Comparison

Freeish vs Google Calendar

The default calendar for most of the world, free, part of a Google account. It creates and organises appointments, and it is extremely good at it.

What Google Calendar does well

  • Genuinely excellent at what it is for: meetings, invitations, reminders, recurring appointments.
  • Everybody already has one, so there is nothing to install and nobody to persuade.
  • Deep integration with email, video calls and effectively every other calendar tool.
  • Free, mature, and not going anywhere.
  • Sharing a whole calendar with a spouse works well when your schedule is stable.

Choose Google Calendar if…

If your working week is basically fixed and what you need is somewhere to put appointments, use Google Calendar. It is better at that than we are, it is free, and you already have it. The same goes if you are happy for your family to see everything you do — full calendar sharing is exactly that, and it is simpler than choosing per event.

Choose Freeish if…

Choose Freeish if your schedule arrives as a photograph, a grid or a screenshot, changes every week, and has to reach people who should see when you are busy without seeing what you are doing. Typing a rotating roster into Google Calendar by hand is where this falls down — not because the calendar is bad, but because nobody sustains that data entry past the second month.

Side by side

 Google CalendarFreeish
Getting a posted schedule inType each shift, or build a recurring event if the pattern is regular enough to fit one.Photograph the posted schedule and it reads the shifts off it.
Rotating patterns (4-on-4-off, DuPont, Kelly)Recurring events assume a weekly cycle, so a cycle that is not seven days has to be entered by hand.Set the rotation once and it keeps generating.
Per-event privacyPossible — events can be marked private on a shared calendar — but it is per event and easy to forget.Public or private on every event, with private enforced server-side.
Sharing with familyShare the calendar, or a free/busy view of it. Both work well.Invite specific people; they see only what you marked public.
Finding when two people are both freeOverlay two calendars and read it yourself.Calculated for you.
CostFree.Free to start; Pro for circles, calendar links and unlimited imports.

Questions people actually ask

Can I use both?
Yes, and plenty of people do. Keep appointments in Google Calendar and use Freeish for the work schedule you share with family. A Freeish calendar link can also feed into Google Calendar, so your shifts appear there without being typed twice.
Why not just share my Google Calendar with my family?
If you are comfortable with them seeing everything on it, that genuinely works — we would rather say so. The friction is not the sharing, it is getting a rotating schedule into the calendar in the first place.
Is Freeish trying to replace Google Calendar?
No. It does not create schedules or manage meetings, and has no ambition to. It shares the schedule you already have with the handful of people who need to know.

Other comparisons

vs Apple Calendarvs TimeTreevs Cozivs When I Workvs CrewAll comparisons

Try it against whatever you use now.

Now on iPhone — Android coming soon. Free to start, and nothing to migrate — import one week from a photo and see whether it sticks.

Download on theApp StoreComing soon toGoogle Play