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Calendaring Server Software
Posted by Bob Jonkman on October 12th, 2012
I’m looking for a free/libre calendar server to run on a GNU/Linux server.
It needs to have CalDAV connectivity, so that I can use Evolution, Sunbird or Thunderbird/Lightning as my only client. Ideally, it will also have a Web interface for both administration and calendar viewing, exports to iCal (.ics) files, supports iMIP, and offers Atom/RSS feeds of calendar items.
Here’s what I’ve found so far. If you know of others, please leave a comment.
There’s also a list at CalConnect’s CalDAV Servers
| Name | WebUI | Export iCal (.ics) | CalDAV | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Admin | View | Edit | iCal (.ics) | iMip | Atom/RSS | ||
| Kolab | |||||||
| DAViCal | |||||||
| phpGroupWare | No | No | |||||
| Chandler Project | |||||||
| Bedework | |||||||
| Zimbra | Yes, but.. | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Outlook only | |
| EGroupware Community Version | |||||||
| WebCalendar | No | ||||||
| Darwin Calendar Server | |||||||
| Tryton Calendar | |||||||
| ownCloud | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
| Citadel | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
WordPress Plugins
The other calendars I’ve been trying are WordPress plugins. There is much promise in their description blurbs, but so far I’ve rejected most:
| Name | Export iCal (.ics) | CalDAV | Notes | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| iCal (.ics) | iMip | Atom/RSS | |||
| Calendar JCM | Rejected: no longer supported | ||||
| Event Calendar / Scheduler | Rejected: missing .php modules when running | ||||
| The Events Calendar | Rejected | ||||
| WP Events Calendar | Yes, with iCal for Events Calendar plugin | No | No | Works | |
| My Calendar | Yes | Partial | Preferred! | ||
| CalPress Pro | ? | ? | ? | ? | This is a commercial plugin; |
- 11 January 2011
Originally posted - 26 March 2011
Added Linuxaria’s suggestions - 16 April 2011
Added WordPress plugin info; added CalDAV column; filled in some attributes - 11 October 2012
Updated feature list for Zimbra
I’ll be writing a review of Zimbra Open Source Edition soon, detailing some of my experiences… - 12 October 2012: Put WordPress calendars in table format, added My Calendar
- 5 November 2012: Added Dosch’s suggestions
- 16 November2012: @Encyclomundist dents about Citadel.org
This is a “living” post, so it will float back to the top of the blog as I update it.
–Bob.
March 21st, 2011 at 7:09 pm
chandler – http://chandlerproject.org/ i saw some presentation of this project 2 years ago and it seem really good, i’ve not checkd it from that date…but should be still good.
bedework – http://www.bedework.org/bedework/ never used it, but the site seem nice.
Zimbra – Perhaps it’s too much but if you need a collaborative suite that can manage email this is a great product
I hope these helps a bit.
Good luck !!
March 26th, 2011 at 2:11 pm
Hi Linuxaria! Thanx for those; I really need to do some research to complete that table of features…
–Bob.
April 17th, 2011 at 3:16 am
WebCalendar actually does support iCal export, contrary to your table. It does not however support CalDAV or iMip yet. In addition to WordPress, you might also see if there are Drupal modules for this. Otherwise, Zimbra, Darwin Calendar Server, and Tryton are listed as possibilities.
April 17th, 2011 at 2:53 pm
Thanx Tony. It’s been a while since I looked at WebCalendar; possibly v1.2.0. I’ll add Darwin Calendar Server and Tryton, and @Supermathie has also recommended Zimbra, so I’ll be checking that a bit more closely.
–Bob.
May 26th, 2011 at 6:22 pm
Hey Bob,
just noticed this blog now. We’re looking to implement a calendar system for our website (WP) as well. I was hoping that the backend would be a proper calendar server rather than a plugin.
What are you using right now?
June 1st, 2011 at 12:14 pm
Hi Sammy: There’s no calendar on this blog, but I’m running one at http://sobac.com/~stopthestink/events-calendar/
It’s a combination of “WP Events Calendar” http://www.wp-eventscalendar.com/ and “iCal for Events Calendar” http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/ical-for-events-calendar/ That second plugin lets me use the WP Events Calendar in calendar applications that support .ics files, eg. Lightning in Thunderbird, or Google Calendar.
I hadn’t thought of using an external calendar store, then making it accessible in WordPress. I’ll have to investigate that a bit further.
Based on the comments of others, I’ll be trying out Zimbra Open Source Edition http://www.zimbra.com/products/zimbra-open-source.html Real Soon Now.
–Bob.
June 20th, 2011 at 11:30 pm
Did you have to do anything special to get iCal for Events Calendar working? While I can download an iCal feed/.ics file, it is always empty. There are clearly events on the calendar, I’ve tried adding events since I’ve enabled iCal for Events Calendar plugin, still nothing.
You can see the calendar at http://phillystartupleaders.org/calendar
I’m using
WordPress 3.1.1
WP Events Calendar 6.7.9
iCal for Events Calendar v1.1.1
and I don’t have any other iCal plugins activated (we had recently tried iCal Posts)
Any ideas? Thanks!
June 25th, 2011 at 11:45 am
I did nothing special… The original install was about a year go, when WordPress was still v2.x I’ve had no trouble with WP Events Calendar on Stop The Stink until recently: The two entries for CPAC (6 and 30 June) don’t appear on calendars imported from the iCal feed, even though the entries do appear in the .ics file.
Have you tried asking on the WP Events Calendar forum?
–Bob.
October 31st, 2012 at 11:57 am
We are playing with owncloud from http://owncloud.org.
Looks promising.
For WordPress there is also CallPress. Both in a free and in a paid-for version.
November 5th, 2012 at 4:12 am
Thanx, Dosch! I’ve put ownCloud in the main table, and CalPress Pro in the WordPress table.
At first glance, a quick test of CalPress looks promising. And although it looks like ownCloud will take a bit more effort to test thoroughly, it looks like it holds a lot of promise.
Bedankt!
–Bob.