Koalendar – Easy Appointment Scheduling & Booking Plugin vs Sugar Calendar – Events Calendar, Event Tickets, and Events Management Platform

Koalendar is a WordPress booking and appointment scheduling plugin that lets visitors book meetings, services, and appointments directly from your website. It removes the back and forth emails and manual coordination by syncing bookings automatically with your calendar. Built for WordPress users, Koalendar is easy to install, simple to configure, and works out of the box for individuals and small teams. It keeps availability up to date, prevents double bookings, and helps you turn any WordPress site into a complete online booking system in just minutes, with a Free Forever plan to get started. See Koalendar in action Watch how easy it is to set up and start accepting bookings on your WordPress website: Top Features WordPress booking and appointment scheduling plugin Unlimited booking pages and appointments Calendar sync with Google Calendar, Outlook, and iCloud Accept online payments for services and appointments Personalized booking pages that match your website design Multiple appointment types with custom durations Group bookings and classes with attendee limits Smart availability rules, buffers, and time off Team scheduling with shared and round robin availability Automated booking confirmations and reminders Easy embedding using WordPress blocks, shortcodes, or widgets Perfect for Koalendar is designed for small businesses, professionals, and teams who need a reliable scheduling system: Consultants and freelancers Coaches, tutors, and educators Agencies and remote teams Service based businesses Sales teams booking meetings and demos Anyone who needs an online scheduling calendar on their WordPress website Integrations Koalendar integrates seamlessly with the tools you already use, so your online booking system, calendar, and business workflows stay perfectly aligned. This allows you to manage appointments, meetings, and services without manual updates or double bookings. Calendar integrations with Google Calendar, Outlook, and iCloud to keep availability accurate in real time Video meeting integrations with Google Meet and Microsoft Teams, automatically generating meeting links for online appointments Payment integrations with Stripe, allowing clients to pay when they book an appointment or service Automation platforms such as Zapier, Make, n8n, and Pabbly to connect Koalendar with hundreds of apps and automate follow ups or internal workflows WordPress friendly setup, plus productivity tools like a Chrome extension for quickly sharing booking links Personalized Booking Pages Create clean, professional booking pages that match your brand and website design. Your visitors can make an appointment without leaving your website. Customize colors and layout Share a direct booking link or embed on any page Works with WordPress blocks, shortcodes, or widgets Optimized for desktop and mobile users Smart Availability and Calendar Sync Koalendar connects to all your existing calendars to keep your schedule accurate at all times. Sync with Google Calendar, Outlook, and iCloud Prevent double bookings automatically Set working hours, buffers, and time off Control availability per meeting or service Team Collaboration Built for teams that need shared scheduling. Schedule meetings with multiple team members Round robin and collective availability options Each team member connects their own calendar Perfect for agencies and growing small businesses Multiple Services and Appointment Types Koalendar lets you create multiple services and appointment types within a single booking system, each with its own duration, availability, and rules. This makes it easy to offer different kinds of meetings or services on your WordPress website without juggling multiple calendars or tools. Visitors simply choose the service they need and book an appointment online that fits your schedule. For example, a service based business such as a wellness studio, repair service, or local professional can create appointment types like initial visits, recurring services, or premium sessions, each with its own time length and booking rules, making it easy for customers to schedule the right service directly from the website. Group Bookings and Classes Koalendar makes it easy to manage group bookings and classes directly from your WordPress website. You can allow multiple attendees to book the same session, set participant limits, and keep everything organized in one scheduling system. This is ideal for workshops, coaching programs, fitness or wellness classes, and training sessions, where multiple people need to book the same time slot while you stay in control of capacity and availability. Custom Automations and Reminders (included in PRO plan) Send personalized confirmation and reminder emails before each appointment or meeting. This helps keep clients informed, reduces no shows, and saves time spent on manual follow ups. Custom Booking Forms (included in PRO plan) Collect additional information at the time of booking, such as contact details, service preferences, or special requests. This is especially useful for service businesses that need context before an appointment. Payments (included in PRO plan) Accept online payments for appointments and services directly through your