Fantastical vs Google Calendar vs Apple Calendar for Productivity

Fantastical, Google Calendar, and Apple Calendar show your meetings. Only one helps you schedule work when you can actually do it well.

Fantastical makes beautiful calendars. Google Calendar works everywhere and syncs with everything. Apple Calendar is free and feels native on Apple devices.

All three excel at showing meetings, managing calendar events, and keeping you on time. None of them help you schedule actual work. They show you when you’re busy with meetings but don’t help you figure out when you’ll do the tasks those meetings generate.

The result is calendars packed with meetings and no system for scheduling the work between them. You know you’re busy 10-2pm, but you don’t know when you’ll tackle the three hours of tasks sitting in your task manager. Your calendar and your workload exist in separate systems that never connect.

This comparison covers what each calendar app does well and where energy-aware task scheduling changes productivity completely.

Fantastical: Beautiful Calendar, Zero Task Intelligence

Fantastical is the gold standard for calendar apps on Apple platforms. Natural language parsing is instant and accurate. Calendar sets let you show/hide different contexts (work, personal, side projects). The design is gorgeous. Time zone support is excellent.

What Fantastical does exceptionally:

• Natural language event creation (”coffee with Sarah next Tuesday 3pm”)

• Calendar sets for different contexts

• Templates for recurring event patterns

• Excellent Apple ecosystem integration

• Weather and map integration

• Meeting scheduling (basic)

Where Fantastical fails for productivity:

• Tasks are glorified checklists with no scheduling

• No time blocking or capacity planning

• No intelligence about when to work on things

• Tasks and calendar don’t integrate—they just coexist

• No energy awareness

• Expensive ($4.75/month minimum) for incomplete productivity

For productivity specifically: Fantastical helps you manage meetings beautifully. It does nothing to help you manage work. Tasks sit in a sidebar with due dates but no scheduling. You know what needs doing, but Fantastical provides zero help figuring out when you’ll actually do it.

The disconnect is jarring. You use Fantastical to see you’re in meetings 9-12pm and 2-4pm. You have tasks that need doing. Where do they fit? Fantastical doesn’t know and doesn’t help. You’re manually figuring out that the only work time is 12-2pm and hoping three hours of tasks fit in two hours of available time.

Pricing: Free tier limited. Flexibits Premium is $4.75/month (annual) or $7.49/month (monthly).

Verdict: Best calendar app for Apple users. Terrible for productivity because tasks are an afterthought.

Google Calendar: Universal but Basic

Google Calendar is the Swiss Army knife of calendars. It works on every platform, integrates with everything, and syncs reliably. It’s free, familiar, and functional.

What Google Calendar does well:

• Works everywhere (web, mobile, desktop)

• Integrates with Google Workspace seamlessly

• Reliable syncing across devices

• Multiple calendar support

• Sharing and collaboration

• Focus Time (basic time blocking)

Where Google Calendar fails for productivity:

• Google Tasks integration is minimal

• No intelligent task scheduling

• Focus Time is manual time blocking

• No energy awareness

• Tasks and calendar feel disconnected

• Limited customization

For productivity specifically: Google Calendar lets you block time for “Focus Time,” but it’s just a calendar event you create manually. It doesn’t know what work you’re doing during that time. It won’t suggest when to schedule focus time based on your workload. You’re manually creating blocks and hoping you scheduled them at good times.

Google Tasks exists in a sidebar, similar to Fantastical. Due dates show up, but there’s no scheduling intelligence. You see tasks and calendar in one place, but they don’t actually integrate. You’re still manually coordinating between “here are my meetings” and “here’s my work.”

Pricing: Free.

Verdict: Works everywhere and costs nothing. Solves calendar problems but not productivity problems.

Apple Calendar: Native but Minimal

Apple Calendar is free on Apple devices and integrates seamlessly with the ecosystem. For basic calendar management, it works. For productivity, it’s even more limited than Google Calendar.

What Apple Calendar does well:

• Native integration with Apple devices

• Clean, simple interface

• Reliable syncing across Apple ecosystem

• Free

• Basic reminders integration

• Siri integration for voice commands

Where Apple Calendar fails for productivity:

• Extremely basic feature set

• No task integration beyond simple reminders

• No time blocking or focus time features

• No scheduling intelligence

• Limited to Apple ecosystem

• No energy awareness

For productivity specifically: Apple Calendar shows meetings and that’s about it. Reminders exist separately with minimal integration. You can see calendar events and set reminders, but there’s no concept of scheduling work time or coordinating tasks with your actual availability.

It’s functional if you just need to see meetings and set basic reminders. For actual productivity—scheduling work, managing capacity, coordinating tasks with meetings—it provides nothing.

Pricing: Free with Apple devices.

Verdict: Adequate for basic calendar needs. Inadequate for productivity.

