10 jQuery Calendar Free Resources to Supercharge Your Apps

Are you searching for the best jquery calendar free resources to power up your web apps without breaking the bank? With the surge of dynamic scheduling needs, choosing the right calendar plugin can save you hours of development time and elevate user experience. FullCalendar, the MIT‑licensed juggernaut, leads the pack with over 2 million npm downloads per month and 19,368 stars on GitHub, while its latest v6.1.17 release on April 2, 2025 keeps it rock‑solid and feature‑rich. For simple date inputs, jQuery UI Datepicker attaches seamlessly to text fields, ships with 40+ locale files, and includes built‑in keyboard navigation for accessibility.

Over the next few sections, we’ll analyze and compare top free jQuery calendar offerings—from drag‑and‑drop event managers like FullCalendar to sleek pickers such as CLNDR.js, Zabuto Calendar, Pickadate.js, Eyecon Datepicker, and the jQuery Date & Time Picker—so you can find, integrate, and customize the perfect solution for your project. You’ll also get step‑by‑step integration tips, customization pointers, and links to live demos and documentation, ensuring you can deploy in minutes.

Top jQuery Calendar Free Resources to Try

FullCalendar: The Gold Standard for Event Calendars

FullCalendar is an MIT‑licensed, open‑source JavaScript calendar that supports drag‑and‑drop, day/week/month views, and extensive plugin architecture. It boasts over 19,367 stars on GitHub, reflecting its popularity and active community GitHub. FullCalendar consistently delivers updates (latest v6.1.17 released April 2, 2025) GitHub. Its modular design lets you include only the features you need—reducing bundle size while keeping flexibility. It integrates seamlessly with React, Vue, and Angular via official adapters.

Key Features

• Multiple Views: Month, week, day, timeline, list

• Interactivity: Drag‑and‑drop events, resizing

• Plugins: Recurring events, resource scheduling

• Customization: Theming, custom render hooks

• Integration: CDN, NPM, or direct import

The Datepicker comes bundled with jQuery UI and lets you attach a calendar overlay directly to any text input—no extra dependencies beyond jQuery and jQuery UI jQuery UI. It’s skinnable via CSS, supports 40+ locales out of the box, and includes ARIA roles and keyboard navigation for accessibility.

jQuery UI Datepicker: Lightweight and Ubiquitous

The Datepicker comes bundled with jQuery UI and lets you attach a calendar overlay directly to any text input—no extra dependencies beyond jQuery and jQuery UI jQuery UI. It’s skinnable via CSS, supports 40+ locales out of the box, and includes ARIA roles and keyboard navigation for accessibility.

$(‘#myDate’).datepicker({
dateFormat: ‘yy-mm-dd’,
showButtonPanel: true
});

CLNDR.js: Template‑Driven, Fully Customizable

CLNDR.js doesn’t impose HTML structure—instead you supply an Underscore.js template and it returns rich date/event data you can render however you like . It requires Moment.js and Underscore.js, but offers unparalleled flexibility for custom layouts and multi‑day events.

Zabuto Calendar: Simple Bootstrap Month View

Zabuto Calendar lets you embed a clean, Bootstrap‑styled month grid and load events via AJAX JSON feeds. You can configure language, restrict past dates, and hook into “day click” callbacks—ideal for event dashboards.

Pickadate.js: Mobile‑Friendly Date & Time Picker

Pickadate.js is a responsive, touch‑optimized picker for both dates and times. It’s fully WCAG‑compliant, supports RTL, and ships with several themes. Initialization is trivial:

$(‘.datepicker’).pickadate();
$(‘.timepicker’).pickatime();

Dive into each collection for demos, download links, and integration tips:

15 jQuery Calendar Date Picker Plugins

A deep dive into fifteen standout date‑picker and event‑calendar plugins. You’ll find:

• Date Range Picker: simple start/end date selection.

• Timeline calendar: horizontal chronology views.

• jQuery Frontier Calendar: week/month event views.

• FullCalendar: a Google‑Calendar clone with drag‑and‑drop

• glDatePicker: lightweight date selector.

• BlueShoes JS DatePicker: CSS‑styled date component.

• jQuery Calendar Widget Plugin: inline calendar widget.

• jQuery.calendarPicker: minimalistic monthly calendar.

• AJAX Booking Calendar Pro: booking‑focused event slots.

• wdCalendar: jQuery‑based Google Calendar clone.

• Simple Events Calendar JS: basic event rendering.

• Sexy jCal: multiday event picker.

40 Extensions And Plugins for Extending Bootstrap

Includes Bootstrap Calendar, a full‑view year/month/week/day calendar styled with Bootstrap.

14 jQuery Mobile Plugins for Mobile Devices

Among these is Jqm Calendar, an iOS‑style mobile date/activity calendar.

14 jQuery Free Timeline Plugins

Timeline plugins like Timelinr and b1njTimeline can be adapted into calendar‑style displays.

How to Integrate These Free jQuery Calendar Resources

Step‑by‑Step: Adding FullCalendar to Your Page

Install via CDN

<link href=’https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/fullcalendar@6.1.17/main.min.css’ rel=’stylesheet’ />
<script src=’https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/fullcalendar@6.1.17/main.min.js’></script>

Initialize

document.addEventListener(‘DOMContentLoaded’, function() {
var calendarEl = document.getElementById(‘calendar’);
var calendar = new FullCalendar.Calendar(calendarEl, {
initialView: ‘dayGridMonth’,
events: ‘/my-events-feed’
});
calendar.render();
});

Customize: Add plugins like interactionPlugin for drag‑and‑drop GitHub.

Best Practices and Tips

• Load Only What You Need: Tree‑shake unused plugins.

• Use Localization: Match the user’s locale.

• Optimize for Mobile: Test touch interactions thoroughly.

• Leverage JSON Feeds: Separate data from view logic.

• Fallbacks: For simple date inputs, include the jQuery UI Datepicker.

Conclusion

We’ve covered an arsenal of jquery calendar free resources—from battle‑tested plugins like FullCalendar and jQuery UI Datepicker to jQuery Extension and Plugins. Each solution solves a specific need, whether you’re building a simple date picker or a full‑blown scheduling app. Start by picking the plugin that best matches your feature requirements, then layer on design assets and best‑practice patterns to deliver a polished experience. Which calendar resource will you integrate first?

Next Steps

• • Evaluate your project’s needs: static vs. dynamic events, resource views, mobile support.

  • Prototype with two libraries side by side.