Agenda vs Rallly
| Tagline | Node.js job scheduling library with persistent MongoDB-backed queue | Self-hosted scheduling polls to find the best time for a group to meet |
| Category | Scheduling & Booking | Scheduling & Booking |
| Replaces | Calendly | Calendly |
| GitHub stars | 9.7k | 5.2k |
| Language | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Self-host difficulty | 3/5 Moderate | 3/5 Moderate |
| Deploy options | Manual Docker | One-Click Docker Docker Compose Manual |
| Managed hosting | ||
| Last updated | 8 days ago | 5 days ago |
| View repo | View repo |
Where each falls short
The honest trade-offs — what you give up with each, versus the proprietary tools they replace.
Agenda
- Library only — no UI for managing or viewing scheduled jobs without additional tooling
- Requires MongoDB; not suitable for simple SQLite/Postgres-only stacks
- No native support for distributed locking at high scale
Rallly
- Focused on group availability polling rather than one-on-one booking pages, so it does not replace Calendly's personal booking links.
- No direct calendar-availability checking or two-way calendar sync to auto-block busy times.
- No built-in payment collection or paid-appointment support.
- Requires PostgreSQL and SMTP configuration to self-host; not a single-binary deploy.
Bottom line
Both are a similar lift to self-host; choose Agenda for the larger community and ecosystem. Rallly has seen more recent development. Open each guide below for deploy steps and the full feature gap.