calcurse vs GNOME Calendar
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted calendar & contacts options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | calcurse | GNOME Calendar |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Read-the-docs project | Read-the-docs project |
| Category | Calendar & Contacts | Calendar & Contacts |
| License | BSD-2-Clause | GPL-3.0 |
| Language | C | C |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 16 MB | 256 MB |
| Deployment | binary, source | binary, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 1,303 | ★ 300 |
| First released | 2004 | 2015 |
| Replaces | Google Calendar | Google Calendar |
What are calcurse and GNOME Calendar?
calcurse
calcurse is a text-based personal organizer with a calendar, an appointments list, and a to-do manager, all in a curses interface. It supports CalDAV synchronization so it can connect to self-hosted calendar servers.
- Text-based calendar and to-do
- CalDAV synchronization
- Very low resource use
GNOME Calendar
GNOME Calendar is a clean and uncluttered desktop calendar application that integrates with GNOME Online Accounts and can connect to self-hosted CalDAV servers for synchronizing events.
- Clean desktop calendar
- CalDAV server support
- GNOME Online Accounts integration
calcurse vs GNOME Calendar: key differences
Both projects are written in C. Licensing differs — BSD-2-Clause for calcurse versus GPL-3.0 for GNOME Calendar. Calcurse is the lighter option, starting around 16 MB of RAM against 256 MB for GNOME Calendar. Calcurse is the more established project (first released 2004), while GNOME Calendar arrived in 2015. Calcurse has the considerably larger community, at 1,303 GitHub stars versus 300.
Why pick each one
Choose calcurse if…
- Released under the BSD-2-Clause license
- Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
- Active community (1.3k GitHub stars)
- Written in C
Choose GNOME Calendar if…
- Released under the GPL-3.0 license
- Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
- Written in C
- Tiny footprint — runs in 256 MB RAM
Frequently asked questions
Is calcurse or GNOME Calendar better?
Neither is universally better. calcurse has the larger community; both share a easy setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are calcurse and GNOME Calendar free and open-source?
Yes. calcurse is licensed under BSD-2-Clause and GNOME Calendar under GPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run calcurse and GNOME Calendar with Docker?
calcurse: check the project docs for container support. GNOME Calendar: check the project docs for container support.
Which is lighter on resources, calcurse or GNOME Calendar?
calcurse has the smaller minimum footprint at 16 MB of RAM, compared to about 256 MB for GNOME Calendar. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.