groups that transition well from one another (story). Once you
| have that, you can start thinking about visual design as a way
| to emphasis and give a punch to the meaning of each piece of
| the story. Don't let yourself get distracted by superfluous
| design elements you see in a lot of modern website. You might
| use or two of those, but you might just keep it minimal, focus
| on good typography and visual hierarchy, and your website will
| look professional if you master just those few things.
|
| Content-first design: https://alistapart.com/blog/post/content-
| first-design/
| d0m wrote:
| That landing page is really amazing
| Eduard wrote:
| Are the Rick astley month sheets static / non-interactive /
| purely decorative? E.g. I cannot scroll to next or previous
| month; cannot see a specific day's details?
|
| Or is some backend just down?
| avmich wrote:
| My number one problem with third party scheduling providers is
| that they want to have PII which is used for the meeting itself.
| I'd prefer that information to be only visible to the second
| party.
| efficax wrote:
| could you say more about what you mean? surely the business
| needs your name and email
| hobonumber1 wrote:
| I feel like they are using open source as a marketing and growth
| channel. Even if you self-host it, there's no way to self-host
| the API. You have to pay to use it. So you're just self-hosting
| the UI. They can change the API at any time or kick you off it.
| Also the AGPL is a very restrictive license.
| brap wrote:
| I don't see the point in making this open source to begin with,
| it's not like their target audience even cares. When you're
| selling to developers etc it could make sense. But when you're
| selling to doctors, HR, teachers? Eh. I guess maybe they could
| score a few free bug fixes, but I don't see much added value
| beyond that.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| Peer_Rich wrote:
| hey, peer here from cal.com.
|
| that statement is not completely accurate:
|
| the open source core is a fully-fledged full-stack app with
| tRPC as the API.
|
| nothing of that requires a license.
|
| however, we have an private REST API for admins etc, which you
| only ever need if you have >100 users -- and likely run a
| commercial product.
| ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
| Absolutely. All these new open source companies are a bit
| shady. Supabase was also another one of these although I hear
| now their stuff is easier to self host.
| js4ever wrote:
| Also the docker compose in the repo is a mess and doesn't
| work... Clearly it seems to be a way to limit usage of the
| selfhosted version
| md5wasp wrote:
| I self host it, and I self host both the API and the database.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| The pricing tiers on the website are also misleading/incorrect
| (edit: may be outdated info). For example, the free tier has
| unlimited event type only for the duration of a trial period.
| After that it downgrades you to 1 active event type at a time.
| I've run into a few "bugs" like that, but it still works well
| enough that I haven't bothered with the difficult self-host for
| my recruiter booking calendar.
| Peer_Rich wrote:
| > The pricing tiers on the website are also
| misleading/incorrect. For example, the free tier has
| unlimited event type only for the duration of a trial period.
| After that it downgrades you to 1 active event type at a
| time.
|
| hey hey, that pricing is long gone. there are no trials
| anymore, everything is that is PRO on calendly is free on
| cal.com
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| Good to know if true. I ran into that particular issue only
| about 6 months ago, so I'm not sure about long gone. I'll
| definitely double check when I have the chance and I've
| updated the prior comment to reflect that it may be
| outdated.
| TAForObvReasons wrote:
| It's the VC-funded OSS playbook (restrictive open source,
| monetize support and advanced deployments until the open source
| loses potency, relicense). Cal.com took money from
| https://oss.capital/portfolio and others
| truetraveller wrote:
| > there's no way to self-host the API. You have to pay to use
| it
|
| Can someone explain this in detail? What exactly do I get with
| self-hosting?
| blomqma wrote:
| Tried signing up using Google OAuth, not allowing any scopes and
| got the following error: ``` {"message":"\nInvalid
| `prisma.user.findUnique()` invocation:\n\n\nError querying the
| database: db error: FATAL: remaining connection slots are
| reserved for non-replication superuser connections"} ```
|
| A bit too much info maybe.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| JS backend eh. What is the world coming to?
| KyeRussell wrote:
| The moment I actually sat down and played with one of those
| "isomorphic" "frameworks", which was not too long ago, the
| whole thing immediately made sense to me.
| willsmith72 wrote:
| Nothing wrong with a js backend. Letting your errors leak to
| the frontend though..
