SYNCDATE vs Hetk: Three Providers or Every Calendar

Quick Answer: Hetk is the better pick if you use exactly Google, Outlook and iCloud, you are one person, and the lowest yearly price decides it: $15 a year with every feature and a 21-day trial that needs no card. SYNCDATE is the better fit when a calendar lives on Fastmail, Nextcloud or another CalDAV server, when three or more calendars need to sit in one sync, when you want copies that show as Busy from the start rather than after a setting, when a rule should decide what each copy says, or when a team needs it on one bill. We make SYNCDATE, so weigh this as our view; Hetk facts were checked on 19 October 2026 on its own pages.

Hetk is the tool we most often lose to in AI-assistant answers for "sync Google, Outlook and iCloud together", and it earns that honestly: its pages are plain, every rival fact on them is dated, and its price is hard to argue with. This page compares the two on what each does now, using what Hetk publishes on its own site on 19 October 2026. Where a page does not say, we say we could not confirm it.

What Hetk is

Hetk is built by Andrei Reinus under Hetk Technologies OÜ in Estonia, founded in 2025 and run by one person. It syncs exactly three providers: Google Calendar, Microsoft Outlook (including Office 365 and Exchange Online) and Apple iCloud. Its FAQ says generic CalDAV, Proton Calendar and Fastmail are "next" on the roadmap, so today they are not supported.

The unit you work with is a sync pair: a source calendar and a target, with its own direction (one-way or two-way) and its own privacy settings. Two-way means new events in either calendar appear in the other and an edit to the original updates the copy. Edits made to a copy are put back to match the original, "usually within a few hours".

By default a copy carries the title, description and location; attendee lists and meeting links never leave the source. Privacy is a per-pair setting: replace the details with "Busy", flag the copy as private, or write a title template such as [Job 1] {{original_title}}. Filters skip all-day events, free events, invitations you answered "Maybe" to, titles containing a phrase, and events with a chosen Google colour or Outlook category. A week preview shows the result before you save.

Google and Outlook changes arrive by push notification "within seconds", backed by a safety check every 15 minutes. iCloud has no push, so Hetk polls it every 5 minutes, less often if the calendar is quiet. It states that it "does not promise a hard number", and that an automated test suite runs every direction against real accounts.

Pricing is two plans with the same features: Personal at $15 a year (or $2 a month) for up to 3 sync pairs, Professional at $50 a year (or $6 a month) for up to 8, with early-adopter prices of $10 and $35 a year. Calendars are unlimited; pairs are the cap. The trial is 21 days with every feature and no card; when it ends, syncs pause and nothing is charged. There is no free plan, by design, and no team plan: "Hetk is for individuals."

What SYNCDATE is

SYNCDATE treats CalDAV as a protocol rather than a list. Google Calendar and Outlook or Microsoft 365 connect through their own APIs; iCloud, Fastmail, Nextcloud, mailbox.org, Posteo or any other CalDAV server connects the way iCloud does in Hetk, with an app-specific password or a server login; iCal feeds come in as one-way sources. A sync holds the calendars you pick and a direction. Push copies one way and never touches the source. Mirror goes both ways.

Privacy is where a sync starts, not a switch you find later. New syncs copy events as Busy. A two-way Mirror between calendars you own keeps the real titles. You can change either before you start. Google and Outlook changes usually reach the other calendar in under a minute, because both providers send us a notification; CalDAV calendars are checked about every 15 minutes, and iCal feeds on a schedule.

What a copy says is set on the sync screen with Custom text, which builds the title, description or location from pieces of the original on every plan, and on Plus and up with if-this-then-that rules: "over an hour, show Busy", or "a guest from acme.com, put [Acme] in the title". On Pro each destination calendar in a sync can have its own rule.

Free covers 2 accounts, 2 calendars and 1 sync with no card. Plus allows 5 accounts, 5 syncs and 20 calendars; Pro and Team allow 20 accounts, 20 syncs and 100 calendars. Prices are on the pricing page.

