Matí vs Fantastical: What You Get Without a $40/Year Subscription
Fantastical is a great calendar app. I used it for years. But when Flexibits moved to a $40/year subscription and locked basic features behind the paywall, I started building Matí — a free alternative that covers what most people actually need. (I wrote about the full backstory in why I built Matí.)
Here’s an honest comparison.
What both apps do well
| Feature | Matí | Fantastical |
|---|---|---|
| Day / Week / Month / Year views | Yes | Yes |
| Natural language event creation | Yes | Yes |
| Multiple calendar accounts | Yes (EventKit) | Yes (direct + EventKit) |
| Drag-to-create events | Yes | Yes |
| Drag-to-move events | Yes | Yes |
| Widgets (lock screen + home) | Yes | Yes |
| Conference call detection | Zoom, Meet, Teams, Webex, FaceTime | 30+ services |
| Location search + map preview | Yes | Yes |
| Recurring events | Yes | Yes |
| Apple Vision Pro | Yes | Yes |
Where Fantastical is ahead
- Calendar Sets — group calendars and toggle entire sets. Matí only has individual show/hide.
- Tasks integration — Fantastical shows Reminders, Google Tasks, and Todoist alongside events. Matí doesn’t have task support yet.
- Weather — 10-day AccuWeather forecast in the calendar view.
- Apple Watch app — Matí doesn’t have one yet.
- Interesting Calendars — subscribe to sports schedules, holidays, TV shows.
- Scheduling (Openings) — built-in Calendly-style booking links.
Where Matí wins
- Price — Free. No subscription, no trial that expires, no feature gates.
- Privacy — Uses EventKit (your system calendars). No account required, no data leaves your device.
- Lightweight — No sync service, no server dependency. Your calendars work through iCloud/Google/Exchange as they already do.
- Read-only calendar protection — Events from subscribed or shared calendars can’t accidentally be moved.
- macOS Liquid Glass — Built for macOS 26 with proper glass material support.
The bottom line
If you need Calendar Sets, tasks, weather, and an Apple Watch app — Fantastical is worth the subscription. It’s genuinely excellent.
If you need a fast, native calendar app with natural language input, drag interactions, Zoom link detection, and widgets — and you don’t want to pay $40/year — Matí does the job.