A Comparison of JavaScript Calendars and Schedulers

The modern world keeps moving at a high speed. Even if you are not a top manager of a big corporation, you have many things to handle every day. To keep the track of daily activities, it is nice to have a convenient tool under the belt. And those in favor of the recent technologies would prefer a software solution over a traditional paper notebook.

Modern UI frameworks and libraries available at the market offer various types of schedulers and calendars both open-source and under the license. Another option is to build a unique solution from scratch. Though this way may turn out to be not the easiest, it still has some obvious benefits. They are the following:

• It may be the case when your application does not need a permanent web connection. It may be an independent component with no connection with external services and a possibility to store data separately.
• One more situation when you dare to create your tool is when available projects do not have all the required functionality. It would be a mistake to invest in a scheduler that will require further modifications and changes.

Now let’s look at some of the worthwhile solutions.

Webix Scheduler

Webix UI library offers over 100 JS widgets for UI development. This scheduler option is a complex widget, that is a complete single-page application. Thus, it is not just a calendar with the possibility to add events. Advanced features of the solution are the following:

• grouping
• various display modes
• editing events (changing color, start and end time)
• timeline

The solution can effectively be used for planning, keeping records of the working time, as well as integrated into the project management systems, apartment and rooms reservation projects. The library is supported by documentation, demos, code snippets, and responsive support.

Apart from complex widgets, the library offers simpler controls. JS Calendar is among them. It is integrated with all modern frameworks and supports all modern browsers. The functionality is simple, but it meets all the common needs, such as month and year modes, localization, a datepicker and timepicker forms.

DHTMLX Scheduler

DHTMLX provides developers with a scheduler and calendar solution full of convenient and sufficient features. In case you decide to complement your project with Kanban and Gantt, it will empower you with a robust project management solution.

The features of the Scheduler are the following:

• timeline view with a horizontal scroll
• multisection events that allow one task for several members
• ability to place several schedulers at one page

The library provides developers with all the additional resources and technical support. The events of the scheduler can be exported in PDF, PNG, iCal, Excel, XML, JSON formats.

DevExtreme Scheduler

DevExtreme is a component library for building rich UIs. Scheduler helps to manage and edit scheduled data. Full customization allows you to change the templates and context menus and set them to your taste and the demands of the project. The features available are:

• day and week view modes
• date navigator
• grouping and sorting

A free non-commercial license is available. The events are exported in PDF.

Bryntum Calendar

It is a JS component with various views that integrates with all the popular frameworks. The solution is compatible with any device and screen size. Large data is easily rendered. The functionality includes:

• day, week, month, year, agenda views
• full customization
• recurring tasks
• filters

The solution has all the required support, and it is regularly updated.

Syncfusion Scheduler

This is an interactive event calendar. This solution is probably the most feature-rich. The features are:

• different view modes
• displaying several calendars
• Google and Outlook synchronization
• editor pop-ups
• drag-n-drop
• grouping
• context menu

The events are exported in Excel and ICS.

Conclusion

To sum up, the choice of the schedulers available to the developers today is quite wide. As with any other solution, the best idea is to study the requirements and demands of each project carefully before deciding what calendar to choose. One more important thing to consider is the terms of the license. With some libraries, you cannot purchase only one component, so it should be considered if you need other tools that go with the package. When you manage to find the right tool, it will help in the process of web development and organizing the work process more efficiently.