SHSelfHostIndex

calcurse vs ETAR

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?
CA calcurse Text-based calendar and scheduling application VS ET ETAR Open-source calendar server companion for events
FeaturecalcurseETAR
CategoryCalendar & ContactsCalendar & Contacts
LicenseBSD-2-ClauseGPL-3.0
LanguageCJava
Setup difficultyEasyMedium
Min. RAM16 MB256 MB
Deploymentbinary, sourcedocker, source
GitHub stars★ 1,301★ 2,565
First released20042016
ReplacesGoogle CalendarGoogle 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
calcurse details

Choose ETAR if…

  • Open ecosystem
  • No vendor lock-in
ETAR details

Frequently asked questions

Is calcurse or ETAR better?

Neither is universally better. ETAR 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 ETAR free and open-source?

Yes. calcurse is licensed under BSD-2-Clause and ETAR under GPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run calcurse and ETAR with Docker?

calcurse: check the project docs for container support. ETAR: yes.

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