The Events Calendar
by The Events Calendar
The most widely used events plugin, with calendar views, venues, organisers and a ticketing add-on.
This link may earn us a commission. It never changes our rating.
What The Events Calendar does
The most widely used events plugin, with calendar views, venues, organisers and a ticketing add-on.
It sits in the events part of a WordPress stack and is sold by The Events Calendar on a freemium basis. We recommend it in our events guides because it does that one job well without asking you to rebuild the rest of the site around it.
Every plugin adds work to a page request, so treat this as a decision with a cost. Record a speed test before you install it and run the same test afterwards, on the same page, so you know exactly what it charged you.
Real user ratings
Score
4.2/5
Reviews
2,453
Active installs
600,000+
Downloads
86.3M
Latest version
6.17.4.1
Last updated
2026-09-10
These figures come straight from the public WordPress.org plugin directory API for version 6.17.4.1, not from us. Check them yourself on the WordPress.org listing. Our own editorial score is 4.4/5.
Where The Events Calendar ranks elsewhere
The Events Calendar does not appear in the published "best of" lists we track from WPBeginner, TechRadar, Kinsta, Themeisle and similar sites. That is not a mark against it - those roundups are short and skew towards the biggest names.
What changed in the latest version
- Security - Strengthened validation of copied widget instances.
- Fix - Resolved an issue where the Day View direct URL omitted recurring event occurrences because an earlier query on the same repository froze the custom tables date redirection.
- Fix - Fixed a fatal error when reading an event's venues or organizers on sites running a persistent object cache, caused by a cached lazy collection losing the callback it needs to rebuild itself. Also added the tec_events_lazy_post_col...
- Language - 0 new strings added, 100 updated, 0 fuzzied, and 0 obsoleted.
- Security - Harden capability checks on REST API archive endpoints
- Security - Harden validation of copied widget instance data
Release notes are the developer's own words, published on WordPress.org. Read the full changelog
Pros and cons
- Mature, well-supported and extensible
- A free tier you can trial before paying
- Actively maintained and used on production sites we test
- Ticketing and recurrence cost extra
- The features most sites need sit in the paid tier
How to use it
- 1Create one test event with a venue, organiser and image.
- 2Configure time zones and recurring rules before publishing real dates.
- 3Test the ticket purchase and confirmation email flow.
- 4Check the calendar view on a phone as well as a desktop.
- 5Exclude calendar and checkout pages from caching.
How it compares
Other events plugins we recommend, with their rating and pricing model.
| Plugin | Our rating | WordPress.org | Pricing | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Events Calendar | 4.4 | 4.2 (2,453) | Freemium | Mature, well-supported and extensible |
| Event Espresso | 4.1 | 4.4 (135) | Premium | Serious registration workflows |
| Eventin | 4.4 | 4.7 (398) | Freemium | Modern editor integration |
| FooEvents | 4.5 | n/a | Premium | Uses your existing WooCommerce checkout |
| Modern Events Calendar | 4.0 | n/a | Freemium | Very large feature list |
| Tickera | 4.3 | 4.5 (289) | Premium | No commission per ticket |
Guides that cover The Events Calendar
9 Best WordPress Church Plugins for 2026
Sermons, events, groups, giving, locations and member communication. The right plugin fits the ministry workflow without making the public site harder to use.
Updated 10 September 2026
8 Best WordPress Event Ticketing Plugins for 2026
Ticketing connects schedules, capacity, prices, attendee records, payments, check-in, refunds and communication. The event page is only the visible edge.
Updated 10 September 2026
Alternatives
Other events plugins
Event Espresso
Event Espresso
Event registration and ticketing with attendee management, waitlists and on-site check-in.
135 reviews · 230K downloads · v5.0.58.decaf
Eventin
Themewinter
Events, tickets, speakers and schedules with block and Elementor support.
398 reviews · 888K downloads · v4.1.24
FooEvents
FooEvents
Turns WooCommerce products into tickets, with seating, check-in apps and custom attendee fields.