Calendar & Contacts

Last reviewed Aug 26, 2026 · 450 words

There is no self-hosted Google Calendar, and understanding why saves you a weekend of confused searching. What you host instead is a CalDAV/CardDAV server that stores calendars and contacts, then each device syncs against it with its own client: your phone's native calendar via a sync app, your desktop via built-in CalDAV support, your terminal via command-line tools. The pieces are small and boring, which in calendaring is exactly what you want — this stack has been stable for a decade.

How to choose the pieces

The server decision is mostly about ceremony. Radicale is the minimalist favourite: a small Python server, plain-file storage, minutes to configure, and it speaks CalDAV and CardDAV to every standards-compliant client. Heavier options like Nextcloud make sense only if you're running them anyway. The second axis is trust in your server: standard CalDAV stores events as plaintext on disk, and if that bothers you, EteSync (1,766 stars) encrypts everything client-side so the server never sees an event title — the trade-off is that you must use EteSync's own apps and bridges rather than any generic client. Third, know which clients you owe: Android needs DAVx5 (2,829 stars) to bridge CalDAV into the system calendar and contacts; iOS and macOS speak CalDAV natively in Settings; terminal devotees pair vdirsyncer with khal.

Where to start

DAVx5 plus a server is the combination that makes the whole thing real: two-way sync into the stock Android calendar, GPL-3.0, and installable from F-Droid. EteSync is the pick when the calendar itself is sensitive — end-to-end encrypted with a journaled change history, available for Android and iOS, and still self-hostable. Cal.diy (47,929 stars) answers a different question: it's appointment scheduling — the "book a slot with me" page — rather than a calendar store, and it's what you want if the goal is replacing a booking tool instead of Google Calendar itself.

Expect no web interface

The classic surprise: you set up a CalDAV server, browse to it, and find nothing worth looking at. Radicale's web page does little beyond collection management by design. Your calendar's face is whatever client you already use — the server is plumbing. Budget your effort accordingly: the server takes 20 minutes, and getting every family device syncing is the actual project.

A first-timer should run Radicale with DAVx5 on Android, CalDAV accounts on any Apple devices, and Thunderbird on the desktop. It's the smallest stack that gets every device off Google's calendar, and there is almost nothing in it to break.