[HN Gopher] Show HN: Someday, Open-Source Calendly Alternative f...
___________________________________________________________________
Show HN: Someday, Open-Source Calendly Alternative for Gmail /
Google App Script
Free and open-source. Simple alternative to cal.com / calendly,
built on Google-App-Script for Gmail users. Built with modern
technologies like React, TypeScript, Shadcn/UI, and Vite.
Author : rbbydotdev
Score : 294 points
Date : 2024-11-02 16:04 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| Brajeshwar wrote:
| I believe Cal.com is the Open-Source Calendly Alternative!
|
| https://github.com/calcom
| ko_pivot wrote:
| Yeah, you know the "open-source X alternative" branding has
| gone too far when we get to this point. With that said, this
| seems cool as far as being built on Google app scripts.
| behruzbek wrote:
| Ooh
| adunsulag wrote:
| Was excited about this and then saw AGPL on it. Note the OP's
| software is MIT. My personal preference is GPL, but MIT is
| better than AGPL in my opinion.
| ribhu97 wrote:
| Isn't cal.com open source already?
| pvg wrote:
| Show HN is more about showing and discussing something someone
| has made than an inquiry into the existence of things like the
| thing being showhn.
| ar_lan wrote:
| It never stops people from commenting "why didn't you use X
| obscure technology I made?" unfortunately.
| dangtony98 wrote:
| It's a valid question though; I'm also curious what the
| motivation was here given Cal.com is also open source hmmm
| pvg wrote:
| It's a perfectly valid question if one does the minimum to
| engage with the thing being showhn otherwise it's a
| reflexive and, as you can see in the several near-identical
| comments, repetitive trope.
| DoctorOW wrote:
| Yes, but the difference isn't purely that this one is open
| source. It's also way cheaper (in terms of both money and also
| effort) to host because you can do as the demo does and use the
| free Google Apps Script for your backend and any of the free
| static web hosts for your frontend.
| jjordan wrote:
| Cal.com is free open source too. React+TS, shadcn-style
| components. Built on Nextjs though.
| https://github.com/calcom/cal.com
| zephyreon wrote:
| Google also revamped their appointment scheduling feature in
| Google Calendar, though I believe it is limited to Google
| Workspace subscribers. It's basic but works quite well.
|
| https://workspace.google.com/resources/appointment-schedulin...
| alex_suzuki wrote:
| Huh. Google Workspace user here. I didn't know this existed!
| Thank you.
| tyrw wrote:
| We really wanted to use this, but having an appointment link
| creates a permanent vertical "event" in your own calendar that
| you can't get rid of. So adding multiple appointment links
| (e.g. one for 30mins and one for 60mins) completely destroys
| your own calendar view.
| asah wrote:
| I create two: 30min and 45min, then for longer (rare) I just
| ask people to book two adjacent slots. I've had no pushback.
| DreaminDani wrote:
| In the desktop version of the calendar, you can click the
| view settings in the upper right and turn off calendar
| appointments
|
| They still show up on the mobile version of Google calendar
| though :/
| usbsea wrote:
| Yes sort of enough to be useful to use, and I do use it, but
| not complete enough to be perfect. A bit like Google tasks!
|
| It does the main things though - it can check other
| calendars, people can book into your calendar, it deals with
| time zones and schedules.
|
| It fits into the valley of "use if you are already using
| Google stuff alot, but not worth it as a solo feature if you
| don't".
|
| Cal.com is way better. But then that is no suprise, it's
| their only job.
| adobrawy wrote:
| You can hide appointment schedules in desktop view:
| https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2023/10/new-
| google-c...
| tyrw wrote:
| Thank you! That's such a strange place to put it. Silly me,
| looking on the "Settings" > "View options" page instead of
| the button that says "Week".
|
| Edit: doesn't look like there is the equivalent option on
| mobile, so unfortunately appointments still nukes my phone
| calendar usability, which is also a deal breaker.
| michaelmior wrote:
| Not limited to Google Workspace. I use it with a regular Gmail
| account.
| riiii wrote:
| Dark mode calendar letters are too dark to read.
| oezi wrote:
| The challenge to replace Calendly is to build a brand that users
| feel comfortable clicking. Microsoft (Microsoft Booking) and
| Google (https://calendar.app.google/weird-hash-value) both
| dropped the ball here, even though they offer scheduling
| features, which can compete with calendly.
| whiplash451 wrote:
| Calendly has become completely enshitified in less than a year.
|
| It used to be great due to its simplicity.
|
| It has now turned into a shitshow of a platform with user
| accounts, settings, and a load of features nobody asked for.
| tonymet wrote:
| the investors did
| sails wrote:
| It has become a sales oriented product, which is where the
| alternatives struggle and they shine (relatively). Round
| robin, intersecting calendars etc
|
| They have dropped the ball on the admin UX and menu design,
| very confusing.
| tonymet wrote:
| Are you talking about the host (calendar owner) or the client
| (subscriber)?
| tonymet wrote:
| it's great to see more utilities taking advantage of Google App
| Script. It is one of the best things about Google's Ecosystem,
| basically a server-side AppleScript for Google's products, and
| not enough people take advantage of it.