| dijit wrote:
| I found recently (via the sso-portal of all things) that
| Microsoft has a "bookings" product, which, while a little more
| ugly: can give you a calendly like experience for no additional
| money.
|
| https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/business/sched...
| jackconsidine wrote:
| I use this myself. Unfortunately you have to click a small
| "continue as guest" button to get to my calendar- not as pretty
| as Calendly. But like you said, part of the package
| getoffmyyawn wrote:
| Google Workspace also have this built in now[0]. I've happily
| been using it for a while now.
|
| 0. https://support.google.com/google-workspace-
| individual/answe...
| [deleted]
| zcesur wrote:
| great product with lovely people behind it!
|
| coincidentally, we did an interview with one of the co-founders a
| few days ago. dropping the links below in case anyone wants to
| learn more about their philosophy & how they navigate the
| oss/startup waters
|
| highlights (7min): https://youtu.be/gymNEH-skAY
|
| full interview (45min): https://youtu.be/BKCuNhyQlGE
| neovive wrote:
| For those on Microsoft 365 (by choice or via your company), have
| you tried or adopted Microsoft Bookings [1]? I noticed that
| Bookings shares some of the core features of Calendly, but
| integrates with Outlook and Teams. It sounds interesting, but I
| haven't heard much discussion about it.
|
| [1] https://www.microsoft.com/en-
| us/microsoft-365/business/sched...
| cuuupid wrote:
| We tried it, was super buggy and had display issues on smaller
| devices. FWIW we also tried cal.com and had equally many issues
| -- the first week we tried self-hosting and it must've crashed
| half a dozen times losing a whole bunch of bookings.
|
| Nice thing is it being open source and Prisma based means you
| can just scroll thru the source and roll your own solution in a
| couple hours of dev work
| o_____________o wrote:
| Microsoft still Microsofting. We starting using DevOps
| recently, aka Visual Studio Team Services, and some of our
| employees can barely get through the login process.
| 9dev wrote:
| The actual nice solution would be to fix those issues and
| commit them back upstream, but hey :)
| chriskanan wrote:
| Last I checked, it doesn't allow integration with calendars
| from non-Microsoft sources (e.g., Google), so it was a non-
| starter for me. After using Calendly for several years to
| offload that aspect of my life, I'm back to listing out times
| I'm available to folks in emails to try to coordinate meetings
| since my new job only allows Microsoft Bookings.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Calendly raising a $350mm Series B [1] has to be in the top ten
| peak-2021 moments.
|
| [1] https://openviewpartners.com/blog/calendly-series-b/
| jack_riminton wrote:
| It's certainly up there, although crypto rock jpegs make it
| look positively sane
| ezekg wrote:
| I saw founders abandon businesses that were working to pivot
| to "web3." It was wild.
| kinnth wrote:
| It will happen again when the market picks up! Web4 we
| should call it!
| adam_arthur wrote:
| VC valuations have largely ignored presence of competitive
| pressures.
|
| Simply because for most of the past decade there was a much
| smaller pool of talent and fewer resources available to spin
| these things up easily. No longer the case.
|
| This is an app that can be cloned easily and has a low barrier
| to switching for existing customers. SaaS with high costs of
| switching are the ones with defensible margins.
| [deleted]
| ibejoeb wrote:
| Seriously. I reimplemented and launched the core scheduling
| features from scratch in like 12 days. React and firestore.
| Then google calendar integration was something on the order of
| another day or two.
|
| Very useful little thing, but I sure don't know how you could
| spend $350 million doing it. The company I made it for
| absolutely is nowhere in sight of a number like that.
| Pr0ject217 wrote:
| The market value of a solution is not equal to the
| inputs/resources that it took to create the solution. I doubt
| they spent anywhere near their company's value creating it.
| tasuki wrote:
| Indeed. Rare as it is these days, a sign of a good business
| can be that its outputs are bigger than its inputs.
| ibejoeb wrote:
| I didn't say that. Calendly took $350 million from
| investors. That isn't what their product is earning in the
| market; it's what they're using to build it. That's what's
| wild.
| verelo wrote:
| Had a chat with a big time VC the other day about a project,
| told "I'm not sure this is venture fundable".
