Mozilla Calendar Apps: Lightning vs Sunbird
I am a huge fan of everything Mozilla - I see no reason to ever use anything other then Firefox and Thunderbird. I’ve been using Lighting for a while and though I should give Sunbird a spin - which one is right for you?
Explanation
Mozilla currently has two different calendar projects in the works. These two projects are being developed simultaneously and are just different forms of each other:
Lightning
Lightning is a Add-on for Thunderbird, Mozilla’s email application. You should consider using it if . . .
- you send or receive meeting invitations via email
- you already use Mozilla Thunderbird for email
Sunbird
Sunbird is a stand alone application. You may prefer it if . . .
- you prefer your calendar to be separate from your email client
- you don’t currently use Mozilla Thunderbird for your email
What’s The Real Difference?
Lightning
As I mentioned before, Lightning is a plugin for Thunderbird - which means that there is a pretty tight integration with the email app, I love that!! I use Thunderbird as my organizer: I use it to read my mail, RSS feeds and (with the Lighting plugin) manage my calender - it’s everything Outlook should have been! Lightning is currently at v.0.3.1 so it’s still in it’s infancy, although, it’s fully featured. I only mention it because it lacks some of the visual prettiness that I have come to love from all Mozilla products! But, rest assured, it runs great and I have had no issues at all - ever!
Sunbird
Sunbird is the Ying to Lighting’s Yang. It too is at v.0.3.1 but is very pretty visually. It runs great and works very intuitively! The nice thing about Sunbird is that, because it is a stand alone application, it doesn’t have to share screen real estate with anything. You can have a hundred calenders (figuratively speaking) and view them all together. With Lighting, you have the mail folders taking up room on the left hand navigation. One thing I don’t like is, when you have multiple events on one day, you have to scroll vertically to view them all. Lightning lists them as line items and is much easier to read!
Conclusion
Both of these apps are great - and they support Add-ons (formally “Plugins”) for extra functionality. I must admit that I lean more toward Lightning as my favorite because I like that the events are rendered smaller, making them easier to see. If you have no life, and not many events in one day (the why do you need a calender?!) then consider using Sunbird. If you like functionality similar to Outlook (email and calendar in one place), then check out Lightning.
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I like Mozilla stuff too but prefer the google calendar. It’s pretty easy to use and always available whenever i have internet. That’s really the selling feature for me as I don’t always have my laptop around.
There is a plugin that will allow you to sync with Google calendar! I have a post coming tomorrow that talks about it!
[...] Lightning Lightning is a full featured calender plugin with very tight integration with Thunderbird. If you like the calendar in Outlook, you should give this a shot! Read my Lightning vs Sunbird review. [...]
I recently changed to Firefox as a result of Bobs advice, and I love it!!! I think I might give Sunbird a go…I need to organize my life!!
Then you should use the Thunderbird/Lightning/Provider For Gmail Calender/Gmail approach!
Hummm…not sure my ‘not so technical’ brain will stretch any further!!!!
It’s really no big deal:
Basically, setting this up will allow you to read/write calendar events which can be read by any of your computers (because the events are actually hosted on your Google Calendar)!
If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask! You can post questions on my forums!
Aw thanks for that Saman! Maybe I could stretch my brain a little further!!!
[...] Finally, the 0.5 releases are available for all to enjoy! You can read more about Lighting & Sunbird in my review. [...]