Providers: three, or the standard

For Google, Outlook and iCloud, the two tools cover the same ground. Hetk connects iCloud with an app-specific password, and so do we.

The difference is everything else. Hetk's provider list is exactly three names. SYNCDATE implements CalDAV as a protocol, so Fastmail, Nextcloud, mailbox.org, Posteo, Infomaniak, GMX, WEB.DE and self-hosted servers all connect today, and an iCal feed from a school, a club or a booking tool can be a source. Hetk's FAQ says CalDAV is next on its roadmap. If one of your calendars is on that list, the choice is made for you. We keep a ranked list for the three-provider case that includes Hetk.

Pairs, or several calendars in one sync

A Hetk sync pair is two calendars. Personal allows three pairs, Professional eight, and the annual Professional plan can add pairs at $6.25 a year each up to 50. Three calendars that should all show each other's events are three pairs, which fills Personal. Hetk has a switch, "Only events created in this calendar", so that copies arriving from one pair are not copied on by another.

In SYNCDATE the same three calendars go in one Mirror. A Mirror holds 2 calendars on Free, 4 on Plus and 5 on Pro. A Push can feed up to 10 calendars (Plus) or 20 (Pro) into one calendar. Plus allows 5 syncs and Pro 20, so the count that matters is calendars in a sync, not pairs.

Two caveats on our side. A sync has one direction, so two calendars that mirror plus a third that only receives is two syncs. And two separate syncs do not chain: Mirror A-B plus Mirror B-C never puts A's events on C, so put all three in one Mirror.

Privacy: a default or a setting

This is the clearest difference, and it is worth reading Hetk's own words. Its FAQ says "Event time, title, description, and location sync by default. Attendee lists and meeting links (Zoom, Teams, Meet) stay on the source side." Hiding the rest is a setting you turn on per pair: "Replace the details with Busy", or "Flag the copy as private", or a title template.

SYNCDATE starts the other way round. New syncs copy events as Busy. The exception is a two-way Mirror between calendars you own, which keeps the real titles, because there is nobody to hide them from. You can change either before you start.

Both tools can label copies by source: Hetk with a title template like [Job 1] Busy, SYNCDATE with Custom text like "[Acme] Busy" on every plan. Where we go further is conditions: a rule on Plus can show details for short internal meetings and Busy for anything with an outside guest, and on Pro the same sync can show full titles on your personal calendar and Busy at work. Hetk's flag-as-private switch, which marks the copy private at the provider, is a one-click setting we do not have in that form; in SYNCDATE privacy is a field on the sync with its own rule.

Neither of us copies attendee lists by default, and Hetk never does. Hetk says it does not store titles, descriptions, locations or attendees on its servers at all. We store what a sync needs and encrypt tokens at rest; the detail is on our privacy and security page.

Speed

Both tools listen for Google and Outlook push notifications and run a safety check behind them. Hetk's check is every 15 minutes; ours is every 15 minutes on paid plans and every 2 hours on Free. Hetk polls iCloud every 5 minutes; we check CalDAV calendars about every 15 minutes, so on an iCloud change Hetk will usually be ahead.

Hetk says changes arrive "within seconds" and that it does not promise a hard number. We say Google and Outlook changes usually reach the other calendar in under a minute. Neither of us publishes a measurement, so we are not going to claim we are faster. On Google and Outlook you will not notice a difference; on iCloud, Hetk's shorter poll is a real edge.

Filters and rules

Hetk's filters skip events: all-day, free, "Maybe" invitations, a phrase in the title, a Google colour or an Outlook category. Each rule skips only when everything on it matches, and a two-way pair has rules for each direction. Unanswered invitations are not copied unless you say so. That is a tidy set, and the colour and category filters are ones we do not have.

SYNCDATE's filters skip all-day events, free events, titles containing a word, invitations by your reply, events outside a working-hours window and, on Google, event types. Rules on Plus and up look at an event's length, start time, weekday or a guest's email domain and change what the copy says: its title, description, location, privacy or free-or-busy. They do not skip the event. Hetk's pages describe no conditions of that kind; its title templates are literal substitution, by its own description.

