The Events Calendar WordPress Plugin Alternative
Timely Events Calendar vs. The Events Calendar (TEC)
WordPress is, without a doubt, one of the most used content management systems (CMS) out there. WordPress’ main advantage is that it allows you to use plugins to enrich your website and make it functional in a large variety of ways. If you are currently using WordPress and a WordPress event calendar plugin, this post will be particularly interesting to you.
We will guide you through a detailed comparison to help you select the best WordPress calendar plugin for your needs. As you already know, having an events calendar WordPress plugin helps you manage and publish events on your website. Some of these plugins offer a lot of useful features such as event promotion, registration, ticketing and calendar customization.
In this article, we will compare the free versions of Timely All-in-One Events Calendar and The Events Calendar plugins for WordPress. Both are very popular plugins, but each one has their own distinct functions and possibilities, which is what we will cover next.
Timely versus The Events Calendar: At a Glance
Based on +1,500 WordPress users reviews
+80,000 active installations
- Feature Rich
- Credible
- Reliable
- Secure
- Scalable
- Beautiful and modern design
- Variety of calendar views and widgets
- Preset themes plus customization tools
- Responsive design
- Cloning and recurring events
- Add images, video and links to event posts
- Filters for easy event categorization
- Built-in toolbar for advanced search
- Import events with CSV/ICS files
- Event promotion tools
- Web based software
- No coding or web design skills required
- Your own domain name in event links
- Intuitive and easy to use
- Fast loading
- Accessible
Based on +1,500 WordPress users reviews
+800,000 active installations
- Modern and simple design
- Variety of calendar views but 1 widget
- Customization based on site’s theme
- No duplicating nor recurring events
- No event organization by filters
- Keyword search only
- No import events tools
- Limited event promotion tools
- Coding and web design skills required
- Complex to use
- May slow down your website
- Accessible
1. Product Fit & Free Features
Timely All-in-One Events Calendar
The free version of Timely wordpress event calendar combines a beautiful and modern design with powerful event calendaring features.
It offers a wide variety of views and widgets, including Month, Week, and Agenda. In addition, it comes with several preset themes that you can easily customize to match your brand and website design. All calendar and page details options are responsive, so your calendar design will adapt to any device.
Timely wordpress calendar plugin allows you to create, clone, import, edit, schedule, and publish events with just a few clicks. It also includes recurring events, so you can easily create and update events that happen on a regular basis. Another useful feature is the categorization of events by filters.
Moreover, Timely all in one calendar has a built-in toolbar, which allows your audience to search events by date and keywords, as well as by using the applicable filters.
The free version of Timely wordpress events calendar also comes with event engagement tools to keep your audience engaged throughout their event discovery experience. Those interactive features include calendar subscription for Google, Apple and Outlook calendars, social share buttons for all the major social networks, and calendar print ready version.
Importantly, Timely wordpress calendar does not require any coding or web design skills, so it is super easy to use. It loads fast and is accessible for people with disabilities, two very relevant factors for ranking higher on online searches.
The Events Calendar
Although The Events Calendar is one of the most popular calendars for wordpress, it only offers basic features for those who are looking for a plain online calendar.
With this plugin, it is possible to display events on a month, list or day view, as well as on an event list widget. You can personalize your calendar, but customization is limited to your website's theme.
The Events Calendar allows you to create and publish events. However, you will not be able to duplicate them neither create recurring events.
This free calendar version comes with date and keyword search tools, but no filtering options. Also, it allows the audience to subscribe to the calendar, but has no social sharing tools.
Timely vs. The Events Calendar: Free Features Comparison Table
FREE FEATURES | TIMELY Plugin | THE EVENTS CALENDAR |
---|---|---|
MAIN FUNCTIONALITIES | ||
Multiple language | ✓ | ✓ |
Multiple time zones | ✓ | ✓ |
Easy to use | ✓ | ✗ |
Mobile-friendly | ✓ | ✗ |
DESIGN & CUSTOMIZATIONS | ||
Custom branding | ✓ | ✓ |
Calendar themes | ✓ 12 themes | ✗ |
Custom theme | ✓ | ✗ |
Calendar views | ✓ 3 views | ✓ 3 views |
Calendar widget | ✓ 3 styles | ✓ 1 style |
Select different view for mobile and desktop | ✓ | ✗ |
Customizable toolbar | ✓ | ✗ |
Event page layout template | ✓ 1 style | ✓ 1 style |
Filtering bar | ✓ By date, month and year | ✓ By date, month and year |
Filter by keyword | ✓ | ✓ |
Filter by tag, organizer and venue | ✓ | ✗ |
Event venue & organizer tag system | ✓ | ✓ |
Add multiple organizers per event | ✓ | ✓ |
EVENT PUBLISHING & REACH | ||
Single-day, multi-day and all-day events | ✓ | ✓ |
Cloning events | ✓ | ✗ |
Recurring events | ✓ | ✗ |
Local time | ✓ | ✗ |
Event Location system | ✓ | ✓ |
EVENT AGGREGATION | ||
Import event (csv / ics file) | ✓ | ✗ |
EVENT PROMOTION & ENGAGEMENT | ||
Calendar subscription | ✓ Google, Apple & Outlook | ✓ Google, Apple & Outlook |
Social share buttons | ✓ | ✗ |
File export | ✓ ICS & XML | ✓ ICS |
Print ready | ✓ | ✗ |
2. Security Compliance
3. Business Scalability
While the free versions of these calendar plugins work well for freelancers and solo entrepreneurs, growing and well-established organizations usually need more robust event technology products.
Indeed, as your business grows, you want products that are scalable and can grow with you. That means, an event calendaring software that has a wide variety of features and paid plans available to suit your needs every step of the way.
The Events Calendar WordPress plugin also allows upgrades with the Events Calendar Pro version, other plugins and add ons. However, adding more plugins and add ons to your website is not the best way to power up your event business.
Indeed, additional plugins and add-ons usually require individual payments that turn out to be more expensive than a solid plan upgrade. Moreover, they can conflict with each other, causing problems with your website’s overall functions.
Timely wordpress calendar plugin offers the scalability you need for future growth. In fact, Timely provides an advanced event management system that allows you to do more than just build an events calendar for your website.
As you go up in Timely’s paid plans, you get more features and functionalities. For example, you can accept event submission from others, send automated newsletters, and integrate with social media. You can also accept event registrations, sell tickets online, and check-in your guests at the door.
4. Conclusion: Timely is a Safer and Smarter Alternative to The Events Calendar
As you can see from this comparative overview, Timely is definitely the right choice, especially if you are representing a company or organization and need a more robust product.
Overall, Timely wordpress calendar plugin a stronger product with more useful features than The Events Calendar. It provides more security, with zero vulnerabilities in the past years. Also, Timely offers more scalability for future growth, with a wider variety of upgrade options to cater to several different types of clients and their unique event management needs.
Check out Timely All in One Events Calendar WordPress plugin to optimize event management in a safe, smart way!