What All Three Miss: Work Scheduling

Fantastical, Google Calendar, and Apple Calendar all treat productivity as “managing meetings plus maybe some task lists.” This misses the actual problem knowledge workers face: scheduling work time around meetings.

• Meetings consume time but generate work. A one-hour meeting often creates two hours of follow-up tasks. None of these calendar apps help you find time for those two hours. They show you the meeting but not where the work fits.

• Not all work time is equal. Your available time from 9-11am when you’re sharp is different from 3-5pm when you’re tired. Calendar apps show both as “free,” but scheduling demanding work at 3pm when you’re exhausted sets you up to fail.

• Tasks and calendar should be one system. You need to see meetings and work in one unified view. These apps keep them separate—calendar for meetings, sidebar for tasks. You’re constantly mentally coordinating between two systems.

• Capacity planning doesn’t exist. You can see you’re busy 10am-3pm, but how much work can you fit in the morning and afternoon gaps? None of these apps help you understand if your daily plan is realistic given your available time.

• No energy awareness. Schedule demanding analytical work after a morning of draining meetings, and it won’t go well. Calendar apps treat all “free” time as equivalent, ignoring that your cognitive capacity varies throughout the day.

The result is calendars that manage meetings well but provide zero help managing work. You’re productive at scheduling meetings and completely unproductive at scheduling execution.

When Calendar Apps Work Fine

Despite the limitations, pure calendar apps work well in certain scenarios.

• Meeting-light work: If you have few meetings and your day is mostly self-directed work, you don’t need sophisticated coordination. Block time manually, work on tasks, use the calendar just to track meetings. Simple works.

• Administrative roles: If your job is mostly meetings, coordination, and quick tasks between meetings, calendar apps suffice. You’re not doing deep work that requires careful scheduling around energy levels.

• Consistent energy: Some people’s cognitive capacity is relatively stable throughout the day. If you’re equally effective at 9am and 4pm, energy-aware scheduling provides less value. Basic time blocking works fine.

• Simple workflows: If you have 5-10 tasks weekly and they’re straightforward, you don’t need AI scheduling. Quick manual planning in your calendar app handles it.

For these situations, Fantastical, Google Calendar, or Apple Calendar provide what you need. The additional complexity of task scheduling tools would be unnecessary overhead.

When You Need Actual Productivity Tools

The calendar-only approach breaks down when work scheduling becomes complex.

• Meeting-heavy schedules: When you have 4+ hours of meetings daily, the gaps between meetings are precious. You need help figuring out what work fits where. Calendar apps show you have 90 minutes free; they don’t help you decide what to work on or whether your plan is realistic.

• Deep work requirements: Complex tasks that require sustained focus need scheduling around energy levels. Writing, coding, strategic thinking, design—all depend on cognitive capacity. Calendar apps don’t consider this.

• Task volume: When you have 20+ active tasks with different priorities, deadlines, and energy requirements, manual coordination with a calendar becomes untenable. You need systems that handle the complexity.

• Variable energy: If you notice your productivity varies significantly throughout the day, energy-aware scheduling matters. Doing demanding work during slumps wastes time and produces poor results.

• Multiple projects: Juggling several projects with different deadlines and stakeholders creates coordination complexity. Calendar apps just show meetings; they don’t help you schedule project work strategically.

For these scenarios, you need tools that integrate tasks and calendar with intelligence about when to do what.

rivva: Tasks and Calendar as One System

rivva was built to solve what calendar apps ignore: scheduling work, not just meetings.

The fundamental insight is that productivity requires coordinating three things: your meetings, your tasks, and your energy levels. Calendar apps handle one of three. rivva handles all three in one system.

Energy-aware task scheduling: Instead of showing all free time as “available for work,” rivva schedules tasks based on when you have cognitive capacity for them. Demanding analytical work during morning peak energy. Routine tasks during midday dips. Creative work during afternoon rebounds.

This matters because your 9am free hour and your 3pm free hour are not equivalent. Same calendar space, different cognitive capacity. rivva schedules work accordingly.

Unified view: Meetings and tasks appear together in one schedule. You see your entire day—calls at 10am, focused work 11am-12:30pm, lunch, tasks 1-2pm, another meeting 2pm. Everything coordinates automatically.

Automatic scheduling: Tasks get scheduled based on:

• Your energy patterns (from health apps/wearables)

• Available time around meetings

• Task energy requirements (deep work vs. routine)

• Deadlines and priorities

You’re not manually playing Tetris with tasks and meetings. The system handles coordination.

Nia helps manage complexity: When meetings shift or priorities change, Nia (the AI assistant) reschedules affected work automatically. You don’t spend mental energy reorganizing your day after each disruption.

