When comparing Google Calendar vs TickTick, the Slant community recommends TickTick for most people. In the question“What are the best cross-platform task apps?” TickTick is ranked 6th while Google Calendar is ranked 65th. The most important reason people chose TickTick is:
On each task you can choose between a text description or a checklist.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Integrates with Google Maps for directions
The app leverages Google Maps when adding location for an event by offering suggestions as well as offers opening Maps to help get directions to an event via shortcut on a reminder notification.
Pro Comes pre-installed on most Android devices
Google Calendar is a free Android calendar app without ads that comes already installed on Android devices that have stock support for Google Services.
Pro Clean design with 5 different views including an excellent schedule view
Google Calendar has a monochrome base design that's accented with colored-coded events and image banners that separate months in schedule view.
The app has 5 different views - schedule, day, 3-day, week and month.
Day, 3-day and week views split up the days horizontally and hours vertically. Month view lays out all days in a grid and displays up to 3 events in a day.
Schedule view displays an agenda view that allows browsing all events by swiping vertically. Additionally, the way events are displayed in the agenda view is context-aware. For example, adding an event called "gym" will display the event on a background with a dumbbell.
All views except for month view can be split horizontally to display a condensed month view at the top that can be navigated by swiping horizontally.
Events can be added from any view by clicking the red plus button that's available at the bottom-right corner of the screen.
Pro Offers creating events from e-mail messages based on content
Google Calendar integrates with e-mail for quickly creating events from e-mails that contain the word "meeting" or dates or times, or any other information about events or plans that it can understand.
Pro Can set on-screen and e-mail reminder notifications
Google calendar allows setting how many reminders are needed with each having the ability to set how long before the event the notification should remind and if it should be done via on-screen or e-mail notification.
Pro Integrates well with other Google services
Google Calendar is part of the Google ecosystem, it integrates with services like Google Now for creating events, Google Maps for directions and Gmail for pulling information about planned flights.
Pro Color-coding for events and calendars
The app will color-code different calendars in different colors as well as allow selecting a different color for each event.
Pro Straightforward event creation with autocomplete
All views have an option of adding a new event by tapping the plus sign at the lower right corner of the screen. This opens up a form and allows the user to add a location, start/end times, guests, description, color-code as well as choosing if it's an all day event, how often it repeats, how many and what kind of reminders are needed and setting the users availability and privacy settings.
Pro Awesome flairs / images view inside the agenda view / event page
Whenever you enter agenda / event title with the keywords (when available), the event will show up interesting flairs whenever the keyword inside the agenda / title you typed matches the flairs that are available inside the system, examples such as haircut, cycling, swimming, coffee, movie etc.
Pro Allows subscribing to public calendars through web client
Through the Google Calendar's web client, it is possible to subscribe to any public calendar. Google also maintains a list of public calendars for various sports events and holidays in different countries and for different religions.
Pro Supports non-Google calendars (requires accessing web client)
Google Calendar can be integrated with any calendar that support iCalendar format, including Exchange and iCloud, via URL, but it has to be done using the web client.
Pro Lots of third-party widgets
Google Calendar comes with a home screen widget, and there are also many third party widgets developed for this calendar app.
Pro Advanced functionality available through IFTTT
IFTTT offers over 198 channels to plug into the users Google Calendar.
Pro Create checklist for a task
On each task you can choose between a text description or a checklist.
Pro Cross-platform
It’s accessible on the web, via a Chrome extension, on Android (phone/tablet, with widgets), and on iOS.
Pro Flexible recurring tasks
Recurring tasks are simple to set, and can be created according to custom rules.
Pro Customizeable Android widget
You can change the opacity, themes, lists, and cosmetic features of the widget.
Pro Smart date parsing
You can type "buy milk tomorrow 5pm" it will turn into a task as "buy milk" and reminder set as tomorrow 5pm automatically.
Pro Multiple reminders
You can add up to five reminders for different time to a single task.
Pro Smart List
Allows you to set custom filters, making it easier to find tasks.
Pro Multiple reminders
Supports up to 5 reminders per task.
Pro Advanced sorting options
Tasks can be sorted by dragging and dropping them in the list.
Pro Google Calendar integration
You can integrate TickTick with Google Calendar.
Pro Lightweight app
TickTick is resource-light, which is great if you run multiple programs or are using an older device.
Pro Clean UI
TickTick takes a minimalistic approach in order to keep things simple.
Pro Easy to add tasks
Just start typing to add a task.
Pro Has a calendar view
Pro version of the software allows tasks to be laid out in an easy to overview calendar view.
