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Comparison · Comms
The Events Calendar vs Stalwart
A side-by-side editorial comparison of The Events Calendar and Stalwart — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
The Events Calendar vs Stalwart: at a glance
What is The Events Calendar?
The Events Calendar runs a disciplined maintenance train across its whole plugin suite.
The Events Calendar is a mature WordPress events and ticketing suite spanning several plugins — the core calendar, Event Tickets, Filter Bar, Community, and Pro add-ons. The recent release stream is almost entirely maintenance: bug fixes, translation updates, accessibility work, and payment-gateway handling for PayPal, Square, and Stripe. Development is spread evenly across the plugin family rather than concentrated in one flagship.
What is Stalwart?
Stalwart keeps hardening its JMAP stack while moving early on emerging email-auth standards.
Stalwart is an all-in-one mail and collaboration server — JMAP, IMAP, SMTP, CalDAV and OIDC in one binary — shipping point releases every week or two. The last five releases pair an aggressive JMAP conformance drive with steady expansion of standards coverage. It reads as a project optimizing for correctness and completeness rather than new product surface.
The Events Calendar vs Stalwart: editorial side-by-side
The Events Calendar
0.0COMMS
The Events Calendar runs a disciplined maintenance train across its whole plugin suite.
◆ Current state
The Events Calendar is a mature WordPress events and ticketing suite spanning several plugins — the core calendar, Event Tickets, Filter Bar, Community, and Pro add-ons. The recent release stream is almost entirely maintenance: bug fixes, translation updates, accessibility work, and payment-gateway handling for PayPal, Square, and Stripe. Development is spread evenly across the plugin family rather than concentrated in one flagship.
◆ Where it's heading
This is a product in steady stewardship mode. The releases show a team keeping a large installed base stable — tightening capability checks for security, fixing pagination and view rendering, improving WooCommerce and Elementor compatibility — with no new capability surface in view. Accessibility and payment reliability are recurring focus areas.
◆ Prediction
Expect the same cadence of small, per-plugin maintenance releases to continue, with security hardening and gateway compatibility as the likely themes. Nothing in these entries signals a larger feature push.
Stalwart
5.0COMMS
Stalwart keeps hardening its JMAP stack while moving early on emerging email-auth standards.
◆ Current state
Stalwart is an all-in-one mail and collaboration server — JMAP, IMAP, SMTP, CalDAV and OIDC in one binary — shipping point releases every week or two. The last five releases pair an aggressive JMAP conformance drive with steady expansion of standards coverage. It reads as a project optimizing for correctness and completeness rather than new product surface.
◆ Where it's heading
Two arcs run in parallel: closing JMAP spec gaps to pass conformance suites, and adopting fresh email-authentication standards (DKIM2, DMARCbis, VAPID web push) ahead of most competitors. Platform reach (FreeBSD) and at-rest encryption round out a hardening push. The direction is a standards-maximal, production-grade mail server, not a feature-led one.
◆ Prediction
Expect more 0.16.x point releases that finish the JMAP conformance work and stabilize the new DKIM2, DMARCbis and web-push paths, with fixes continuing to outnumber features.
Alternatives to The Events Calendar and Stalwart
Other Comms products tracked by Sparkpulse, ranked by recent ship velocity. Each card links to a full editorial trajectory and lets you pivot into a head-to-head comparison with either The Events Calendar or Stalwart.
Threema
Threema's feed is mostly privacy advocacy, with occasional business-app polish
LatePoint
LatePoint ships steadily but tells you almost nothing about what changes.
SimpleX Chat
SimpleX's 7.0 betas are quietly rebuilding it around named, verifiable channels.
Telnyx
Telnyx is building Voice AI into a full agent platform — shipping capability daily.
Salon Booking System
Salon Booking System ships tight monthly point releases on booking, sync, and security.
See all The Events Calendar alternatives → · See all Stalwart alternatives →
Recent activity from The Events Calendar and Stalwart
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 18h agoStalwartVAPID web push and a broad cross-protocol bug sweep
- 8d agoStalwartFreeBSD support and OAuth resource-indicator handling
- 14d agoStalwartDKIM2 and full DMARCbis email authentication land
- 25d agoStalwartAt-rest S/MIME encryption and Redis Sentinel backend
- 29d agoStalwartIDN support and a large JMAP conformance pass
- 3mo agoThe Events CalendarEvent Tickets 5.27.6.1
- 3mo agoThe Events CalendarThe Events Calendar 6.15.20
- 3mo agoThe Events CalendarThe Events Calendar 6.15.19
- 3mo agoThe Events CalendarEvent Tickets 5.27.6
- 3mo agoThe Events CalendarCommunity 5.0.15
- 3mo agoThe Events CalendarThe Events Calendar 6.15.18
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between The Events Calendar and Stalwart?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. Stalwart is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 5.0 vs 0.0), with 0 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.
Is The Events Calendar better than Stalwart?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. Stalwart is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 5.0 vs 0.0), with 0 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other Comms products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to The Events Calendar?
Top The Events Calendar alternatives in Comms are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "The Events Calendar alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/the-events-calendar for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to Stalwart?
Top Stalwart alternatives in Comms are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Stalwart alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/stalwart for the full list with editorial commentary on each.