| chii wrote:
| > not enough people take advantage of it.
|
| given how google just discontinues services on a whim these
| days, i'd be afraid to have a bunch of stuff in app script that
| i depend on.
| jstummbillig wrote:
| This is simply confusing the relative importance of different
| products.
|
| Sheets + Apps Script powers the business world. The amount of
| critical business logic that would simply stop working and
| the trust that would be lost, if Google decided to pull Apps
| Script from Google Workspace's 10 million businesses, is hard
| to fathom.
|
| Gmail is going nowhere. Google Sheets, Docs and Calendar is
| going nowhere. Apps Script is going absolutely nowhere.
| chii wrote:
| > the trust that would be lost
|
| you'd think so, but lots of this trust has already been
| lost when google started pulling highly used services like
| rss!
|
| And what if somehow, they find appscript to be too
| burdensome, when it does not derive much, if any, revenue?
| jstummbillig wrote:
| > lots of this trust has already been lost when google
| started pulling highly used services like rss!
|
| The people making decisions in businesses who use Google
| Workspace, as a category, literally do not care _at all_
| about what Google did to Google Reader and most other end
| user project that Google shut down. They only care about
| stuff that is critical to their business and how reliable
| Google is in that regard.
|
| > And what if somehow, they find appscript to be too
| burdensome, when it does not derive much, if any,
| revenue?
|
| If you make unreasonable enough assumptions, anything is
| thinkable.
| adobrawy wrote:
| This project is awesome! Using Google Apps Script for an
| appointment link is such a clever idea--just the right balance of
| simplicity and functionality.
|
| Google Apps Script is such an underrated tool. I use it all the
| time to link up different services, and it's truly "serverless"
| in a way that makes sense. No added complexity--just webhook
| handling and periodic tasks, which is usually all I need to sync
| ticket systems with Slack, pull in data from Sentry, and so on.
| Plus, it's straightforward, no extra layers to worry about. LLMs
| are actually pretty handy for getting these scripts going too.
|
| I use Google Calendar's scheduling and think it's great, but it
| does have limits. I still have to scrape calendar events to keep
| an ongoing list in a spreadsheet, which helps for billing clients
| by month. Google Apps Script makes all this work reliably without
| extra cost or maintenance.
|
| There are other options, sure, but asking someone to set up
| PostgreSQL, Next.js, or Docker just for a personal scheduling
| link seems like overkill. For a solution that just works without
| needing constant attention, Apps Script is more than enough.
| tonymet wrote:
| I agree with you, and I'd like your opinion on working around
| the cpu budgeting. Whenever I've needed to run a long task,
| like exporting gmails , I've needed to run it via a web browser
| on a loop.
|
| Have you found a workaround for long-running tasks that isn't
| terribly complex?
| adobrawy wrote:
| I'm not sure what operations you're doing that you're CPU
| bound.
|
| When exporting Gmail and hitting an execution timeout, I
| would implement partitioning by date. Google Apps Script has
| a lock mechanism ( https://developers.google.com/apps-
| script/reference/lock ), and you can use user properties for
| progress tracking ( https://developers.google.com/apps-
| script/reference/properti...() ). Therefore, you can schedule
| a task every x minutes to pull x days of data and keep the
| cursor in user properties.
| tonymet wrote:
| Yeah that's what I mean. Another trick I've used is
| building a web page that reloads itself because interactive
| calls have more generous quotas
| kwanbix wrote:
| I find it super interesting from a technical point of view, but
| I don't see the advantage over using cal.com.
| adobrawy wrote:
| @kwanbix, do you use hosted cal.com or self-hosted? If self-
| hosted, where is it hosted? How much time does it require for
| upkeep yearly? What is the infra cost?
| kwanbix wrote:
| hosted at cal.com. 0 cost.
| TechDebtDevin wrote:
| I use llms to write app scripts for creating Google sheet
| functions and it works very nicely, well it works nicely when
| it works nicely, as things go with llms
| totallykvothe wrote:
| I'm still waiting for someone to make a calendar that fills the
| hole in my heart that Sunset left when Micro$hit bought it.
| neerajdotname2 wrote:
| What was so special about Sunset?
| Jonathanfishner wrote:
| Really interesting to see this built on Google Apps Script such
| an underrated gem for quick, reliable automations! Cal.com is
| already out there and doing great, but it's still cool to see
| this lightweight approach. Sometimes simpler is just better,
| especially for folks who don't need a full setup and just want a
| scheduling tool that ties right into Gmail.
|
| It may be early, but great job putting it out there! Appreciate
| seeing alternatives that keep things lean and accessible-nice
| work!
| ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
| I prefer something like this over Cal because Cal is VC funded
| and we all know what happens with those.
| winrid wrote:
| Has anyone built this but for fastmail?
| acidburnNSA wrote:
| Ideally wouldn't this just integrate over a standard like
| CalDAV rather than be service specific?
| winrid wrote:
| ideally
| sciencesama wrote:
| I use it to delete emails in my inbox that have ads in them
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-11-03 23:01 UTC)