Comparison

iCalendar vs SimpleCal

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

iCalendar

This app helps you manage your busy schedule with a user-friendly interface. Easily track daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly views, and color-code your events for better organization. It syncs with popular accounts and offers productivity tools for efficient event management.

Highlights
  • Daily, weekly, monthly, yearly views
  • Customizable event color-coding
  • Syncs with iCloud, Google, Exchange, Outlook, Yahoo!
  • Task manager with iOS Reminders sync
  • Drag and drop event rescheduling
  • Custom repeating events
  • Time zone support
Features
Currently charting
Read full description

** A MUST-HAVE CALENDAR APP FOR EVERY IPHONE, IPAD, AND IPOD **   iCalendar is the ultimate calendar for your iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch focusing on your productivity. It’s seamless, highly usable interface allows you to enter events quickly and helps you keep track of your busy schedule. It integrates with your iCloud, Google, Exchange, Outlook, or Yahoo! account to provide you with the most convenient calendaring experience.    EASILY TRACK YOUR SCHEDULE - View your daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly schedule. - Custom color-code your events. Use predefined colors, or make up your own colors. - iCalendar implements quickest way on the market to navigate between dates  - Fast and powerful search: Search events by title, location, and notes.    NEW IN VERSION 4.0 - Task Manager: Manage your tasks within your calendar in a fun and easy manner and sync with iOS Reminders. Available as in-app purchase for USD 0.99.   FULL OF PRODUCTIVITY TOOLS - Drag and drop an event to update its timing.  - Copy and paste events. - Create custom repeating events (e.g. repeat on the third Friday every month, and many more).  - Add custom alerts/reminders for events and snooze alerts - Access your event details quickly by tapping on the event.  - Customize the visible time period (e.g. from 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM) to help you focus on most important events.    EVEN MORE - Time Zone Support: View and create your events in your preferred time zone and never get confused when you travel.  - Complete print functionality. Print daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly views.  - Export any view (day, week, month, year) as a PDF file.  - Use built-in maps to set the location of your events.  - Dial into a conference call with one touch right from iCalendar. Add phone numbers from your contacts to events with the ability to use pause and wait, which is ideal for conference calls.  - Set location of an event as the address or phone number of one of your contacts.  - Access all your events directly from the Month view - no need to go to each individual day to review full list of events.  - Use the app icon badge to indicate either the number of upcoming events or the day of the month.  - Google Calendar sync: sync all of your calendars, create and edit Google Calendar events, and use Google Calendar custom reminders (SMS, email and/or alert). - Add, edit and delete calendars right from iCalendar.  - Support of portrait and landscape to match your orientation preference.  - iCalendar is a universal app. Download once and use across all your devices.  - For more details: http://www.symfonies.com/icalendar/   iCalendar offers access to interesting calendars from Calendar Store as an optional in-app purchase.  You may subscribe to your holidays calendar (national/religious) or subscribe to interesting calendars (e.g. local/global sports events, stocks, weather, and many others).   With an optional in-app purchase yearly subscription, you get full and ongoing access to the Calendar Store including (live) updates in your calendar. A subscription always starts with a one-month free trial, so you can try before you buy. One year subscriptions for the Calendar Store costs $1.99. Payment will be charged to your iTunes Account at confirmation of purchase and after the 1 month free trial. Subscriptions automatically renew unless auto-renew is turned off at least 24-hours before the end of the current period. Your account will be charged for renewal within 24-hours prior to the end of the current 1 year period. You can turn off auto-renew at any time from your iTunes account settings. Cancellation of the current active subscription period is not allowed.   Our terms of service and privacy policy are found at http://www.symfonies.com/terms-of-service/ and http://www.symfonies.com/privacy-policy/ respectively.   If you have a question, need help or would like to request a feature, please do not hesitate to contact us. We respond to EVERY email we receive: support@symfonies.com

About

SimpleCal

This app offers a straightforward way to manage your schedule, sync events across devices using iCloud or Google Calendar, and stay organized with reminders and weather forecasts. Its customizable interface and simple design make adding and editing events quick and intuitive.

Highlights
  • Cross-platform sync (iCloud/Google)
  • Event reminders (daily, weekly, monthly, yearly)
  • Weather forecast integration
  • Customizable event and color themes
  • Simple event adding and editing
  • Widget for quick event overview
  • Dark mode support
Features
Read full description

SimpleCal is the easiest calendar app on the App Store. Sync your schedule across platforms and devices through iCloud or Google calendar. - Sync All the events on your current calendar are transferable from another calendars via iCloud or Google calendar. (The connection uses the calendar account registered in the Settings app) - Widget Your recent events can be displayed on a widget to grasp what to do quickly. - Weather The weather forecast for the specified area is displayed on the calendar(up to one week ahead) - Reminders You won't miss your important events via SimpleCal's reminder. The reminders can be repeated daily, weekly, monthly and yearly. - Customizable interface Each event and calendar can have different colors, which makes you easily recognize your schedule. The color theme is also customizable. You can find your favorite theme for sure. - Simple design You can add or edit an event only with a few steps. Do you have some routine in your life? Then, try SimpleCal! You can create a new event just by dragging a past event. - Dark Mode Supports dark mode. - Data Backup Saves event data to an external server such as iCloud Calendar or Google Calendar. (The app does not have its own calendar and does not save to the device's local area.) In the unlikely event that your iPhone is damaged, you can simply log in to your original calendar account to load your previous event data.