booking system. Charge for consultations, classes, or sessions in advance to simplify billing and secure bookings before they happen. Backlog updates Here are some recent product updates: Appointment types (services): list multiple services directly on your booking page, each with its own price and duration Multiple and recurring bookings: invitees can book multiple dates, or set up recurring bookings, in a single flow Booking durations in hours or days: configure event durations using hours or days New booking page editor: redesigned editor for faster page creation and updates Koalendar available in Spanish and French File upload: collect files with the Google Drive integration Stripe Checkout: offer more payment methods and collect taxes Gmail integration: send booking emails from your own address New integrations: Zapier and Telegram Apple Pay and Google Pay supported automatically on supported devices and browsers

We believe event management should be simple! Sugar Calendar is a powerful yet lightweight events management plugin for WordPress that makes it easy to create event calendars, manage event registrations, and sell tickets, without the bloat. With Sugar Calendar, you get just the features you need for handling events of all types without a complicated setup or slow interface. You can easily manage in-person, virtual, one-time, and recurring events with just a few clicks. Ready to unlock advanced event management features like recurring events, venues, RSVP system, frontend submissions, and much more? Get Sugar Calendar Pro Today → Key Features at a Glance The free version of Sugar Calendar covers the essentials: publish an event calendar, take event registrations, and sell tickets right away. Simple Event Creation & Management New to event management? Our step-by-step guide walks you through creating your first event, from the event name and description to the duration, recurrence, and venue. Create events within your WordPress dashboard using our clean, clutter-free interface. Define event details like dates and times (including all-day or multi-day options), and manage your events calendar entries just like standard posts. Calendar and List View Displays Showcase your events effectively with multiple display options. Embed a monthly event calendar view or an upcoming events list anywhere using Gutenberg blocks, Elementor widgets, or shortcodes. Visitors can easily switch between month, week, or day views for optimal browsing of your events calendar. Both calendar and list layouts are fully responsive (and even support an optional dark mode). Sell Tickets with Stripe Monetize your events without needing extra extensions! Sugar Calendar integrates directly with Stripe, enabling secure credit card payments for paid event registration. As a verified Stripe partner, we ensure a reliable payment integration for your event management needs. Running a free event? Turn on ticketing without connecting a payment provider and let visitors claim free tickets. You still get a full attendee list for every event. Registration Forms for Attendee Details Collect more than a name and email during ticket checkout. Build a registration form and ask each attendee for a meal choice, t-shirt size, company name, or anything else your event needs. Answers are saved with each attendee, so the details are there when you need them. Email Notifications for Event Attendees When plans change, send an email to every ticket holder of an event straight from your WordPress dashboard. Handy for schedule changes, venue updates, and last-minute reminders. Online Events with Zoom Meetings Connect your Zoom account once, then add a Zoom meeting to any event right from the event editor. Sugar Calendar creates the meeting and shows the join details on the event page. With Pro, a recurring event gets one join link that works for the whole series. Multiple Calendars (Event Categories) Structure your events by organizing them into distinct calendars or categories. Create unique calendars for different event types, departments, or topics, and empower visitors to filter events, improving their experience with your events calendar. Migrating from The Events Calendar? Moving away from The Events Calendar plugin? One click migrates your events, calendars, and other details from The Events Calendar to Sugar Calendar. Calendar Feeds (iCal/Google Calendar Sync) Let your users subscribe to your events calendar in their personal calendar apps. Sugar Calendar provides iCal/ICS calendar feeds and offers attendees convenient “Add to Calendar” options for Google Calendar, Microsoft Outlook, Apple Calendar, or direct .ics download. Google Maps Integration Display a Google Map for your event venue/location on the event details page. Just enter the event address, and Sugar Calendar will show an interactive map, helping attendees easily find your event. Event Tags for Filtering Organize and categorize your events using customizable tags, similar to WordPress post tags. Assign relevant tags to events, allowing visitors to easily filter the events calendar on the frontend to find exactly what they’re looking for. Attendee Management & Export Keep track of attendees and ticket orders in your WordPress dashboard. For each event, you can view the list of attendees/ticket holders and their details. Need to share or analyze data? Export