When comparing Sunrise vs aCalendar, the Slant community recommends Sunrise for most people. In the question“What are the best free calendar apps for Android?” Sunrise is ranked 5th while aCalendar is ranked 10th. The most important reason people chose Sunrise is:
The interface is easy to use. The app's main view combines an agenda view with a two week view above it. This lets you keep an eye on your high level schedule over the next few weeks while also seeing the highest priority upcoming events. The two week view can be expanded into a month view by swiping down on it. Swiping to the right from the main view gives access to a 3-day view that's split into hours. Agenda view includes various informative details such as information about upcoming weather conditions, a countdown for upcoming events and contextual icons, such as "meeting", "movie", "food", "flight" to events to help get a quick overview of what's planned at a glance. It also looks good with a monochrome base design that's accented with colored icons, titles and profile pictures.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Great interface
The interface is easy to use. The app's main view combines an agenda view with a two week view above it. This lets you keep an eye on your high level schedule over the next few weeks while also seeing the highest priority upcoming events. The two week view can be expanded into a month view by swiping down on it. Swiping to the right from the main view gives access to a 3-day view that's split into hours.
Agenda view includes various informative details such as information about upcoming weather conditions, a countdown for upcoming events and contextual icons, such as "meeting", "movie", "food", "flight" to events to help get a quick overview of what's planned at a glance.
It also looks good with a monochrome base design that's accented with colored icons, titles and profile pictures.
Pro Integrates with many third-party apps
Sunrise will automatically pull important information such as Facebook events, Asana tasks and Evernote reminders and add them to the calendar. Currently Sunrise integrates with Facebook, TripIt, Asana, Producteev, Evernote, GitHub, LinkedIn, Songkick, Foursquare, Twitter, and there are new integrations added on a regular basis.
Pro Allows easily creating events using natural language input
The application allows natural language input for events. For example, typing in "Lunch with Stuart Kearney at 2pm" will set the appointment and even send and invite to Stuart if needed.
Pro Google Maps integration
Sunrise integrates with Google Maps to display the location of an event, making it easy to find where to go for any appointment.
Pro Gives weather updates
Sunrise will show inline weather updates for current and next day.
Pro Widget support
Sunrise Calendar includes a widget for use on Android devices that displays the agenda view and allows adding events. Widget's agenda view also includes details such as context-aware icons and location information.
Pro Pulls information about people with which meeting have been scheduled
The app will show information about people with which meeting have been scheduled. The information is pulled from social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.
Pro Can send event invites from within the app
Sunrise makes it very easy to send invites to events from within the app by using the contact list on the device.
Pro Adjusts timezone based on location
Sunrise will display the event information and notifications in users current timezone.
Pro Includes calendars for holidays, sports, TV shows and more
As part of "Interesting Calendars" Sunrise includes over 25,000 calendars covering things like name days, holidays, sport teams (with score updating in real time), and TV shows.
Pro Helps quickly schedule one-to-one meetings
Sunrise includes a feature called "Meet" that's designed to help two parties that wish to schedule a meeting to find a time that works for them both. Sunrise user can select available times for a meeting and then send a URL to the other party that will allow the other party to select one of the available times.
Pro Good Tasks integration
Tasks get shown in the calendar, although there is also a separate tasks view. It supports Google Tasks and recurring tasks.
Pro Very convenient user interaction
Switching from day<->week<->month views by swiping laterally is a powerful feature.
Pro Lots of customization options
The settings menu is rather detailed and includes a good selection of color themes to choose from, possibility to adjust font-size, set beginning and end of day, ability to choose what views to use and more.
Pro Free, ad-less version available
aCalendar is an Android app that comes in free, ad-less version as well as this paid version.
This paid version aCalendar+ adds more features like agenda view, home screen widget and the ability to manage Google Calendars. The developer also donates some of the profits from this Pro version to help protect the endangered mountain tapir.
Pro Nice presentation
The three views are very convenient, particularly the week view, which shows the week position inside the month
Pro Good fullscreen widgets for all views
The app has widgets for day, week and month views.
Pro Color-coding support
The app has 48 calendar and 12 event colors.
Pro Can add public holidays to calendar from over 35 countries
For the 30+ available languages for the app, there are holiday calendars available to be added.
Pro Lunar calendar support
aCalendar can be set up to use a calendar based on cycles of the lunar phases.
Pro Unique Week overview
Its week overview is very well suiting for tasks and all day events. It shows everything at once.
Pro Drag'n'Drop
Drag'n'drop functionality is available in day view with this paid version of the application.
Pro Useful 3-finger tap to go to today
By utilizing a three finger tap shortcut users can easily got to the today view from anywhere in the app.
Pro Available in 30 languages
There are 3o user made translations available for the app, making for a good calendar to use in different countries.
Pro QR and NFC barcode sharing of events
Using both QR codes as well as NFC, users can share events wirelessly and easily
Cons
Con Discontinued
Sunrise was discontinued in August 2016 with promises that Microsoft Outlook would gain some of its features
Con Missing search in Android version
Sunrise lacks search in Android version making it very hard to use.
Con Widget is not customisable
There is no way to change the layout etc of the widget for Sunrise. Some other calendar apps offer a lot more control over what data is shown in their widgets.
Con Likely no longer in development
Shortly after Microsoft’s appquisition of Sunrise, development stopped. The future of the service itself is uncertain.
Con It requests extra permissions
Requests access to everything not just the calendar.
Con Can't quickly distinguish between multiple calendars
Dev dictates that everyone's calendars should look the same and to this day refuses to provide an option to color code individual calendars.
Con Free version is very limiting
Free version of the application does not include common things like the agenda view, actionable notifications or attendee management among many other more advanced features.