Screenshots

iCalendar1 screens
SimpleCal4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: SimpleCal at Free against iCalendar's $2.99. SimpleCal also leads on update cadence (fortnightly vs every 3 months) and review sentiment (85% vs 71%). iCalendar's advantage is ads (none vs shown) and chart position (#52 vs unranked). On rating, in-app purchases, monetization model and device support there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

SimpleCal is free to download; iCalendar costs $2.99 up front. iCalendar sells 10 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per year and SimpleCal sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $0.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.7 for iCalendar against 4.7 for SimpleCal. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 5.5K and 18K respectively. Written reviews are what separate them: 71% of iCalendar's written reviews are positive against 85% of SimpleCal's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

iCalendar ships an update every 3 months, SimpleCal fortnightly. The most recent releases landed on October 26, 2026 and October 28, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard6 real differences · 5 level
iCalendar versus SimpleCal: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameteriCalendarSimpleCal
Price$2.99Free — better
Rating4.7 (5.5K ratings)4.7 (18K ratings) — better
Positive reviews71.4% of reviews84.7% of reviews — better
Number of ratings5.5K18K — better
Update frequencyEvery 3 monthsFortnightly — better
AdsNo — betterYes
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree with in-app purchases
Best chart rank#52 — better—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple Watch — betteriPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS15.615.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size21 MB33 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperSymfonies, Inc.Yohei Fujikawa

Customer experience

iCalendar

All ratings5,356 ratings
Positive93.6%
Neutral2.9%
Negative3.5%
Written reviews406 reviews
Positive71.4%
Neutral8.9%
Negative19.7%

SimpleCal

All ratings17,608 ratings
Positive94.1%
Neutral3.2%
Negative2.7%
Written reviews1,245 reviews
Positive84.7%
Neutral3.4%
Negative12.0%

User reviews

iCalendar

From 5.5K App Store ratings

What we love

  • 💻 Excellent calendar app
  • 🎨 Customizable color coding
  • 📅 Comprehensive monthly view
  • 🗓️ Seamless syncing across devices
  • 🔍 Detailed event information

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Occasional data loss or sync issues
  • 🔍 Difficulty editing recurring events
  • 🔒 Concerns about security and privacy
  • 💰 Paid features that should be free
  • 🕰️ Inconsistent event time display

SimpleCal

From 18K App Store ratings

What we love

  • 😍 Awesome!!
  • 👍 Easy to use
  • 👍 Well-organized
  • 🎨 Helpful color-coding
  • ⏰ Useful reminders

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Deleted events/data loss
  • 🔒 Requires full access to Apple Calendar
  • 🗓️ Can't edit read-only events
  • 🎨 Limited color options
  • 🗓️ Can't add events on days with existing events

Bugs and requests

iCalendar

Reported bugs

4 issues
  • Events disappearing or not syncing properly
  • Inability to edit or update recurring events
  • Incorrect time and location information
  • Crashes or freezes when performing certain actions

Requested features

5 requests
  • Add ability to attach files to events
  • Improve widget functionality and visibility
  • Introduce family/group calendar sharing
  • Expand color palette and theming options
  • Add yearly view and better month-to-month navigation

SimpleCal

Reported bugs

3 issues
  • Calendar stuck on one date
  • Home screen widget not working
  • Issues with setting recurring events

Requested features

8 requests
  • Add more color options
  • Ability to gray out past days
  • Custom reminder times
  • Separate work and personal calendars
  • Printable calendar view
Show 3 more
  • Sync colors across devices
  • Add subtasks for events
  • Ability to delete specific holidays

In-app purchases

10 purchases

iCalendar

Subscriptions1
  • Calendar Store1 Month trial$1.991 Year
One-time9
  • Religious holidays$0.99
  • Week Numbers$0.99
  • Moon Phases calendar$0.99
Show 6 more
  • Holidays United States$0.99
  • Calendars - Pro Football USA 2014-2015 edition$0.99
  • Calendars - Pro Baseball USA 2015 edition$0.99
  • iOS Reminders$0.99
  • Calendars - Pro American Football Men United States 2015-2016 edition$0.99
  • Weather calendars$1.99
2 purchases

SimpleCal

Subscriptions1
  • Ads removal$0.991 Month
One-time1
  • Remove Ads$49.99

Questions

Is iCalendar free?
iCalendar costs $2.99, and also offers in-app purchases.
Is SimpleCal free?
SimpleCal is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, iCalendar or SimpleCal?
SimpleCal is rated higher. iCalendar averages 4.7 out of 5 from 5.5K ratings, while SimpleCal averages 4.7 from 18K ratings.
Do iCalendar or SimpleCal have ads?
SimpleCal shows ads; iCalendar does not.
Which is updated more often, iCalendar or SimpleCal?
iCalendar ships an update every 3 months, and SimpleCal fortnightly. Most recently, iCalendar was updated on October 26, 2026 and SimpleCal on October 28, 2026.

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