What’s the difference between GravityCalendar and The Events Calendar?

They start from opposite places. GravityCalendar is an add-on for Gravity Forms that turns your form entries into a calendar, covering any date-bearing data you already collect, not just "events." The Events Calendar is a standalone events plugin with its own event post type, saved venues, and organizers that you manage from the WordPress admin. If your data lives in Gravity Forms, GravityCalendar displays it without re-entering anything; if you want a dedicated, self-contained events system, The Events Calendar is purpose-built for that.

Does GravityCalendar require Gravity Forms or GravityView to work?

GravityCalendar requires Gravity Forms (any licensed tier, from $59/year) because it reads your form entries, but it does not require GravityView. GravityView is optional: it only matters if you want to embed a calendar inside an existing GravityView View. The Events Calendar, by contrast, is fully standalone and needs no form plugin at all, which can be simpler if you aren't already running Gravity Forms.

Can GravityCalendar create recurring events like The Events Calendar?

Yes, but the mechanism differs. GravityCalendar supports recurring events through the free Gravity Forms Event Field add-on: you add an Event field to your form, which bundles start and end dates, times, timezone, and a repeat frequency into one field. It is not an automatic, native toggle the way recurrence is in Events Calendar Pro, where recurring events and Event Series are built in. Both get you repeating events; The Events Calendar's is more turnkey, while GravityCalendar's is free and form-driven.

Can visitors submit events from the front end, and can I approve them first?

Both can accept front-end submissions, but the setup differs. With GravityCalendar, submission is native through a normal Gravity Forms form: a visitor fills it out and the entry appears on the calendar, with no extra add-on required. What is not built in is an approve-before-publish step, so submitted events show as soon as they are saved unless you add moderation with GravityView's entry approval or a status field your feed filters on. The Events Calendar puts front-end submission and its moderation together in the paid Community Events add-on, which can hold submitted events for review before they go live.

Which is cheaper, and does either offer a lifetime license?

GravityCalendar is $99/year standalone (or lifetime from $399), and it's also included in the All Access Pass at $396/year, though you also need a Gravity Forms license. The Events Calendar has a genuinely capable free core on WordPress.org; its paid tiers run Essentials $259 / Pro $399 / Elite $599 per year, single-site, with no lifetime option. So The Events Calendar can cost nothing to start, while GravityCalendar is the only one of the two offering a one-time lifetime license.

I need event registration, not just a calendar. Which fits better?

This is where GravityCalendar's Gravity Forms foundation helps: registration is just another form, so you can collect signups, RSVPs, and payments with the same tooling that powers the calendar, then display and register for events on the front end. The Events Calendar separates these concerns: the calendar is one plugin and registration or ticketing comes from its free Event Tickets plugin (with Event Tickets Plus as the paid upgrade). If forms and registration are central to your project, GravityCalendar keeps everything in one system; if you want a dedicated ticketing interface, The Events Calendar's ticketing stack is more specialized.

Does GravityCalendar have as many calendar views as The Events Calendar?

Not as many, by design. GravityCalendar offers Grid, Agenda, and List views, which cover month, week, and day displays (built on the open-source FullCalendar library). The Events Calendar's free version includes Month, List, and Day, and its paid tiers add four more (Week, Photo, Map, and Summary) for seven total, plus saved venues and organizers. If you need a Photo or Map view, or want a deep, dedicated set of event-browsing layouts, that is a real strength of The Events Calendar.

Can I sync the calendar with Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, or Outlook?

Both plugins let visitors take your calendar with them. GravityCalendar provides subscribable feeds for Google Calendar and Apple Calendar, plus downloadable .ics files that import into Outlook and most other calendar apps, and The Events Calendar offers Google Calendar and iCal export from its event pages. GravityCalendar also works in the other direction: with its Display Events from Another Calendar Feed setting, you can paste an external iCal feed URL, such as a public Google Calendar or a holidays feed, and show it on your own calendar in its own color (you can pull in another GravityCalendar feed the same way). Those external events display read-only, so this is showing outside dates alongside yours rather than two-way editing that writes changes back to the source.

Does one form submission create one event, or can it show multiple dates?

By default, each Gravity Forms entry is one event on the calendar, so a single submission produces a single event. If an event needs to repeat, the free Gravity Forms Event Field add-on lets one submission recur daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly until an end date. And if one form collects several different dates, such as an application date and a deadline, you can show them together by creating one calendar feed per date and combining the feeds on one calendar.

Compare / The Events Calendar

GravityCalendar vs The Events Calendar

GravityCalendar turns Gravity Forms entries into a live calendar of events, schedules, and deadlines, while The Events Calendar (StellarWP) is a standalone plugin built specifically for publishing and managing events.

Last updated:

June 30, 2026

What’s the verdict?

The Events Calendar is a mature, standalone events platform with a genuinely capable free version, reusable venues and organizers, and the largest install base of any WordPress calendar. GravityCalendar takes a different path: it reads your Gravity Forms entries and renders them on a calendar, so the same form that collects a sign-up, a class schedule, or any dated entry also drives what visitors see, with front-end submission and drag-and-drop editing built in.

Choose GravityCalendar if…

You already use Gravity Forms, or want visitors to submit events, registrations, or schedules from the front end and see them on a calendar straight away, with the freedom to display any date-based form data and not just events.

Choose The Events Calendar if…

You want a self-contained events system that runs without a form plugin and starts free, covering month, list, and day views, saved venues and organizers, event search, and Google or iCal export.

