People tend to find moving away from Google Calendar harder than moving from Google’s mail offerings. It’s not that tricky though.
Platforms/protocols
I’ve done this using Nextcloud, but the underlying systems are CalDav and CardDav. Other software provide these, for example Radicale (more listed here).
Hosting/web access
You can self-host Nextcloud, but I currently went for simplicity with the hosted offering from GreenNet. £6 a month isn’t cheap, but I’m thinking this will get me started and I can perhaps migrate away in future. Anyway, GreenNet are a cool company so I’m OK with this for now.
The web interface to Nextcloud is pretty slick. The calendar functionality is nice. The contacts interface is a bit less usable I would say, but it’s OK.
Mobile and Syncing
CalDav/CardDav can be synced to your Android with DavDroid.
You can then view your calendar in something like Etar.
There’s an open issue for viewing CardDav contacts in SimpleContacts.
Desktop
I’m currently using Evolution for calendaring on my Linux desktop. I find it a bit clunky but it does the job. You can subscribe to CalDav and CardDav from it.
Misc
- Calendars of public holidays
- Google provided a calendar of UK public holidays
- You can probably find an ICS alternative online for your country, e.g. ICS provided here by the UK gov: https://www.gov.uk/bank-holidays
- Birthday calendars
- Nextcloud creates one of these for you
- Sharing your calendar in ICS format
- to include in e.g. Google Calendar (say you want to have your personal calendar show in your work calendar)
- check ‘Share Link’ and copy the link
- should be a webcal:// link ending in ?export
- see e.g. https://help.nextcloud.com/t/shared-calendars-ics-format-available/8688/2
Mentions