calcurse vs khal
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted calendar & contacts options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | calcurse | khal |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Read-the-docs project | Read-the-docs project |
| Health score | 77 · Good | 69 · Good |
| Category | Calendar & Contacts | Calendar & Contacts |
| License | BSD-2-Clause | MIT |
| Language | C | Python |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 16 MB | 64 MB |
| Deployment | binary, source | binary, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 1,303 | ★ 3,054 |
| First released | 2004 | 2013 |
| Replaces | Google Calendar | Google Calendar |
What are calcurse and khal?
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
khal
khal is a standards-based command-line calendar program that reads and writes iCalendar files and works with vdirsyncer to synchronize against self-hosted CalDAV servers. It offers an interactive console interface.
- Command-line CalDAV calendar
- Works with vdirsyncer
- Interactive console interface
calcurse vs khal: key differences
Calcurse is written in C, while khal is built with Python. Licensing differs — BSD-2-Clause for calcurse versus MIT for khal. Calcurse is the lighter option, starting around 16 MB of RAM against 64 MB for khal. Calcurse is the more established project (first released 2004), while khal arrived in 2013. Khal has the considerably larger community, at 3,054 GitHub stars versus 1,303.
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 khal if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Active community (3.1k GitHub stars)
- Written in Python
- Tiny footprint — runs in 64 MB RAM
Frequently asked questions
Is calcurse or khal better?
Neither is universally better. khal has the larger community, while calcurse is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are calcurse and khal free and open-source?
Yes. calcurse is licensed under BSD-2-Clause and khal under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run calcurse and khal with Docker?
calcurse: check the project docs for container support. khal: check the project docs for container support.
Which is lighter on resources, calcurse or khal?
calcurse has the smaller minimum footprint at 16 MB of RAM, compared to about 64 MB for khal. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.