|
| Things like this make me think just because I'm not willing to
| lie and sell the hype that the true sentiment here is "you're
| not venture fundable"
|
| Bootstrap life it is.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| You are probably aiming for a high chance of a successful
| business? They don't want that. They want a low chance of a
| unicorn.
|
| If anyone wants a wake up call of what normal investors (not
| VC) value typical companies at, watch the UK series Dragons
| Den, where they offer people 50,000 pounds for 33% of the
| company, and suchlike.
| OJFord wrote:
| I'm also in the UK, but I'm aware there's a US spin-off
| called _Shark Tank_ that many here might be already /more
| familiar with. I've never seen it, but I assume it's
| similarly low valuation - what they would call 'mom and
| pop' businesses.
| grvdrm wrote:
| I'm part of a venture-backed business today but recently told
| a friend that my next move would be to a non-VC tech business
| for the right opportunity.
| afarrell wrote:
| The truth is more likely that a single VC's opinion carries
| limited information and you'd need to both do more building
| and talk to more people in order to learn a more certain
| answer.
|
| In fact, notice the words of the VC: "I'm not sure..."
|
| Also, lying is bad.
| Glyptodon wrote:
| Not HIPAA compliant, or usable in a compliant way, I assume?
| Peer_Rich wrote:
| self-hosting can be compliant, but the SaaS offering is at 99%
| completion for hipaa compliance. SOC2 was already done last
| month!
| primitivesuave wrote:
| To use this for telehealth, a US-based healthcare provider
| would need to sign a BAA (Business Associates Agreement) with
| Cal. Realistically, the security features you mentioned would
| only be relevant in determining the punitive outcome of a
| HIPAA violation.
| junon wrote:
| Self-hosting can always be made HIPAA compliant if you do it
| right.
| joshghent wrote:
| I'd quite like to move my wife's maths business away from
| Calendly. But unfortunately Cal.com doesn't support payments for
| events yet. So that will be a sticking point for now.
| thecosas wrote:
| I believe they do offer payments, although haven't dug into
| difficulty of setup. https://cal.com/resources/feature/payments
| e-clinton wrote:
| The domain is fairly new. It was called "Calendso" not long ago.
| interestica wrote:
| a three-letter domain is quite the move
| [deleted]
| rfolstad wrote:
| So calendly is worth billions? and cal.com has millions invested
| and 90% of hacker news readers could build both these products in
| a weekend or 2 why do these companies exist?
| codegeek wrote:
| Your comment reminds me of the infamous dropbox comment "I can
| just build an FTP server in a weekend" (paraphrasing).
|
| Hint: Software is just one piece of a business even a SAAS
| business. A billion dollar business requires many other things
| to work.
| rfolstad wrote:
| dropbox did something useful. It made it easy to share files
| across platforms and the web. This is a feature that should
| be part of your calendar software to allow people to create
| calendar entries in your calendar and see availability.
| semerda wrote:
| Spot on. A Product (which most engineers can hack together)
| shouldn't be confused with a Business.
| BoorishBears wrote:
| This has got to be one of the misused parable in HN's
| history.
|
| The Dropbox comment was missing the utility of a turnkey
| solution. It was like "No wireless. Less space than a Nomad.
| Lame.": techies missing the value of complicating things in
| order to produce a product that Just Works.
|
| This comment isn't doing that, it's questioning the resources
| that it took places like Calendly _as it exists_. Calendly
| has a moat in the fact that it has a massive network
| effect... but it 's natural to question what exactly about
| that moat qualifies a billion dollar valuation, and the
| answer is _extremely little_.
|
| If Dropbox had been something you could build _as it existed_
| in a weekend it 'd be one thing, but you couldn't. You could
| build something that had the same _technical_ function, but
| none of the user experience. Calendly isn 't that.
| codegeek wrote:
| "but it's natural to question what exactly about that moat
| qualifies a billion dollar valuation, and the answer is
| extremely little."
|
| I am no shill for Calendly but a happy user and as far as I
| know, they are doing 100M in ARR. It is a lot more than "I
| can code this app in a weekend". Whether this justifies a
| billion dollar valuation is a separate discussion but for
| sure it is not that easy to do what Calendly is doing.
|
| Easy is not same as simple btw.
