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.
Not the right match-up?
calcurse
Text-based calendar and scheduling application
VS
khal
Command-line calendar built on CalDAV
| Feature | calcurse | khal |
|---|---|---|
| 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 | ★ 1,301 | ★ 3,039 |
| First released | 2004 | 2013 |
| Replaces | Google Calendar | Google Calendar |
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 (3k 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.