Family calendar apps compared 2026: prices, strengths and where each falls short

Most comparisons of family calendar apps list features and crown a winner. That is not much help, because the decision almost never hangs on the feature list. It hangs on three questions. Do you only want to share appointments, or organise the whole household? How many adults will really enter things? And what happens to your data? This article goes through the common options, with prices, real strengths and the points where each one falls down. That includes patchio, the app behind this page. At the end there is a section on who should not choose patchio.

All prices and details in this article come from the providers' official sources (pricing pages, app store listings, help pages) and are correct as of August 2026. App store prices change and differ by country. Check what is shown for you before you subscribe. The prices below are those of the German App Store.

First, the basic question: calendar or organiser?

There are two very different product categories, and in everyday life both are called a "family calendar".

A shared calendar does one thing: it makes appointments visible to several people. Google Calendar, Apple Calendar and TimeTree belong here. They are lean, mostly free and take five minutes to set up.

A family organiser also covers what comes up besides appointments: tasks with an owner, shopping lists, meal planning, sometimes finances or school. Cozi, FamilyWall, famanice and patchio belong here. More use, but also more setup, and the use only appears once more than one person takes part.

If you honestly only want to share appointments, stop reading here and choose Google or Apple. It costs nothing and it works.

Google Calendar

Price: free.

If you set up a Google family group, you automatically get a calendar called "Family" that all members see on every device they are signed in on. Alternatively, you share an ordinary calendar selectively, with graded rights per person: view only, or also create and edit.

Strong: costs nothing, runs on everything, and every second person has a Google account anyway. Sharing appointments with third parties works smoothly, and practically every other app can plug into Google Calendar.

Weak: it is a calendar, nothing more. Shopping lists, sharing out tasks, a meal plan – for those you need more apps and accounts. Every child who should take part needs their own Google account. And if you don't want Google's business model in your family life, there is no alternative here.

Suits: families already living in the Google ecosystem who only want appointments to be visible.

Apple Calendar

Price: free.

Through Family Sharing, up to six people share Apple services. A shared iCloud calendar is quickly set up and can be assigned with write or read rights like any other shared calendar.

Strong: deeply integrated on iPhone, iPad and Mac (Siri, lock screen, widgets), all without an extra app. Thrifty with data compared with ad-funded services.

Weak: as soon as one family member uses Android, it gets awkward. As with Google, the scope ends at the calendar. And user reports show that the "Family" calendar doesn't always appear for everyone automatically, so you sometimes have to invite people by hand.

Suits: all-Apple households that only share appointments.

TimeTree

Price: core free with ads. Premium is €2.99 a month or €29.99 a year (German App Store).

TimeTree is a shared group calendar with one special feature: every appointment has a comment area. So the arrangements sit where the appointment sits, rather than in a chat history. You can have several separate calendars per account: family, club, friends.

Strong: a very large user base, and 4.7 out of 5 stars in the German App Store from about 97,000 ratings. The core is genuinely free to use, and Premium is essentially no ads plus comfort. The entry barrier is low: even people who don't want a family app will join a TimeTree calendar.

Weak: two points worth knowing. First, the privacy details in the App Store show tracking via identifiers and usage data, and according to the privacy policy the data is held in Japan. Second, and more relevant in practice: TimeTree offers no export of your calendars, and its open interface was switched off at the end of 2023. If you have used TimeTree for years, it is hard to get your data out again. Also: calendar and notes, but no sharing out of tasks and no meal plan.

Suits: groups who need a shared calendar quickly and free of charge and don't miss organiser features.

Cozi Family Organizer

Price: free with ads. Cozi Gold is US$39 a year and Cozi Max US$79 a year according to the provider's pricing page. In the German App Store, Cozi Gold is listed at €39.00, among other prices.

Cozi has been on the market since 2005 and now belongs to OurFamilyWizard. Shared calendar, lists, recipe box and meal planner fit together cleanly.

Strong: mature and tried and tested like few other apps in this field. One subscription covers the whole family on all devices. The food area (recipes, weekly plan, shopping list generated from it) is one of the most rounded on the market.

Weak: the interface is English only, and Cozi doesn't offer a German version. For English-speaking adults that is no problem. It matters when children or relatives need to read German. Cozi is a US provider, the App Store details show tracking, and the free version contains ads. The free version is also more cut back than others: even the month view on the smartphone, calendar search and more than one reminder per appointment belong to Gold.

Suits: English-speaking households who want a mature classic with a strong meal planner.