| BoorishBears wrote:
| I don't know if you're just being intentionally
| reductionist by doubling down on this "I can code this
| app in a weekend" angle when I just spent something like
| a hundred words explaining how that's not the point or
| what... but people are talking about the business here.
|
| And it's the whole business: Not just 100M in ARR, but
| 100M in ARR with what burn rate and what exit that won't
| just be dumping a steaming pile on the public market as
| has flown in years past.
|
| Maybe you're just missing the forest for the trees when
| these questions come up now too: We're not in 2019
| anymore. It used to be that every startup with a faint
| pulse could justify any valuation by throwing up revenue
| numbers and see a successful exit at some point. Now
| money is tightening up and people are starting to
| question fundamentals again.
|
| The comment you replied to is essentially saying: This is
| a sign of the times, 3B dollar valuation, ~100M ARR,
| likely an insane burn rate that that ARR doesn't even
| begin to touch
|
| I don't know how that's even a controversial take unless
| your argument is "well we've seen even worse do fine"
| (because yeah, it did well fine _in the past climate of
| free money_ )
| codegeek wrote:
| I don't necessarily disagree with the "Is Billion dollar
| valuation justified" thing but I originally replied to GP
| who said "90% of hacker news readers could build both
| these products in a weekend or 2".
| BoorishBears wrote:
| They started with the words "So calendly is worth
| billions?"...
| motoxpro wrote:
| I mean the source is there, so if you could code it up in a
| weekend, more power to ya! I always find it strange that people
| say this instead of just doing it and making millions being a
| solo dev.
| HatchedLake721 wrote:
| Tell me you're an engineer that never built a business without
| telling me.
|
| "So Facebook/Reddit/Twitter are worth billions? 90% of hacker
| news readers could build these products in a weekend or 2 why
| do these companies exist?"
| rfolstad wrote:
| tell me your an employee without telling me your an employee
| [deleted]
| corytheboyd wrote:
| damn how much did you spend on that domain?
| [deleted]
| getoffmyyawn wrote:
| If you use Google Workspace you have a booking page built in now:
|
| https://support.google.com/google-workspace-individual/answe...
| [deleted]
| jameal wrote:
| Can people book without a Google Account? I set one up and went
| to the appointment page in Incognito and the appointment page
| redirects to a Google login page.
| deforciant wrote:
| the problem with cal.com "open source" self-hosting is that they
| have made it quite difficult to run yourself. For example this
| https://developer.cal.com/self-hosting/docker actually doesn't
| provide docker images but you need to build it yourself because
| for some reason frontend needs hardcoded hostname. In no other
| app I have seen such limitations :) Also, an older version from a
| year ago just stopped working, couldn't fix it, couldn't update
| it either :D
|
| It would be good if someone made a fork with fixed setup and
| docker images for self-hosting :)
| junon wrote:
| This puzzles me, there are often cases where hostnames are
| baked into frontends. Also, not everyone wants to use docker,
| so it's not exactly mandatory to have docker images.
| Dockerizing most things is rather simple, anyway.
| gumby wrote:
| I prefer to simply install rather than use docker.
| Peer_Rich wrote:
| what's wrong with this image?
| https://hub.docker.com/r/calcom/cal.com
|
| let me update the docs
| splitrocket wrote:
| Instructions aren't for the docker image, they are for the
| standard js installation.
| saddist0 wrote:
| Why does it need to be a fork and not contribution to this
| repo?
|
| There is no end of feature requests, but polite way is to
| appreciate what is already done by original authors and fill
| your requests as GitHub issue.
|
| Disclaimer: not affiliated to them, just find your comment
| disrespectful.
| nxmnxm99 wrote:
| Judging by their English they're almost certainly from the
| Baltic so I don't think his tone was intended as
| disrespectful
| candiddevmike wrote:
| One reason would be a CLA. Presumably to contribute to their
| main repo, you need to sign a CLA to ensure they can
| relicense this thing as needed. A separate fork wouldn't have
| that requirement, or shouldn't if it's in good faith.
| md5wasp wrote:
| I've contributed to this repo (and I also self host
| Calendly) and didn't have to sign anything.
|
| It _is_ a pain to self-host, but unlike claims elsewhere in
| this thread I do also self-host the API and database.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| > and I also self host Calendly)
|
| Is the core of Calendly open-source?
