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Calendly vs Doodle: What are the differences?
Introduction: In the realm of online scheduling tools, Calendly and Doodle are two popular options that provide users with the ability to create and manage their appointments efficiently. However, there are key differences between the two platforms that cater to different user requirements.
User Interface and Design: Calendly is known for its sleek and modern interface, making it user-friendly and intuitive for both the scheduler and invitees. On the other hand, Doodle has a simpler interface with a more straightforward design, making it easier for users who prefer minimalistic layouts.
Customization Options: Calendly offers more customization options such as branding features, personalized scheduling links, and specific event types, allowing users to tailor their scheduler to their unique needs. Doodle, on the other hand, focuses more on simplicity and ease of use, providing basic customization options to streamline the scheduling process.
Integration with External Tools: Calendly integrates seamlessly with popular calendar apps like Google Calendar, Outlook, and others, enhancing productivity and synchronization across platforms. Doodle also offers integrations with external tools, but the options are more limited compared to Calendly.
Advanced Scheduling Features: Calendly provides advanced features such as team scheduling, round-robin meetings, automated reminders, and buffer times, catering to users who require more sophisticated scheduling options. Doodle, while efficient, lacks some of these advanced features, focusing more on basic scheduling functionalities.
Collaborative Scheduling: Calendly enables users to schedule group meetings with multiple participants and offers features like polling for meeting times and collective availability, making it ideal for collaborative scheduling. Doodle also supports group scheduling but with fewer collaborative features compared to Calendly.
Mobile App Experience: Calendly offers a mobile app for both iOS and Android platforms, providing users with the flexibility to schedule and manage appointments on the go. Doodle, on the other hand, does not have a dedicated mobile app, which can be a limitation for users who rely on mobile scheduling.
In Summary, Calendly and Doodle differ in terms of user interface, customization options, integration capabilities, advanced features, collaborative scheduling, and mobile app experience, catering to a diverse range of user preferences and requirements.
I'm looking for a solution to help me do calendar management in my system (something like Calendar as a Service).
Some of the features that I would need are:
- Ability to create a calendar for every user in my system.
- Allow everyone to set their availability and Off Days. They should also be able to change the availability for a specific day.
- Ability for the system to book a timeslot on any of the user's calendars.
- Ability to check conflicts before booking a slot.
- Ability to get notified via Webhooks whenever someone cancels the already booked slots.
I don't need a UI. I can use any readily available Calendar UI Component. All I need is a service that can provide APIs to manage multiple calendars (one of each user in my system).
I've explored Calendly, but it requires every user within my system to have an account on Calendly as well. So it's not going to work for me.
Currently, I'm exploring Calendso, but I would appreciate it if you could share any other services you are familiar with that I should explore for this use case.
Good questions, Sarang. Personally, I think your requirements raise more questions. First of all, you've already mentioned that Calendly won't work for you, so I'll not dive further into Calendly for you.
Calendso has rebranded to cal.com and I'm looking into what that service does exactly.
I have a longer list of tools at https://yoursales.com/sales-stack-2021#scheduling with more detailed comparison at https://tech.yoursales.com/scheduling .
Your requirements: Ability to create a calendar for every user in my system: most calendar tools should be able to do that.
Allow everyone to set their availability and Off Days. They should also be able to change the availability for a specific day: This seems quite possible as well with most calendar systems.
Ability for the system to book a timeslot on any of the user's calendars: You mean, in random fashion, like round-robin or as the person scheduling decides???
Ability to check conflicts before booking a slot:: This seems quite possible as well.
Ability to get notified via Webhooks whenever someone cancels the already booked slots: This seems quite possible as well.
For your setup you need a few components. At minimum you need a calendar and a scheduler. Typically those to are separate.
Calendaring would be done by Google Calendar, some sort of Microsoft product, or a CalDav compatible calendar system.
The scheduling system is separate and connects to either of the calendaring systems mentioned above. The tools you mentioned in your original post are scheduling systems, which leaves another question: which calendar system would you like to use?
Pros of Calendly
- Different meeting URLs4
- Google Calendar integration2
- Ability to block off times2
- Great for coordinating across timezones2
- Google analytics integration1
- Easy Payments1
Pros of Doodle
- I likes the meetings plans2