Pro Supports #hashtags (labels)
Just click a hashtag to filter your labeled tasks.
Pro Description and checklist all together
Paid users can add description and checklist into a single task all together.
Pro Set list color
You can set a different color for each list.
Pro Free task tagging
Tags are a native feature; up to five tags can be applied to each task.
Pro Great support to recurring tasks
Easy to set recurring tasks and a lot of possibilities to do that.
Pro Share task lists for collaboration
You can share a list through an email or a shareable link.
Pro Location reminder
Remind you of a task when you reach specific location.
Pro Can set duration of a task
You can set starting and ending date and time for tasks.
Pro Follows Android design guidelines
The mobile Android app of TickTick follows the Android design guidelines for a familiar interface.
Pro Keyboard shortcuts
TickTick supports keyboard shortcuts that makes it easier to work with.
Pro Custom themes for pro users
Paid users can enjoy pro themes.
Pro Recover from trash
Easy to see and recover tasks from trash if you deleted them by accident.
Pro Print tasks
Easy to print any task you want to.
Pro Siri integration
You can add tasks via Siri.
Pro Folder with concluded tasks
Easy to see all concluded tasks by date of conclusion.
Pro Support team is great
Support team responds quickly.
Pro Integration with calendars by URL
Shows your events on other calendars (like Outlook) in your task list.
Cons
Con No vertical scroll
Like iOS and outlook for Android.
Con Privacy concerns
Google integrate all their services to connect and mine information on an individual to better profile and target advertising.
Con Google tasks do not show on Google Calendar
You can create tasks in your desktop Google Calendar but they will not sync nor show up in your android Google Calendar
Con Setting up non-Google calendars requires accessing web client
There is no ability in the Android app to access other calendars. This limits the usefulness for people that use more than one calendar, such as OSX and iOS users.
Con No weather forecast
The Android app version of Google Calendar does not show any weather forcast information, even if it is added as an extra calendar in the web application. Being that weather is tied into Google Now, the absence is surprising.
Con Setting up CalDAV or iCAL from other sources is not working or not working well
A lot of people share events between different sources: professional, private, family or friends.
Not everybody is on Google and of course a lot of corporations.
Con Month view shows limited information about the event
Month view does not show how many events there are in each given day or color-code them in any way, only informs of their existence.
Con Does not work well with Apple / iCloud Calendar
Apple and Google calendars have syncing issues, which is annoying if you want to have shared calendars with friends / family.
Con Some recurrence options not available
If you want to add a recurring event based on quirky (but normal) calendar rules, it's not supported by Google Calendar. For example, if you set up a financial calendar in Google Calendar and an event falls on a weekend or bank holiday, Google Calendar cannot schedule the occurrence properly. Worse yet, if you submit those calendar occurences via VEVENT details, Google Calendar displays different information if you use the mobile calendar vs. the desktop web calendar.
Con Once you create a event on a Calendar, you can't move to a different Calendar
Con Horizontal Scroll
Does not vertically scroll like ios calendars on outlook calendar.
Con Slow syncing of external calendars
Google Calendar is known to sync external calendars very slowly, takes hours if not a full day before the updated events are reflected.
Con No natural language input support
The Android app has no natural language input support, while it's available using the web client and in a limited capacity using Google Now.
Con Weak default view
Even if month is set as default view, as soon as you touch a day or an event, you have to carefully select twice to get back to month view.
Con Time zone is incorrect no matter what's done
Con Timezone for Moscow is incorrect
Timezone for Moscow is 1 hour off. This makes the calendar unusable in Russia.
Con No native integrations with IFTTT or Zapier
The app doesn't feature native integration with these services, but you can use this functionality by fiddling with the custom email address that is provided by TickTick.
Con unable to sync with gtasks, only imports
Con Intelligent date and time entries don't work everywhere
In some apps, you can type "call Ben tomorrow at noon" and the date and time fields will be automatically populated with "tomorrow" and "noon". TickTick has recently implemented this feature, but it doesn't work flawlessly via the webapp or via a widget. The functionality does work good within the Android app, however.
Con Free version is limited
TickTick's free version is limited to 19 task lists, 1 attachment per day, and 1 collaborator.
Con Abo model is too expensive
Con Translation to Portuguese is not professional
For Portuguese speakers, the Portuguese translation seems very amateurish.
Con No search of non-latin languages in web
The web version has no ability to search non-latin languages (e.g. Russian, Greek).
Con Interface is not clear
It has too much information, causing some confusion sometimes.