|
| I skimmed their repos but it looks like they don't
| include the "secret sauce" to self-hosting your own
| event+booking platform:
| https://github.com/orgs/calendly/repositories
| gumby wrote:
| Why would you not want such an agreement? It means the main
| maintainer(s) have standing if there is a license dispute.
| candiddevmike wrote:
| IANAL. As a contributor? It means the company can
| relicense my contributions into a license that is wildly
| different from their current one (including no
| license/copyright). It affords me no benefit.
|
| There are CLA alternatives like the Developer Certificate
| of Origin (DCO) that ensure the company has the "legal
| standing" to accept a contribution without infringing on
| copyright, but it doesn't give them the ability to
| relicense.
| freedomben wrote:
| > _It affords me no benefit._
|
| Sure they could relicense it to something wildly
| different, but they can't retroactively take back old
| versions of it, so you can still run it as it was when
| you made the contributions.
|
| I wish nobody required CLAs, but I'm glad that there are
| products like Cal that would (assumedly) be closed
| contribution otherwise due to (real or perceived) legal
| risk.
| Phrodo_00 wrote:
| That could be a reason, but I don't see a CLA in their
| contributing guide[1].
|
| [1]
| https://github.com/calcom/cal.com/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md
| candiddevmike wrote:
| IANAL, but that could have some interesting implications
| for their enterprise licensing/builds I believe. They
| can't relicense the code for their enterprise builds, so
| it stays AGPL due to linking/AGPL infection. Would be an
| interesting court case.
| [deleted]
| honkler wrote:
| must have costed a ton for that domain name I guess?
| EGreg wrote:
| [flagged]
| 56friends wrote:
| What are you replying to, EGreg?
| TuringNYC wrote:
| Thanks for the tool. Curious why you only allow hours form
| 9am-5pm of subsets of that only, what if someone wants to book
| evening hours? I was ready to start sharing my new cal.com link
| but this was a showstopper.
| shreve wrote:
| That may be an issue during onboarding. I've got an account set
| up already and I'm able to edit my availability schedule from
| 12:00am to 11:59pm.
| hackish wrote:
| I didn't change the default availability configuration during
| signup. However, after logging in and navigating to the
| Availability page, I'm able to create multiple schedules and
| time ranges per day as late as 11:59pm.
| alberth wrote:
| If you're a for-profit company, what benefit do you get by making
| your offering Open Core?
|
| Is it sales channel, with the hope of converting those self-
| hosters to paid customers?
| freedomben wrote:
| They get the attention and business of people like me who
| actively avoid vendor lock-in. I'm very open to (and often end
| up becoming a paid customer) products that have open options,
| and I also typically bring my org along with me. Most recently
| I did this with Tailscale. (Note: If not for the Headscale
| project, I would never have become a Tailscale customer so
| their openness is gained them at least one ARR of about $2k
| that they otherwise would not have gotten)
|
| I also tend to self-host my personal stuff but pay for hosted
| for the business, knowing that if the product changed in
| unsavory ways (pricing, closed-nature, etc) the business could
| self-host and escape a hostage situation. It's far from perfect
| as usually there's a bunch of data in their DB that you can't
| easily export, but with proprietary/closed solutions that's
| nearly guaranteed to be the case.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| Free is a great foot in the door, and self-hosting every single
| application you need as your business grows gets complicated.
| phphphphp wrote:
| Anybody with money to spend is going to be astute enough to
| realise that the burden of self-hosting is far above any
| potential direct cost savings, and so self-hosting becomes an
| option utilised only by those who probably wouldn't be going to
| pay for it anyway. Essentially, it's a pain-in-the-ass free
| tier.
| e-clinton wrote:
| They have a paid self-host option... starts at $189/month.
| Peer_Rich wrote:
| (with enterprise features that most people don't need)
| [deleted]
| panphora wrote:
| It gives you the ability to market to developers and post on HN
| without actually making it easy to host the open source version
| jonahx wrote:
| It also assures customers who have concerns about the
| longevity of your company that, even if you folded, your
| product itself wouldn't just vanish. So it's a kind of
| insurance in addition to being a marketing strategy.
| Peer_Rich wrote:
| https://cal.com/blog/longevity 100%
| ezekg wrote:
| As somebody who's planning on going this route too, I
| love this blog post and will likely write/do something
| similar when I get there.
