When I tell people about Kronistic, one of the first questions I often get is “What makes Kronistic different than Calendly?”
In case somehow you have never used Calendly, it works like this: somebody with a Calendly account sends a link to someone they want to meet with. That person clicks the link and chooses from the Calendly user’s available times. There are several other scheduling tools that use a similar link-sharing mechanism.
So, why is Kronistic different?
- MEETING SIZE
🧑💻🧑💻🧑💻🧑💻 Kronistic is designed for group meetings
🧑💻🧑💻 Calendly is optimized for 1:1 appointments
Calendly works great for 1:1 appointments. It is helps two people find a time to meet that works for both of them. The free version of calendly only accommodates 1:1s. With the paid version, “group” meetings open up – but the scheduling is still built on the availability options from one attendee (the link sharer). All the other attendees need to coordinate amongst themselves offline. In the advanced (and higher budget) versions of Calendly, there are polling options to support this coordination.
Kronistic is built from the ground up to work for groups. You can add as many attendees as you like to a Kronistic meeting, and Kron will take all their calendars into account.
Of course, if there are too many busy people in one meeting it might not be possible to find a time that they are all free. That’s why, for meetings much larger than 10 people, we recommend using the “optional” attendee setting to find a time that works the best for as many of the attendees as possible even if no time works for everyone. Make sure to set the critical attendees (eg, presenters, decision makers) as required.
- THE POWER HIERARCHY OF LINK SHARING
🔗 Calendly confers power to the link-sharer
🤝 Kron does not use link sharing and treats all calendars as equal
With Calendly, whoever shares the link controls the constraints for scheduling the meeting. If I send the link to you, you will have to choose from the times I gave you. If those times don’t work for you, you’ll have to either move something around in your calendar to accommodate me, or fire up email / slack / text to arrange a time manually.
With Kronistic, there is no link sharing. Kron checks everyone’s availability directly and then finds a time that works. This not only eliminates the link-sharing step, it means that the scheduling tool treats everyone’s calendars as equal. Everyone gets to put their own preferences and constraints into their own calendar without sharing those preferences with any other humans. Kron takes them all into account and finds the best balance. This approach is well suited to meetings with multiple similar-status stakeholders.
- RESCHEDULING
✅ Kronistic automatically reschedules meetings as attendees update their calendars
❌ Calendly meetings have to be rescheduled by hand
Scheduling a meeting is all well and good, but life happens. Things come up – kids get sick, a different work project catches fire, a new colleague needs to join the meeting. Now the meeting needs to get rescheduled.
With Calendly, you have to reschedule by hand, setting off a chain of emails or slack notifications. Whoever has the conflict is often apologizing and having to explain themselves. It can be a difficult political process, especially if the meeting was hard to schedule in the first place. For meetings that tend to be stable and/or have few attendees, this is less of a paint point.
With Kronistic, you just add the conflict to your calendar, and then Kron moves the meeting a few minutes later. No awkward conversations, no email bottlenecks, just a new time that works.
Choose the right scheduling tool for your needs
Kronistic and Calendly are both in the business of making it easier for you to schedule meetings. Kronistic is ideal for people with complex scheduling needs, frequent group meetings, and dynamic calendars that require flexibility. Calendly is great for getting 1:1 appointments booked quickly. Choose the right tool for your meeting and watch your calendar thrive.