attendees or event lists to CSV with one click. Import/Export Events Migrate or back up your event data easily. Export your events as a JSON file, or as a CSV file ready for Excel and Google Sheets, and pick a custom date range so you only export what you need. You can also import events from a JSON export file. AI Assistants & Automation Sugar Calendar supports the WordPress Abilities API, so AI assistants and automation tools can work with your events. The AI tab under Tools installs the WPVibe.ai plugin in one click and shows you what AI assistants can do with your event calendar. Custom Date and Time Formats Customize how event dates and times are displayed to match your locale or preference. Choose from common date/time formats or use your own format – perfect for international sites. Dashboard Events Widget Get a quick overview of upcoming events directly from your WordPress dashboard. The handy widget keeps your schedule visible, ensuring efficient event management at a glance. (Pro users see enhanced details like venue and RSVP attendees.) Gutenberg Blocks & Elementor Widgets Seamlessly integrate your event calendar or events list anywhere on your site. Dedicated blocks for the Gutenberg editor and widgets for Elementor and other popular builders make adding your events calendar to pages, posts, or sidebars incredibly simple. Shortcodes are also available for other editors. Modern, Lightweight Design Sugar Calendar is optimized for speed, so it won’t slow down your site. The admin interface is clean and intuitive, and your frontend event calendar inherits your theme’s styles, with dark mode support included. Translation Ready Fully localized and ready for translation. Sugar Calendar has already been translated into 10+ languages and can be easily translated into your language, so your events calendar can serve audiences worldwide. Sugar Calendar Pro Features Want to unlock more advanced event management capabilities? Sugar Calendar Pro (available with a premium license) includes all the free features plus many powerful enhancements to help you stay organized and grow your events: Advanced Event Registration & RSVP Management Take control of your guest lists with the RSVP system, included with Sugar Calendar Pro via the RSVP Addon. It adds an RSVP tab to the Sugar Calendar menu where you can track who is “Going” or “Not Going” to each event, with every attendee’s details in one screen. Recurring Events Schedule events to repeat automatically on a daily, weekly, monthly, or custom schedule. Save time by creating recurring events (including complex recurrence patterns like the first Monday of the month or every other Thursday) instead of manually duplicating events in your events calendar. Event Venues & Locations Create and manage reusable venue profiles. Store addresses, maps, contact details, and website links for each location. Assign venues to events to display rich location information (and a Google Map) easily, perfect for recurring events at the same place and enhancing your overall events management. Speakers Management Easily add speaker or performer profiles to your events. Include names, titles, bios, photos, and social links to highlight who will be featured, enhancing your event listings. Frontend Event Submissions Accept event submissions from your community or team without giving them backend access. Sugar Calendar Pro integrates with popular form plugins (WPForms, Gravity Forms, Formidable Forms) to allow frontend event submission forms. Visitors can submit events through a form on your site, and you can review/publish them at your convenience. Perfect for community calendars and user-submitted events. Event Duplication Clone any event with one click and use it as a template. Duplicate an event with all its details and settings, make a couple of edits, and publish, instead of recreating similar events from scratch. Import Events from Google, Apple, Outlook, and other 3rd party Calendars Sugar Calendar Pro lets you import events from any 3rd party calendar with an ICS URL. It works with Apple, Google, Microsoft, and other calendars. You can also put imports on a schedule: Pro re-syncs your ICS URLs automatically at an interval you choose and keeps a history of past runs, so imported calendars stay current on their own. Enhanced Dashboard Widget Pro users see more details in the dashboard widget, including event venues, assigned speakers/performers, and quick-access icons for recurring events and RSVP/ticket attendee lists, offering a richer overview for effective event management. Event Link (Custom Event URLs) Need to redirect an event to an external page or ticketing site? Pro allows you to set a custom URL for each event. Use this to link out to external event pages, third-party ticketing platforms, or any URL instead of the default event detail page for specialized event registration. Priority Support Get access to our top-notch support team with prioritized email support for Pro users. Need help or have questions? Pro license holders receive fast, dedicated support from the Sugar Calendar team via email Take Your Events to the Next Level! Get recurring events, event venues, speakers, frontend submissions, and automatic calendar imports with Sugar Calendar Pro. Get Sugar Calendar Pro Today → Sugar Calendar Pro Addons Sugar Calendar also offers official