|
| Big fan of Cal.com and other open source businesses like
| it.
| Uncorrupt4319 wrote:
| [dead]
| marckhoury wrote:
| I'm very surprised UC Berkeley doesn't own that domain name. They
| have a trademark on "Cal", don't know if they'd file a trademark
| complaint if this got larger.
| [deleted]
| e-clinton wrote:
| A trademark doesn't automatically entitle you to the domain.
| marckhoury wrote:
| I know, I just thought they would have acquired it. My
| statements were somewhat separate.
| eadz wrote:
| You only have a trademarks in certain categories.
|
| That is how Apple computer and Apple the record label were able
| to co-exist, until Apple Computer started doing Music..
| marckhoury wrote:
| Ah good point, you're right. This is probably legally fine.
| SeriousM wrote:
| Since we're already talking about various scheduling solutions,
| does someone know a project/product that takes care of repeating
| task reminders like cancelling subscriptions and renew a passport
| before expiration?
| filmgirlcw wrote:
| I was curious about getting a premium username (@christina) but
| $29 a month (I misread and thought it was $29 a year, thank God
| my credit card company declined the transaction) is too much.
|
| Love the idea, but $360 for a premium username. Nah. Not doing
| that. Not for something like this.
| neilv wrote:
| For launch of a startup in which usernames are public, charging
| more for a premium username is interesting additional revenue.
|
| (And I'd guess it doesn't much affect the subscriber boost you
| get from the people who rush to grab their preferred username
| or landgrab a primo username on a new service.)
|
| Though I wonder whether a recurring charge for a premium
| username means that they'll ever _reuse_ a username, renting it
| to someone else if the initial person stops paying. That could
| be a security problem (impersonation, a bit like with domain
| name registrations). And if the initial person knows that 's a
| security problem, keeping them paying for that reason might be
| a racket. (Maybe this is not a big deal for a calendar service,
| but it could be for others.)
| filmgirlcw wrote:
| And the transaction did go through. I've canceled the recurring
| but I'm hoping for a refund for the $30 I spent for something I
| won't even get to use (with the custom premium username
| anyway). We'll see.
| collin128 wrote:
| Almost did the same, couldn't believe that it was $29 /
| month.
|
| "Premium usernames cost $29/mo. You can start with a non-
| premium username and then upgrade later."
| Peer_Rich wrote:
| hey man, someone gotta pay off that cal.com domain haha
| tasuki wrote:
| cal.com sounds rich... how much was it?
|
| [edit: reading up a bit, I'm really rooting for you!]
| spicybright wrote:
| I'd be curious to trace what hands it passed between
| before landing here. I bet a lot of these ultra valuable
| domain names have interesting stories behind them.
| Peer_Rich wrote:
| hey there. shoot me an email at peer@cal.com for the refund,
| also happy to give a student discount
|
| remember you can always get a free account with firstname-
| lastname or similar
| filmgirlcw wrote:
| thanks Peer!
| [deleted]
| milliams wrote:
| When signing up I get "Please double-check your email address".
| It lets me continue anyway, but I guess it's over-zealous about
| my address being on my personal domain rather than @gmail.com
| [deleted]
| Peer_Rich wrote:
| hey milliams, we recently had a spam attack so we implemented
| sendgrids email validation but made it non-blocking
|
| https://sendgrid.com/solutions/email-api/email-address-valid...
| teepo wrote:
| sendgrid is still not aware of hey.com .
| Peer_Rich wrote:
| yikes
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| I appreciate that they allow you to submit it nonetheless. I
| was expecting to get blocked. My hyphenated address with a .me
| TLD seems to break a lot of signup forms, and many of them
| won't let me submit the form with a valid address.
| designium wrote:
| There's an even a freer alternative, not FOSS though.
|
| http://zcal.co
|
| It also allows connection to multiple calendars.
| sondog wrote:
| I've poked around a while ago at some Calendly alternatives
| (specifically was looking for something that was cheaper than
| Calendly with most of the basic features).
|
| I tried using https://cal.com for a bit but ended up just
| switching over to https://zcal.co and it has been great so far.
| All these other scheduling tools end up trying to do too much and
| always seem to end up a bit clunky and charge absurd amounts for
| it
| baxtr wrote:
| This.
