Hi everybody !
While I really like the simple and sleek google calendar web GUI and functionalities, I’m more and more concerned about my data and privacy. Even if I have nothing to hide, I don’t agree anymore to sell freely and consciously my data to any GAFAM.
Has anyone any alternative to google calendar?
- Free and if possible, open source? It can have some discret sponsors/ads. As long as it isn’t to intrusive.
- Todoist integration
- Sync between devices
- GUI doesn’t have to be PERFECT, but a bare minimum for my candy eyes !
- Can be API, Web… doesn’t matter as long as it syncs between devices (android, mac, windows, linux)
I already searched through the web, but couldn’t find any conclusive alternative, maybe someone knows some hidden gem :)
Thank you !
EDIT: The solution and compromise: nextcloud. It took me some times (2days) to set it up correctly and make it work as intended.
- Android calendar sync with DAVx5
- Calendar notification on android’s native calendar app
- 2way sync between Android calendar and nextcloud calendar
- push notification on nextcloud web browser
A few things too keep in mind:
1 — if you build your nextcloud instance with docker-compose:
- cron jobs don’t work out of the box and documentation is not straightforward
2 — Android permissions to sync with your calendar
- DAVx5 mentions how to allow syncing seemingly
- It’s different for every android phone
- Battery power mode
- Work in the background
- …
3 — It won’t work with todoist
- Todoist is proprietary and won’t work with DAVx5 and next cloud
- alternative: jtx board! (build by the same devs as DAVx5 seems to work similarly)
Conclusion: Nextcloud isn’t as good as the cloud sync provided by google/todoist and every other GAFAM cloud instance. It has his quirks and need some attention to make it work as intended. It take some times, reading and tinkering but those are compromises I’m willing to take :)
I’m using Etebase as a self-hosted backend for this purpose. It is zero-knowledge, so not even your own server knows about your calerdar, to-do list, and contacts (but it does know when have you edited entries, I think).
There’s an android app for synchronization, and on the desktop, you can run a daemon to expose a standard CalDAV/CardDAV interface for e.g., Thunderbird. The alternative is the Flutter-based client, either on the web or as a desktop app, I think, but I much rather prefer Thunderbird (I have other accounts from work to synchronize, too, and TB lets me look at them in one place).
I’m not sure about the Todoist integration, though. That sounds like it would compromise privacy.
+1 for EteBase. Great software, with actual client side encryption. I’ve been using it for a few years and it’s solid!
There’s also a GNOME integration via evolution.
Thank you :) I tried with Etebase at first, but was overwhelmed by it… Right now it’s probably out of my league ! Nextcloud just works, so I will stick to it by now. When I get a bit more confident in all this, I will probably switch to a selfhosed backend :)