Core differences and capabilities

Decision factor	GravityCalendar	The Events Calendar
What you can display	Any date-bearing form data: events, registrations, schedules, deadlines	Events, with venues and organizers
Free version	No (requires paid Gravity Forms)	Yes (capable free core)
Works without a form plugin	No (needs Gravity Forms)	Yes (standalone)
How events are created	Front-end form submission by any user, or admin	Admin dashboard (front-end via paid add-on)
Front-end drag-and-drop editing	Yes	No
Calendar views	3 layouts: Grid, Agenda, List (month, week, day)	Month, List, Day free; plus Week, Photo, Map, Summary with paid (7 total)
Recurring events	Yes, via the free Event Field add-on	Yes, paid (Pro), with Event Series
Venues and organizers	Modeled as form fields	Built-in reusable taxonomies (free)
Ticketing and registration	Via Gravity Forms (no dedicated ticketing UI)	Dedicated ticketing via the free Event Tickets plugin (paid Plus)
Conditional-logic filtering	Yes (on the form and the calendar)	Category and tag filtering; faceted via paid add-on
Calendar feed subscription and iCal export	Yes	Yes
Lifetime license	Yes (from $399 one-time)	No (annual only)

Decision factors

Where your event data comes from

This is the core architectural split. GravityCalendar displays Gravity Forms entries, so events are created the moment someone submits a form, including logged-out visitors if the form allows it, and every field you add to the form becomes data you can show. The Events Calendar stores events as WordPress custom post types created in the admin dashboard, which gives you a structured, standalone events database but limits front-end submission to its paid Community Events add-on. Both models are valid: GravityCalendar trades a fixed event schema for flexibility and form-driven workflows, while The Events Calendar trades open submission for a purpose-built event record.

What it costs to get started

If you are not already running Gravity Forms, The Events Calendar is cheaper to start, because its core plugin is free and fully usable for a basic admin-managed calendar, with paid tiers from $259 per year when you need more. If you are running Gravity Forms, the calculus flips: GravityCalendar is $99 per year for a single site (or a one-time lifetime license from $399) on top of a Gravity Forms license from $59 per year, and it reuses tooling you already own. One difference worth noting is what each price ladder buys: GravityCalendar’s tiers ($99 / $179 / $299) add more sites, while The Events Calendar’s tiers ($259 / $399 / $599) add more features on a single site. GravityCalendar is also the only one of the two with a lifetime option.

Views, venues, and the range of what you show

The Events Calendar leads on event-specific presentation: it offers up to seven calendar views and treats venues and organizers as reusable taxonomies with their own pages, which GravityCalendar does not replicate (you would model that information as form fields instead). GravityCalendar offers three layouts (Grid, Agenda, and List, covering month, week, and day views) and counters with breadth of a different kind, since it can put anything with a date on a calendar, from class schedules and application deadlines to any dated form entry, and lets logged-in users reschedule entries by dragging them. If your priority is a rich events showcase, The Events Calendar wins; if it is a flexible, form-driven calendar of mixed date-based data, GravityCalendar does more.

Pricing and cost considerations

Cost factor	GravityCalendar	The Events Calendar
Entry cost	$99/yr (single site), plus Gravity Forms from $59/yr	Free core; paid tiers from $259/yr (Essentials)
Ongoing costs	Annual renewal for GravityCalendar and Gravity Forms, or a one-time lifetime license	Annual subscription only
Cost predictability	Flat price per tier; a lifetime license removes renewals	Flat price per tier, renewed yearly
Cost scaling	$99 / $179 / $299 per year by site count	$259 / $399 / $599 per year by feature tier (single site)
Refund and trial	30-day money-back guarantee (no questions asked); free live demos	30-day money-back guarantee; 48-hour free trial
Lifetime license available?	Yes, from $399 one-time (single site)	No

Prices were accurate at the time of writing. Please check the product pages for current pricing.

Use cases and best fit

A community or listings site where visitors submit their own events

When the people adding events are your visitors rather than your admins, GravityCalendar fits naturally. Each submission is a Gravity Forms entry, so you decide exactly which fields to collect, apply conditional logic to control what shows, and take payment at submission if you need to. The Events Calendar can accept front-end submissions too, but only through its paid Community Events add-on, whereas with GravityCalendar it is the default behavior of the form.

Best fit: GravityCalendar

An organization publishing and promoting its own events schedule

If your team curates a fixed schedule of events from the dashboard, The Events Calendar is built for exactly this. You get reusable venues and organizers, recurring events with Event Series on its paid tier, up to seven views including Map and Photo, and a free core you can launch with today. GravityCalendar can present an admin-managed schedule as well, but it has no dedicated venue or organizer management and fewer view options, so the purpose-built events tool is the cleaner choice here.

Best fit: The Events Calendar

A class schedule, deadline, or other non-event calendar

Plenty of calendars are not event listings at all: class timetables, application or content deadlines, or other schedules your forms collect. Because GravityCalendar renders any entry with a date field, it shows these on a calendar without forcing them into an events model. One caveat: GravityCalendar is a display layer, not a booking tool, so it shows the dated entries you already collect but does not pick open slots or block out dates as they fill. True availability booking needs a dedicated booking plugin. The Events Calendar, organized around events, venues, and organizers, is an awkward fit when what you are showing is not an event.

Best fit: GravityCalendar