|
| There HAS to be a name for this phenomenon.
|
| These are great products. But then they start adding feature
| over feature that add no or just little value while making the
| entire experience worse.
|
| What is this? VC money feature creep?
| paulhart wrote:
| enshittification?
|
| also see: https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-
| ai/#hey-guys
| baxtr wrote:
| Thx for sharing. Reads similar to what I was describing!
|
| Not fan of the name though.
| ssgodderidge wrote:
| Maybe the apps themselves are stable enough that the
| engineers working on them have to work on something. Is there
| an example of a SaaS product out there with more than one
| developer that isn't interested in adding features? I don't
| know of any.
| baxtr wrote:
| I think it's mostly investor driven. More features, higher
| monthly fees, higher valuations.
| 0x0F wrote:
| It's basically the opposite of the Unix philosophy of "Do One
| Thing And Do It Well", so maybe "Do Many Things And Do Them
| Meh"?
|
| Though I'm not sure that calling it the DMTADTM phenomenon
| would quite catch on.
| KyeRussell wrote:
| We as software developers don't just get to sit back and
| blame the money people. We are incredibly incredibly
| incredibly guilty of piling on shitty features nobody wants
| because 'we got that far down the backlog', don't want to
| move on to doing something else, and don't know when to call
| it quits.
| baxtr wrote:
| Ah come on. Sure you're right. But it's soooo much more fun
| to blame the stupid money and management type of people.
|
| They can't even code!
| jacky2wong wrote:
| What ends up happening is that B2B companies prefer 'value'
| over 'simplicity' or user experience and end up building
| features without proper product design. This is required for
| them to expand their B2B offering and hence end up being
| 'clunky'. It's inevitable - much like most enterprise
| softwares.
| ryanSrich wrote:
| Have you tried savvycal.com? I've been using it for over a year
| now. Best calendly alternative I've found.
| swyx wrote:
| what did you like compared to cal.com?
| podoman wrote:
| savvycal has a way better scheduling UI for when you share
| to other people. I agree that savvycal > calendly. I pay
| for savvycal.
| eli_gottlieb wrote:
| >ended up just switching over to https://zcal.co and it has
| been great so far
|
| Wait wait wait. It can sync my Google _and_ Outlook calendars
| into a single scheduling service, and they 're not charging me
| anything?
|
| What's the catch here?
| brazzy wrote:
| Same as all the others, they're planning a premium tier with
| enterprise functions, hoping that enough happy free tier
| customers will help convince enterprises to sign up.
| Firmwarrior wrote:
| [flagged]
| dsr_ wrote:
| Bigger question: why isn't it built in to Google Calendar?
| efficax wrote:
| it is.
| https://support.google.com/calendar/answer/11608416?hl=en
|
| but it's not very featureful.
| msingh_5 wrote:
| It is built into Google calendar. But the gcal version has
| horrendous UX.
|
| It's called appointment schedule/slots.
|
| https://support.google.com/calendar/answer/11608416
|
| I love calendly because: 1) it checks my calendar for
| conflicts with a link or suggest times in gmail 2) adds zoom
| meeting details automatically 3) avoids having to do timezone
| math
|
| I just send my calendly link and don't have to discuss back
| and forth about who's available when savings tonnes of time.
| ly wrote:
| The ability to just schedule a meeting with someone from a
| widget on their website seems to me to offer a complete
| different user experience than having to email someone and go
| back and forth over available timeslots, even if that back and
| forth is somewhat automated.
| wpietri wrote:
| Absolutely. For those who haven't used it, I tell Calendly
| the hours I'm available. It then lets people book any open
| slot on my calendar. It's so nice to avoid the tedious "how
| about X or Y" thing.
|
| It also offers more complex setups. So when I was doing
| interviewing I could set up a single link for a particular
| kind of interview. It would offer people slots where both of
| the interviewers were available and then have the interviewee
| answer specific questions up front (e.g., their preferred
| programming language to do the interview in).
|
| But I mainly use it for, "Yes, let's talk, just click this
| link and pick the time slot that suits you."
