comparekloq vs react-big-calendarchecked 2026-09-01
react-big-calendar is free, complete and everywhere. kloq is the answer when its interactions stop feeling good enough.
react-big-calendar is MIT, includes every feature, and draws more than a million downloads a week. The comparison is about how the calendar feels under a pointer and what you carry to get it.
- react-big-calendar
- v1.20.0
- npm, last week
- 1,202,542
- rows kloq wins
- 4
- rows kloq loses
- 2
01side by side
The table, with the losses left in.
Every number below was read from npm and react-big-calendar's GitHub repository on 2026-09-01. Sources are at the foot of the page — check them.
| Compared | kloq | react-big-calendar | verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| LicenceBoth npm packages are MIT licensed. | MIT | MIT | even |
| Declared runtime dependenciesIt ships every date-library localizer it supports as a dependency. | 5 | 12, including moment, luxon, dayjs, globalize and lodash | kloq |
| Drag and drop | Built in, with snap magnetism and a pointer weld | An optional addon (withDragAndDrop) | even |
| ViewsDrag only runs on kloq's time-grid views; month and agenda are navigation surfaces by design, where react-big-calendar does let you drag. | Day, n-day (2–14), week, month, agenda, year | Month, week, day, agenda | even |
| Resource / timeline viewsreact-big-calendar can split its day and week views into per-resource columns, but time still runs top to bottom. Nothing lays resources down the side with time running horizontally, which is what kloq's timeline does. | Built in | Not built | kloq |
| React versions | 19 | 16.14, 17, 18, 19 | them |
| Recurrence | RFC 5545 RRULE, expanded live, this / following / all | Not built in — expand the series yourself | kloq |
| ICS import and export | Both directions, pure, never throws on input | Not built in | kloq |
| Styling | Tailwind v4 tokens, scoped to [data-kloq-root] | Compiled CSS, or SASS variables | even |
| Maturity | 0.1.0, new | 1.20.0, ~1.2M npm downloads a week | them |
02choose react-big-calendar
When react-big-calendar is the right answer.
Four cases where we would tell you to install theirs. If one of them is your case, stop reading — you have your answer and it isn't us.
Your users drag events around a month grid
react-big-calendar supports dragging in month view. kloq deliberately does not: month, agenda and year are selection-and-navigation surfaces, and the drag engine only runs on the time grid.
Your app already uses SASS for theming
react-big-calendar exposes SASS variables. kloq expects Tailwind v4 tokens, so adopting it would change your styling setup.
You are already on moment, luxon or globalize
Its localizer system is built around exactly those. kloq uses the platform's Intl and has no localizer seam to plug into.
You need React 16, 17 or 18
react-big-calendar supports back to 16.14. kloq requires React 19.
03choose kloq
And when we would say ours.
The narrower case — but it is the one this whole library was built for.
The gestures have started to annoy people
This is the honest reason teams leave. kloq's drag engine runs one rAF loop, writes transforms straight to DOM nodes, keeps the grabbed point welded under the pointer, and eases into 15-minute snaps instead of teleporting. Escape springs a drag home.
You want recurrence and ICS without assembling them
RRULE parsing, live expansion, this / following / all edit semantics, and RFC 5545 import and export both ship in the component and are exported as pure functions.
Your bundle already carries too much
react-big-calendar declares twelve runtime dependencies, among them four date libraries. kloq declares five and reaches for Intl.
You want the library in your repo
The shadcn registry installs kloq as ordinary files in your repo, so you can adjust its internals without maintaining a fork.
04migration
What moving off react-big-calendar looks like.
Not a codemod — an honest sketch of which concept becomes which. Most of the work is deleting things.
localizer={momentLocalizer(moment)}becomes— nothing —kloq formats through Intl. There is no localizer to construct; pass locale and displayTimeZone if you need to steer it.
events={events} startAccessor endAccessorbecomesdefaultEvents={events}No accessors: an event is { id, title, start, end } with allDay discriminating the two shapes.
withDragAndDrop(Calendar)becomes— nothing —Dragging is not an addon. It is the part of kloq that exists.
onEventDrop / onEventResizebecomesonCommit(change)One seam for every committed change, with optimistic apply and spring-back on rejection.
05check us
Where these numbers came from.
Read on 2026-09-01. If something below has moved, the table is wrong and we would like to know.