addons to extend functionality even further. These addons integrate Sugar Calendar with other platforms and tools. If you purchase a Plus, Pro, or Elite license to Sugar Calendar, you get access to all current and future addons. RSVP – Collect and track RSVPs directly in your WordPress dashboard. See who responded “Going” or “Not Going”, keep guest details in one place, and collect extra attendee information with registration forms. Event Ticketing – Connects your events calendar to WooCommerce so you can sell tickets as WooCommerce products, with WooCommerce’s payment gateways (PayPal, credit cards, and more), cart, and email receipts. Using Event Ticketing also removes the 3% Stripe fee in the lite version. Zapier – Connect your events and tickets to 8,000+ apps through Zapier, with triggers for New Event, New Ticket Order, and New Attendee. Add attendees to a Google Sheet, sync events to Google Calendar, or send a Mailchimp email when someone registers. Use Cases Sugar Calendar handles event calendars and event registration for all kinds of sites. It works well for: Event Organizers & Planners – Manage conferences, concerts, workshops, meetups, or fundraisers with ease. Easily handle event registration, sell tickets, and display comprehensive event details on a clean events calendar. Businesses & Non-Profits – Promote your upcoming events, classes, or fundraisers on a public event calendar. Easy enough for non-technical staff to add events, and convenient for visitors to find events by category or date. Educational Institutions & Tutors – Schedule courses, webinars, and training sessions. Handle recurring classes or multi-day seminars, and manage enrollment through event registration, RSVPs, or ticket sales. Community Groups & Clubs – Allow members to submit their own events (with approval) and maintain a community calendar. Great for clubs, sports leagues, open mic sessions, or local groups needing collaborative event management. Musicians & Venues – List upcoming shows and tours on a dedicated events calendar. Use the Google Maps integration to show where you’re playing with the exact location and details. Sell tickets directly from your site. Bloggers & Content Creators – Plan and show an editorial calendar or live stream schedule to your audience. Keep readers in the loop about what’s coming up. Additional Advantages A few more reasons users pick Sugar Calendar: Excellent Documentation – We provide extensive documentation and tutorials for every feature. New to event plugins? The step-by-step Getting Started guide will have you publishing events in minutes, and the developer docs cover hooks, functions, and sample code. Active Development & Support – Sugar Calendar is built by the team behind WPForms, WP Mail SMTP, and AIOSEO. We’re active in the support forums, and we build the event management features users ask for. Works With Your Theme – Sugar Calendar adopts your theme’s styles for calendars and event pages, so it looks like part of your website. You can customize the styling or override templates in your theme. Internal Linking & SEO – The plugin outputs JSON-LD structured data for your events, including online events, so Google can show dates, venues, and event details in search results. Pretty URLs for event archives and category pages give search engines a clean structure to crawl. What’s Next If you like our Sugar Calendar plugin, then consider checking out our other projects: WP Mail SMTP – The most popular WordPress SMTP and Email Log plugin (trusted by over 3 million sites). WPForms – #1 drag & drop online form builder for WordPress (trusted by over 5 million sites). OptinMonster – Get more email subscribers with the most popular conversion optimization plugin for WordPress. AIOSEO – The original WordPress SEO plugin to help you rank higher in search results (trusted by over 3 million sites). MonsterInsights – See the stats that matter and grow your business with confidence. Best Google Analytics plugin for WordPress. SeedProd – Create beautiful landing pages with our powerful drag & drop landing page builder. Smash Balloon – #1 social feeds plugin for WordPress – display social media content in WordPress without code. WPCode – must have WordPress code snippet management plugin to help you future-proof website customization (trusted by 1.5 million sites). Duplicator – popular WordPress backup and migration plugin used by over 1 million websites. WP Simple Pay – #1 Stripe payments plugin for WordPress. Start accepting one-time or recurring payments without a shopping cart. PushEngage – Connect with visitors after they leave your website with the leading web push notification plugin. RafflePress – Best WordPress giveaway and contest plugin to grow traffic and social followers. TrustPulse – Add real-time social proof notifications to boost your store conversions by up to 15%. SearchWP – The most advanced custom WordPress search plugin to improve WordPress search quality. AffiliateWP – #1 affiliate management plugin for WordPress. Add a referral program to your online store. Easy Digital Downloads – The best WordPress eCommerce plugin to sell digital products (eBooks, software, music, and more). WPCharitable – Top-rated WordPress donation and fundraising plugin for WordPress. Visit WPBeginner to learn from our WordPress Tutorials and about the best WordPress plugins.