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| simonswords82 wrote:
| Domain name is worth more than most small businesses
| [deleted]
| elkos wrote:
| Interesting the nextcloud calendar app we use internally in the
| organization I work for has a similar "book a meeting feature"
| which I haven't (yet) took advantage off.
|
| If someone is familiar with both cal.com and that feature, I
| would really appreciate a view of pros and cons.
| kornhole wrote:
| NC has two apps: calendar and appointments
| https://apps.nextcloud.com/apps/appointments. If your org is
| already using NC calendar and other apps, using appointments is
| great for allowing people outside your org to book you
| according to your preferred schedule and against your
| calendars. Cal.com has a few more features, but there are
| trade-offs. NC appointments is easily installed, integrated,
| and maintained within your NC install. Cal.com will require
| more work to install and integrate. NC is somewhat best in
| class rather than best of breed (The overall solution is great
| even though some of its apps are not as full featured). In
| summary, if appointments has what you need, you are probably
| better off sticking with it.
| trystero wrote:
| The appointment feature is directly integrated within the NC
| Calendar app now.
| zackees wrote:
| [dead]
| arkitaip wrote:
| What does open source mean when you have to use a hosted solution
| and "premium" names cost 29 usd / month.
| EligibleDecoy wrote:
| Self-hosted here: https://developer.cal.com/self-
| hosting/installation
| candiddevmike wrote:
| > Clone the repo into a public GitHub repository (to comply
| with AGPLv3. To clone in a private repository, acquire a
| commercial license)
|
| The AGPL won't save you from folks modifying/reselling your
| software. And if someone was non compliant, are you going to
| pay the lawyer fees to prove it?
|
| I wish companies would stop using "open source" as a growth
| strategy.
| gen220 wrote:
| I think this is more a situation of a small group of
| individuals looking to fund their development of FOSS
| scheduling software by offering a hosted solution, rather
| than a company using open source to grow faster.
|
| AFAICT, their goal isn't to monopolize a hosting solution
| for their software, just to provide a path of minimal
| resistance to normal people using their software, and fund
| their lives along the way.
|
| https://cal.com/about lays it out. Looks like they're a
| team of 15ish people who raised a Series A, but it seems
| they've gone about it in a pretty thoughtful way (15 years
| of runway, atm)
| candiddevmike wrote:
| They're venture backed, it's a growth hack:
| https://cal.com/about
|
| Expect the usual tension of open core shenanigans to
| eventually play out.
| gen220 wrote:
| I mean, when we read that page, it doesn't leave a bad
| taste in my mouth -- saying this as somebody who's
| generally very skeptical of VC-backed FOSS. It seems like
| the founders have their heads and their hearts in the
| right place, to the extent that calling it a growth hack
| feels wrong to me, personally.
|
| But yeah, in the long term I agree with you, it'll
| probably fall apart in the way you expect within 10
| years. It's hard to outlast the financial interest of
| investors, even if they're you're friends.
| moneywoes wrote:
| Yep, note how the title is "Open Source" not Open Core.
|
| They know what they're doing
| stonogo wrote:
| It also constitutes a misunderstanding of the license.
| There's no need to clone into public view if you are your
| only user.
| emurlin wrote:
| I was thinking the same, but according to [1] some
| parameters like the hostname are hard-coded. So, that
| might be why you need to make the code public on GitHub
| (although still, technically you can still comply with
| the AGPL with a private repository).
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34508935
| Semaphor wrote:
| I wanted to have a look, but the site lags horribly on my
| phone, so I'm not thinking the rest of the code is better.
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| Maybe you need a new phone. It works fine on my 5 year old
| iphone.
| Karstographer wrote:
| I see sluggish website performance on Firefox for Android.
| Chrome performance seems fine on a Note 9.
| dotancohen wrote:
| I noticed this too. The site lags on my Samsung Note 10 using
| Firefox.
| rekttrader wrote:
| They have a GitHub and you can self deploy it on your own
| domain... use their infra, pay their fees.
| detaro wrote:
| You don't have to use a hosted solution.
| wanderingmind wrote:
| I'm skeptical of services that claim opensource but never provide
| any easily accessible links to source code.
| rcme wrote:
| Did you try scrolling to the bottom of the page and clicking
| the GitHub icon?
| [deleted]
| dnch wrote:
| https://github.com/calcom/cal.com
|
| scroll to bottom, click "self-hosted."
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