Smart scheduling links protect work time from meetings. Unlike traditional booking pages that only check calendar availability, rivva’s scheduling links check both your calendar AND your task schedule. If you have deep work scheduled 9-11am, those hours won’t show as available—even if your calendar is “free.” This prevents casual meetings from displacing focused work. Plus, you can configure links for energy phases: strategy calls only during morning peak, creative sessions during afternoon rebound. Meetings land when you’re suited for them AND when they won’t displace important work.

Task capture from everywhere: Email mentions, Notion comments, meeting action items, GitHub issues—tasks get extracted and scheduled automatically. Nothing falls through the cracks while you’re in meetings.

Best for: Knowledge workers with meeting-heavy schedules who need to actually schedule work around meetings, not just track meetings.

Key Features:

• Energy-based task scheduling (Apple Health, Google Fit, wearables)

• Unified calendar showing meetings and work

• AI assistant (Nia) for automatic rescheduling

• Smart scheduling links with energy awareness

• Task extraction from email, Notion, Docs, calendar

• Two-way calendar sync (Google, Outlook)

• iOS, Android, and web apps

Pricing: $13.99/month (monthly) or $10.50/month (quarterly). 7-day free trial.

Pros:

• Actually schedules work, not just meetings

• Energy awareness prevents scheduling hard work during tired hours

• Unified system eliminates coordination overhead

• Automatic scheduling saves cognitive load

• Smart scheduling links ensure meetings happen at suitable times

Cons:

• Requires health app or wearable for full energy features

• More complex than simple calendar apps (necessarily)

rivva makes sense when you realize calendars are the wrong tool for productivity. They’re designed for meetings, not for scheduling work.

Which Is Right for You?

If you just need meeting management on Apple devices → Fantastical is the best pure calendar app, although its not free unlike Google & Apple calendars

If you need universal calendaring that works everywhere → Google Calendar is free, reliable, and integrates with everything.

If you’re on Apple and want simple and free → Apple Calendar handles basics adequately.

If you need to actually schedule work around meetings → rivva is the only tool here that treats tasks and calendar as one coordinated system.

If meetings are rare and work is self-directed → Any calendar app works; pick based on platform and price.

If meetings dominate your schedule and you struggle to fit work in → Calendar apps show the problem but don’t solve it. You need actual task scheduling.

The fundamental question: do you need a calendar (showing meetings) or a productivity system (scheduling work)? Fantastical, Google Calendar, and Apple Calendar are calendars. rivva is a productivity system.

FAQ

Can I use Google Calendar or Apple Calendar with a separate task manager?

Yes, many people do. Google Calendar for meetings, Todoist or TickTick for tasks. The challenge is manually coordinating between them—figuring out when to work on tasks given your meeting schedule. This coordination overhead is what integrated systems eliminate.

Is Fantastical worth paying for versus free alternatives?

For pure calendar features on Apple devices, Fantastical is excellent. Natural language parsing and calendar sets justify the cost if you value those features. But you’re paying for calendar polish, not productivity. If you need task scheduling, the money is better spent on integrated tools.

Why doesn’t Google just add task scheduling to Google Calendar?

Good question. Google has all the pieces—Calendar, Tasks, Gmail, Keep—but hasn’t integrated them into coherent productivity tools. Likely because each product team operates independently. This creates an opportunity for integrated alternatives.

Do I really need energy-aware scheduling or is manual planning enough?

Depends on whether you notice your productivity varies throughout the day. If you’re equally effective morning and afternoon, energy awareness provides less value. If demanding work at 3pm consistently fails while the same work at 9am succeeds, energy awareness matters.

Can these calendar apps sync with rivva or other productivity tools?

Yes—rivva syncs with Google Calendar and Outlook (which Apple Calendar can connect to). You can keep using your calendar app for viewing if you prefer its interface, while using rivva for task scheduling. The sync keeps everything coordinated.

Conclusion

Fantastical, Google Calendar, and Apple Calendar are excellent calendar apps. They show meetings clearly, sync reliably, and handle calendar management well. Pick based on platform needs and whether you value Fantastical’s polish enough to pay for it.

But calendar apps solve calendar problems, not productivity problems. They show you when you’re in meetings. They don’t help you schedule work around meetings. They treat tasks as an afterthought—sidebar lists with due dates but no scheduling intelligence.

For people whose productivity challenge is “I have many meetings and struggle to fit work around them,” calendar apps are the wrong tool. They show the problem but don’t solve it.

rivva was built for the actual problem: coordinating meetings, tasks, and energy levels into one schedule. It schedules demanding work during your peak hours. It fits routine tasks around meetings. It ensures you’re not trying to do complex thinking after a draining morning of calls. It treats work and meetings as equal parts of your schedule that need coordination, not separate systems you manually bridge.

Try rivva free for 7 days to see how unified task and calendar scheduling works compared to calendar apps with task lists bolted on.