So: Hetk decides which events cross; SYNCDATE decides what they look like when they do. If you need to skip by colour, Hetk. If you need "show the client's name in the title only when the guest is from their domain", SYNCDATE.

Editing a copy

Hetk's rule is "the original wins": an edit to a copy is put back to match the original, usually within a few hours, so you edit the original. SYNCDATE's rule in a two-way Mirror is the opposite: the later edit wins, whichever calendar it was made in, so you can move a meeting from either side and the other follows. Two edits to the same event within the same minute keep the later-stamped one, with no prompt. In a one-way Push the source is never touched. If you like editing whichever calendar is open, that favours SYNCDATE; if you want one calendar to stay the authority, Hetk enforces it.

Free plan, trial and teams

Hetk has no free plan and says why: running sync has real costs. Its 21-day trial includes every feature and asks for no card; when it ends, syncs pause and nothing is deleted. SYNCDATE's Free plan is permanent: 2 accounts, 2 calendars, 1 sync, 30 days ahead, no card. Plus and Pro start with a 7-day trial that asks for a card up front, and you can cancel inside the 7 days without being charged. Hetk's trial is longer and needs no card; ours is shorter, and the free plan behind it has no clock.

Hetk states that team plans do not exist yet. SYNCDATE's Team plan gives every seat Pro on one bill, with five seats minimum; admins see sync health, never events, and can set how members' syncs copy events.

Where the data lives

Both of us are in the EU. Hetk Technologies OÜ is Estonian and stores data on Microsoft Azure in North Europe. SYNCDATE is DUMA DIGITAL SOLUTIONS S.R.L., a Romanian company, hosting at Hetzner in Germany and Finland, with a Data Processing Agreement published at syncdate.app/dpa for every plan. We did not check Hetk's legal pages for a DPA; if you need one from them, ask.

Pricing

Hetk's prices on 19 October 2026: Personal $15 a year or $2 a month for up to 3 sync pairs; Professional $50 a year or $6 a month for up to 8; early-adopter prices $10 and $35 a year, kept as long as you do not cancel. Unlimited calendars on both. A 21-day trial with no card.

SYNCDATE has Free, Plus, Pro and Team plans; the current prices and every cap are on the pricing page. Free needs no card. Plus and Pro start with a 7-day trial that asks for a card up front. On price Hetk is lower, and by a wide margin at the entry tier. What you are paying us for is the wider provider list, several calendars per sync, Busy by default, the rules, and the Team plan. If none of those apply to you, Hetk is the cheaper answer and we would rather say so here than have you find out later.

Which should you choose

Choose Hetk if:

• Your calendars are only Google, Outlook and iCloud, and you are one person
• Price decides it: $15 a year for every feature, or $10 as an early adopter
• You want a 21-day trial with no card
• iCloud is where most changes happen and a 5-minute check matters to you
• You want to skip events by Google colour or Outlook category

Choose SYNCDATE if:

• One calendar is on Fastmail, Nextcloud, mailbox.org, Posteo or another CalDAV server, or a feed should be a source
• Three or more calendars should show each other's events in one sync, not in pairs
• You want copies private by default, with real titles only between calendars you own
• A rule should decide what each copy says, by length, time, weekday or the guest's domain
• Each destination in the same sync should show a different level of detail (Pro)
• You want a free plan with no clock, copies removed for you when a sync goes, a published DPA, or a team on one bill

If you are weighing other tools too, see SYNCDATE vs 2calendars, SYNCDATE vs LeapSync and the calendar sync tool comparison.

Moving from Hetk

Set up the SYNCDATE sync first and check that copies land as you expect. Then pause or delete the Hetk pairs. Hetk's FAQ says events it already synced stay in your calendars as regular events and cannot be removed retroactively, so delete those by hand before the new sync runs, or you will see two copies of each event until you do. Two tools writing to the same calendar will produce duplicates in the meantime.

Before you start, compare the plans on the pricing page: Free covers one two-calendar sync, and the 7-day Plus trial covers up to 4 calendars in one Mirror.