FamilyWall

Price: free version with ads. Premium is €4.99 a month or €39.99 a year in the German App Store, with a 30-day trial.

FamilyWall is the broadest organiser in the field: calendar, lists, tasks, family messenger, address book, documents, meal planner, budget, and, as its unique selling point, location sharing with notifications when someone arrives at or leaves a place.

Strong: if you want location sharing ("did she get to school?"), FamilyWall is the obvious choice among the family organisers. German interface, established internationally, a solid free scope.

Weak: a lot sits behind the paywall, including calendar sync with Google and Outlook, the meal planner and the budget tracker. The provider is European, but according to its privacy policy data is also stored in the USA, and the App Store details show tracking. And location sharing is not a neutral function: with teenagers, it is a topic to talk through before you switch it on.

Suits: families with younger children who want an organiser and location tracking in one app.

famanice

Price: free with ads. PRO is €2.99 a month or €29.99 a year for the whole family, with a four-week free trial.

The German player in the field: family calendar, to-dos, shopping list, family chat and its own school module with timetable, homework and exam dates. It runs on iOS, Android, Windows, Mac and in the browser.

Strong: inexpensive, German-language, a German provider with data held in Germany according to its own FAQ. The school module is a real plus compared with the international apps. And the combination of calendar and chat in one place suits many families.

Weak: here too, a lot is in PRO: month view, appointment search, assigning tasks, calendar sync. No meal plan, no parenting schedule for separated parents, and one account per family rather than one account per person, which hits limits in blended families with several households. The interface is German only.

Suits: German-speaking core families with school-age children who want to spend little.

A quick aside: Familo is not a calendar

Familo regularly turns up in search results for family apps, but it is something different: a location and chat app that lets families see who is where, with notifications when someone arrives at known places and an emergency button. It has no shared calendar. If you want to share appointments, Familo is not the answer. If you want to share locations, it belongs on the shortlist.

patchio

Price: €4.99 a month or €39 a year (equivalent to €3.25 a month) for the whole household, with a 30-day free trial.

patchio is a family organiser with a great many modules: calendar, tasks with points and rewards, shopping lists, meal plan with recipes, finances with cost splitting, health, school, vehicles, polls, loyalty cards. Two things set it apart structurally. One is a parenting schedule (Wechselplan) for separated parents, showing for each day which home the children are in. The other is that you can be in several households with one account, with separate visibility per entry. In addition: no ads in any version, no third-party trackers, EU hosting, a complete data export at any time, and import from TimeTree, Google, Apple and Outlook.

Weak: see the next section.

When patchio is the wrong choice

A comparison in which your own app wins everywhere is not a comparison. These points speak against patchio:

• You only want a shared appointment calendar. Then patchio is oversized. Google Calendar or Apple Calendar cost nothing and solve it completely.
• You never want to pay. patchio has no permanent free version, only a 30-day trial. TimeTree and famanice offer a usable free core, and Google and Apple are entirely free. If budget is the deciding factor, patchio is not the answer.
• You live outside Germany, Austria and Switzerland. patchio is fully available in German and English, but it is built around everyday life in Germany, Austria and Switzerland: public and school holidays, vehicle deadlines such as the HU, Pickerl and MFK, loyalty cards such as Payback and DeutschlandCard. If you live elsewhere, you won't use a good part of that.
• You want an Android app from the Play Store. patchio doesn't have one yet. On Android, patchio runs in the browser and can be placed on the home screen. A native app is in the works, with no promised date. If you want a Play Store app today, you will find one from all the other providers named here.
• You want location sharing. patchio doesn't track anyone, on purpose. If that is exactly your use case, take FamilyWall or Familo.
• You want a family chat at the centre. patchio has no messenger. Arrangements run through appointments, tasks and polls. If you want to keep communication in the same app, you are better off with famanice, FamilyWall or TimeTree.
• Only one person enters things in your family anyway. Then no app moves the problem. It only makes it more visible. The more honest first step is a conversation about how the work is shared, and we have a separate article for that: Sharing the mental load fairly.

The decision in four sentences

Just sharing appointments, everyone in the same ecosystem: Google or Apple, free. Just sharing appointments, mixed devices, arrangements attached to the appointment: TimeTree. The whole household in one app, German-language, small budget: famanice. If you also want location sharing: FamilyWall. In English with a strong meal planner: Cozi. Separated parents, several households, no ads and data export as hard criteria: then it is worth a look at patchio. The detailed comparisons show axis by axis where the differences lie.

And whatever you choose, check before you switch how you would get out again. An app without export is a one-way street, and you only notice after three years of collected family history.