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WordPress handles events really well.
That’s because it has a “custom post types” feature built-in, so you can publish events just like you publish posts and pages.
Most of the event calendar plugins below take advantage of that and add a new Event post type to your site. They also have attractive calendar displays that adapt well to mobile and desktop devices.
Keep reading to find the top picks.
Best calendar plugins
Only the highest-rated plugins made the cut in this collection.
You’ll find a mixture of free, freemium, and premium plugins here. They’ve all got nice designs and a ton of functionality. You’ll have no trouble creating and customizing a calendar on your site.
Here are the best WordPress calendar plugins.
1. The Events Calendar
Plugin Description
The Events Calendar is the most popular WordPress calendar plugin. It includes all the essential functionality you need. Create a calendar and display upcoming events in a list feed or a classic calendar design, include event details like the time and location, and do way more with the premium add-ons.
You can create unlimited events and maintain a calendar all with the free version. If you’re interested in the premium version, you can also get a photo gallery grid display for events, recurring events, advanced widgets, and additional fields for customizing event data.
My one gripe with this plugin is that it has issues with theme compatibility. You need to make a few changes in the settings unless the theme developers have explicitly added support for The Events Calendar. Otherwise, it’s a good plugin and especially useful for anyone looking for a free option.
2. Strive Content Calendar
Plugin Description
Strive is different from the other plugins in this list. Rather than an events calendar, it’s a content calendar plugin for planning your upcoming blog posts.
Strive includes a beautiful calendar interface where you can add, edit, and reschedule posts with drag-and-drop. You can quickly visualize your entire publishing schedule and know at a glance whether or not you’re on track. This is possible because Strive colors posts based on their editorial status, which you can easily update from the post editor.
The Strive plugin also includes custom post checklists, post revisions, and an innovative “Pipeline” view. If you’re a regular blogger or content marketer and want to create a content calendar, you won’t want to run your site without it!
3. Appointment Booking Lite
Plugin Description
MotoPress Appointment Booking Lite is a free WordPress appointment booking solution to display a calendar with free slots for any type of service. The customers will use a step-by-step scheduling process powered by the mobile-friendly booking widget.
With this events plugin, you can add multiple services with custom durations and even multiple locations. You can also assign individual schedules for team members and set capabilities for your teams. The flexible options of this calendar include buffer times, breaks, days off, and vacations.
This WordPress calendar scheduling plugin also lets you set up appointments for a group and multiply the service price by the number of people in a group. The multi-booking functionality makes it possible to add different services to the cart during one submission.
With Appointment Booking Lite, you can configure automated email notifications and easily manage bookings on the backend. Lastly, it features a smooth integration with Gutenberg, Elementor, and Divi page builders and is translated into English, Italian, French, German and Spanish.
4. Stachethemes Event Calendar
Plugin Description
You might wonder why you would pay for a premium plugin when there are free options. There are two reasons.
First, the best free plugins have limited functionality without paid add-ons. And when you buy the add-ons you need, it can end up more expensive than just buying a premium plugin.
Second, premium plugins tend to have a nicer design. The weekly, monthly, and other calendar layouts in the Stachethemes Events Calendar plugin are gorgeous. There’s a great blend of color, photographs, iconography, and typography that creates consistently balanced and attractive designs.
This event plugin has WooCommerce integration for selling tickets. Another stand out feature is the user submission module. You can create a form on your site that allows members to submit their own events. This could be a great feature for building a community website.
5. WooEvents
Plugin Description
If you’re interested in selling tickets then the WooEvents plugin will be a great choice for your site. You need to use this plugin with the WooCommerce plugin which could be a pro or con depending on your existing familiarity with it.
WooCommerce is the most popular eCommerce plugin for WordPress and it’s maintained by the same company that makes WordPress, so it’s a trustworthy solution. With all of this functionality to piggyback off of, WooEvents is able to handle ticket sales a lot better than other event calendar plugins.
The calendar design is beautiful and integrates seamlessly with the event booking system. You can sell printable tickets with scannable barcodes on them, accept payments via PayPal, Stripe, and direct bank transfers, and create recurring events. If you want a simple solution to display an event calendar on your site then WooEvents is overkill, but if you’re interested in selling tickets, you’ll want to click the link below to learn more.
6. Modern Events Calendar
Plugin Description
Modern Events Calendar is a freemium plugin, so you can get access to the basic functionality without ever paying. This is a nice setup because you can add a complete events calendar to your site, and if you find you need more features, this plugin has got you covered. There’s an absolutely massive number of features included in the Pro version.
It’s kind of absurd how many different things you can do with this plugin, so to keep this brief, a few of the add-ons include:
- Monthly, daily, and weekly calendar views
- Email notifications and templates
- Event registration
- WooCommerce integration
- WordPress multi-site support
- Elementor integration
- Event RSS feeds
And that’s really just a small sampling of the possibilities. While this plugin is very complete, there are some complaints in the reviews about it being buggy. It sounds like users come across small bugs when combining a variety of add-ons, so that’s something to keep in mind.
7. Private Google Calendars
Plugin Description
I wanted to include a really different option for this last plugin. Every plugin so far has its own built-in system for managing events, and that’s great, but is that really the best solution. Or, should you use a third-party calendar system and simply integrate it with your site? That’s what this plugin does.
Private Google Calendars lets you display private (and public) calendars you’ve created with Google Calendar. If you’re already familiar with the Google Calendar product, this can be a really simple way to simply add what you’ve already got to your site. It’s also a more friendly solution for working with a team. That said, if you want to sell tickets with your site or publish events as pages on your site, this won’t necessarily help with that.
If you have really basic needs for your calendar then the Private Google Calendars could be the best choice for your website.
Which calendar plugin is best?
So which one should you choose?
While imperfect, The Events Calendar is probably the best choice for most people. The free version has everything you need and it’s a reliable solution after being tested across hundreds of thousands of websites.
Strive Content Calendar is the stand-out choice if you’d prefer to add a calendar to your site for content rather than events.
The Stachethemes Event Calendar plugin is another top choice. It has a good variety of features but really stands out for its beautiful design that adapts to mobile devices.
The last plugin I’ll highlight is the WooEvents plugin which has the most eCommerce options for selling tickets. If you already know how to use WooCommerce or have it installed on your site, this will be an easy choice.
Thanks for reading, and if you were able to find a good solution for your site in this collection of the best calendar plugins for WordPress, please share the post before you go.
