Use Google Calendar for your own schedule and for an event you organise yourself: anyone with an email address can answer Yes, No or Maybe to your invite. Use Junto when a group needs one calendar that everyone can open and add plans to, with no Google accounts, no email addresses, and who is going shown on every plan.
We make Junto, so read this as the maker's view. Every fact about Google below comes from Google's own help pages, checked November 6, 2026, and the section on where Google is better is not decoration.
One link for the group. Free up to 8 members.
Google Calendar is built around your calendar. When you make an event and invite people, the event is yours: you add the guests, they answer, you see the replies. That is excellent for a birthday dinner you are hosting.
A friend group, a couple or a club usually needs something else: one place where everyone's plans for the group live, that anyone in the group can add to. Google can do that too, with a shared calendar, but then every person needs a Google account. Junto is only that shared calendar, and joining takes a first name.
The rows that decide it for most groups are the first three: who has to have an account, who can add plans, and what you need to know about each person to invite them.
Junto and Google Calendar compared for a group
| Google Calendar | Junto | |
|---|---|---|
| Join a shared group calendar | Google account for each person | A first name, from a link |
| Who adds plans | Shared calendar: people you gave "Make changes" access. Event: the organizer | Anyone in the group (or admins only, your choice) |
| To invite someone you need | Their email address | Nothing: send the link in your group chat |
| RSVP | Yes, No, Maybe per event, also without a Google account | Going, maybe, not going on every plan |
| Who sees who is going | Guests, when "See guest list" is on | Everyone in the calendar |
| Your personal schedule | Yes, it is your main calendar | No: a one-way sync link into your own calendar |
| Free/busy and availability | Yes | No |
| Group size for free | Up to 200 guests per event, no member cap | 8 members on a private calendar; one-time $4.99 plus tax for more |
| App | Web plus iPhone and Android apps | Runs in the browser, no app |
Google facts from support.google.com/calendar answers 37161, 13839531, 37082 and 37100, checked November 6, 2026.
If everyone in your group already uses Google, a shared Google calendar is free, has no member limit, and lives next to everything else on your phone. Nothing about Junto beats that.
For an event you host, Google's invites are strong. "You can add anyone with an email address to your event, even if they don't have Google Calendar," and they reply with Yes, No or Maybe from the email. You can share an event by link too, and guests who are not signed in type their email to respond. Up to 200 people can be invited to one event.
Google also has what Junto does not: two-way sync with your own schedule, free/busy sharing so people see when you are busy, and native apps on every phone.
Pick Junto when the group, not one organizer, owns the plans. A friend group where anyone might suggest Friday drinks, a couple on different phones, a team, a book club. Anyone in it can add a plan, and every plan shows who is going.
Pick it when accounts are the problem. A shared Google calendar needs a Google account for each person. Some people do not have one, some will not use it for this, and some are on iPhone with everything in iCloud. Junto asks for a first name once and remembers them in the browser.
Pick it when you do not have everyone's email address, which is most group chats. You paste one link into the chat, and that is the whole invite.
Yes, and many people do. Each Junto member gets a sync link for the calendar. Add it in Google Calendar on a computer under Add other calendars, From URL (Google does not allow this in its phone app), and the group's plans appear next to your own.
The sync goes one way. A plan added in Junto shows up in Google. A plan you add in Google stays in Google, so group plans go on Junto.
Junto is not a personal calendar. It has no two-way sync, no free/busy view, no native phone app and no reminders on your phone beyond optional emails. A free private calendar stops at 8 members; past that it is a one-time $4.99 plus tax per calendar, while Google stays free.
If your group is happy on Google, stay on Google. Junto is for the groups that keep getting stuck on "can you make a Google account?"
One link for the group. Free up to 8 members.
You can, if everyone has a Google account and is happy using it: share a calendar and give each friend edit access. The friction comes when someone has no Google account, lives in iCloud, or you only have their number. Junto removes that: one link in the group chat, everyone types a first name, anyone can add plans.
Yes. Google says you can invite anyone with an email address, and they answer Yes, No or Maybe from the email. What needs a Google account is joining a shared calendar where the group adds its own plans. Junto covers that second case: a shared calendar that people join with a first name, no account and no email.
For group plans, yes. For your own schedule, no. Junto does not replace your personal calendar: it is one shared calendar for a group, with RSVPs on each plan. Most people keep Google for their own life and add its sync link to it, so the group's plans show up alongside their own events.
One way. Junto gives each member a sync link; in Google Calendar on a computer choose Add other calendars, From URL, and paste it. Group plans then appear in your Google Calendar on every device. Plans you add in Google do not go back to the group, so add group plans in the shared calendar itself.
Yes. Google Calendar is free, and an event can have up to 200 guests. A shared calendar has no member limit, but each member needs a Google account. Junto is free for a private calendar up to 8 members, then a one-time $4.99 plus tax per calendar, with no subscription. Public calendars there have no member limit.
Only people you shared it with and gave a "Make changes" permission, and they need a Google account. On a single event, guests can answer and, by default, invite others, but the event stays the organizer's. In Junto, everyone who joined the calendar can add plans unless the admin switches it to admins only.
If you both use Google, a shared Google calendar is free and lives in the app you already open. If one of you is on iPhone with iCloud and the other on Android, or one of you will not make a Google account, Junto works on both phones from a link. It is free for two people.
No. Junto never asks guests for an email address: you send the calendar link wherever your group talks, and each person types a first name. Email is optional, only for getting back in on a new device or for reminders. Google invites, by contrast, go to email addresses, and its event link asks people who are not signed in for their email.
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Last updated 2026-11-06