cal.com Docker Production Build
Preface
cal.com is a booking management app that’s open source at its core. It was known previously as Calendso, and their Github repo states “The open-source Calendly successor.” From that you might think that Calendly is not around anymore and the development team evolved the project into cal.com. However, that’s not the case - the projects have no relation to each other save for the fact that they are both booking management apps.
The app is very slick and modern. The self-hostable open source version is powered by Next.js 13 with React and Tailwind UI components and styling. Under the hood is Postgres with Prisma ORM sat in front of it. It uses tRPC API, and Prisma as the ORM which is powered by a Postgres DB. There’s also mention of ‘daily.co’, which I’d never heard of before but it looks like it’s only available for enterprise/SaaS customers as an integrated voice and video-conferencing solution.
However, the developer experienc (DX) is pretty poor and the tools at your disposal to self-host the app are really lacking. Getting a solid, production-ready build was a real challenge which was not helped by the documentation or mystifying base repo and examples. Anyway, once working it fits a gap that’s been open for some time in the open source business apps space and it’s definitely worth a look if you take want to allow customers to book meetings or appointments with you seamlessly.