When comparing Mail and Calendar vs Lightning Calendar, the Slant community recommends Mail and Calendar for most people. In the question“What are the best calendar apps for Windows?” Mail and Calendar is ranked 1st while Lightning Calendar is ranked 3rd. The most important reason people chose Mail and Calendar is:
If your device has a touchscreen, then user can swipe the message thread either from left or from right, varies by swipe preferences set by user, eg: set swipe from right to delete and swipe from left to archive.
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Swipe functionality
If your device has a touchscreen, then user can swipe the message thread either from left or from right, varies by swipe preferences set by user, eg: set swipe from right to delete and swipe from left to archive.
Pro Easy to use
It's like Outlook but free and not so ugly.
Pro Free
No need to put money on the table. It's free!
Pro Supports multiple services including Gmail
Mail and Calendar support multiple accounts from multiple services, including Gmail and Google Apps. Gmail and Google Apps support was not available on Windows 8. It is available on the Windows 10 version of Mail and Calendar app.
Pro Drag and drop calendar events to reschedule them (PC only)
If you like using a calendar, this is an efficiency perk.
Pro Background wallpaper
Similar to Yahoo! Mail and Gmail web app, Mail app can allow users to set any images as image background of the app.
Pro Send email from Outlook.com aliases
An alias is a great feature for keeping your email private.
Pro Free, open source
Lightning Calendar (just as Thunderbird) is completely free and open-source meaning that anyone can use it as well as look through the code or even use the code for their own projects.
Pro Easily keep track of tasks
Bundled in with the calendar options is a tasks option that makes for an easy way to keep track of tasks in the same location as ones events.
Pro Cross-platform
Wherever Mozilla Thunderbird can be installed, the Lightning calendar can follow:
Windows
Linux
MacOS
Cons
Con Lots of bugs
- Always has issues with sign-in, and you have to regularly prove you're not a robot by re-typing the password
- Can mysteriously drop a specific Hotmail email account, which you have to re-add every time you load up
- Crashes often, particularly if you're working on more than one email (popped-out) at a time
- Sometimes the copy/paste function does not work
Con No aliases
The Mail app doesn't support email aliases.
Con Missing some advanced features
The Mail app is missing some advanced features that can be found in other products such as automatic template replies, email filters and custom notification sounds.
Con Bad formatting support
Doesn't have HTML or markdown support
Con No way to block senders without going to the online version, super unwieldy
Con Freezes
GUI sometimes freezes for 10-30 seconds.
Con Can't move between accounts
Impossible to copy or move mails between accounts.
Con No custom signature with HTML or images
You will miss the option to customize the signature with HTML content and images.
Con Only available on Windows 10
Con Doesn't open links in junk folder
E.g .you can not unsubscribe from newsletter you put in junk.
Con Available only as part of Thunderbird
No standalone version of the calendar app is available. And if you're just interested in Lightning Calendar and not Thunderbird, the app will have additional functionality and interface elements that will get in the way of using the calendar.
Con Does not always clear old events from the display, even when the event has been deleted
When accessing Google Calendar, every check shows that the event does not exist anymore.
Con No full CalDAV support
CalDAV support is more hackish than working reliably. E.g. certain fields are not supported, or alarms can lead to duplication of events or changes being reset. As CalDAV support is not truly built-in, and the extension does not have a high quality.
Con Requires third-party gmail integration
And it's not supported in 60+. Use the old versions if you want anything to work.
Con Not for all the versions
You have to downgrade Thunderbird just because Lightning didn't upgrade to the last beta version.
Con Long term availability/ support
Although Thunderbird has an impressive track record and many years of reliable service, its continued existence has been doubtful more than once). For now, all seems good, but it would not be surprising if tomorrow it turns out Thunderbird "has left the building".