Cal.diy vs Croodle
| Tagline | Open-source online appointment scheduling built on Cal.com | End-to-end encrypted scheduling and polling tool with no database required |
| Category | Scheduling & Booking | Scheduling & Booking |
| Replaces | Calendly, Acuity Scheduling | Calendly |
| GitHub stars | 48k | 213 |
| Language | Nodejs | JavaScript |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Self-host difficulty | 3/5 Moderate | 4/5 Involved |
| Deploy options | Docker Docker Compose Manual | Docker Manual |
| Managed hosting | ||
| Last updated | yesterday | 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.
Cal.diy
- Self-hosted setup requires configuring PostgreSQL, email/SMTP, and OAuth providers
- Enterprise features (SAML SSO, workflows at scale, analytics) are cloud-only or require an enterprise license
- Payment collection integrations need additional third-party setup
- Admin UI for multi-tenant management is less polished than Calendly's hosted offering
Croodle
- Development is largely stalled (last release in 2023), so it is effectively in maintenance mode.
- Poll/date-finding only; it is not a personal booking system and has no calendar sync.
- No payments, reminders, or team features.
- Setup requires deploying the static front end plus the PHP backend and writable storage; documentation is sparse.
Bottom line
Choose Cal.diy if you want the lower-effort setup; choose Cal.diy for the larger community and ecosystem. Cal.diy has seen more recent development. Open each guide below for deploy steps and the full feature gap.
Croodle
End-to-end encrypted scheduling and polling tool with no database required