Timeful vs When2meet

Timeful

• Groups choosing a meeting time without anyone creating an account
• Respondents who want to fill in availability from their own calendar
• Organizations that want to self-host an open-source scheduling poll

When2meet

• Groups that need to compare availability for a one-off meeting
• Clubs, classes and volunteer teams that want a tool with no cost
• Organizers who want a quick setup that asks for no contact details

Timeful

• It runs in a web browser only; the site links to no desktop or mobile apps.
• Email notifications, reminders and showing responses only to the event creator all require signing in.
• Connecting Apple Calendar means generating an app-specific password for your Apple ID and entering it in Timeful.
• Availability groups, which track members' weekly availability, read it from Google Calendar only.

When2meet

• Pages carry third-party advertising, which the site says helps cover operating costs.
• The site describes no calendar sync, booking pages or mobile apps; it runs in a web browser.
• Day-of-week surveys assume that every participant is in the same time zone.
• There are no paid plans or business features, and support is by email.

Timeful

Availability polls

Create an event with a range of dates and times, share the link, and see where everyone's availability overlaps. The home page says no login is required, and the FAQ puts no limit on respondents.

Calendar autofill

Respondents can fill in their availability from Google Calendar, Outlook, Apple Calendar or an ICS feed URL. Other people see only the availability entered, not the calendar events.

Available and if-needed times

A respondent can mark a slot as available or as possible only if needed, and the results can show when a chosen subset of the group is free.

Time zone conversion

Times are converted to each viewer's local time zone, and a selector at the bottom of every poll lets a viewer switch zones by hand.

Email notifications and reminders

A signed-in organizer can be emailed on each response or after a set number of responses, and can send reminders on the day an event is created, one day later and three days later.

Open source and self-hosting

The code is on GitHub under the AGPL-3.0 license, with a deployment guide for Docker Compose and NixOS and a plugin API for reading and setting availability from a browser plugin.

When2meet

One-form event setup

The home page is the setup form: type an event name, click and drag across a calendar to choose candidate dates, and press Create Event.

Specific dates or days of the week

A survey can ask about particular calendar dates or about days of the week in general, chosen from a menu when the event is created.

Time window and time zone

Set the earliest and latest times to offer and pick the event's time zone. Day-of-week surveys expect all participants to be in a single time zone.

No billing or contact details

The site states that it is a free service and does not ask for contact or billing information.

Translated interface

The page looks for a translation that matches the browser's preferred language and falls back to English when none is available.

Timeful

• Free$0

  Unlimited events and every feature, with no ads. The former Timeful Premium subscription has been withdrawn.

When2meet

• Free$0

  Create availability surveys and take part in them at no cost, with third-party ads shown on the page.