A new open source calendar called Mitra is drawing attention from self-hosting enthusiasts because it treats tasks and events as one thing. Rather than keeping a to-do list in one app and appointments in another, Mitra shows both on the same timeline. The project's website describes it as a self-hosted calendar released under the AGPL-3.0 license, which runs as a single Docker container and syncs with CalDAV, Google Calendar, Apple Calendar and Notion. Its developer, who publicly goes by a11delavar, has released it at version 0.6 and is asking users to test it and report what breaks.
What Mitra does
The core idea is simple: a calendar entry and a task should sit side by side, so that a deadline, a meeting and the work needed to prepare for it can be seen at once. Mitra offers five views for this purpose: week, month, year, timeline and table. In each one, tasks appear alongside events.
For more structured planning, the project supports subtasks and dependencies, so a larger piece of work can be broken into steps and linked to the things that must happen first. It also includes routines, which the project's description lists among its features without going into detail.
Data storage is deliberately minimal. According to the project, everything is kept in one folder on the user's server, and the software includes no telemetry. For people who have grown wary of cloud services that collect usage data, that design is the main selling point.
Sync and reminders
Mitra can either keep its calendar entirely within its own interface or sync in both directions with CalDAV, Google Calendar, Apple Calendar and Notion. CalDAV is an open standard for calendar access, which is why it is widely supported by desktop and mobile calendar clients. Two-way sync means changes made in Mitra appear in the other service, and changes made in the other service appear in Mitra.
Reminders are pushed from the server itself. The project says this means alerts arrive even when no browser tab or app is open, a practical difference for anyone who relies on notifications for time-sensitive tasks.
Multi-user support is available through OIDC, which stands for OpenID Connect, a standard login protocol that lets an installation hand off authentication to an identity provider. The project also says Mitra can be installed as an app on a phone. The developer notes that they use it on Android every day.
How it was built
The developer's post on Reddit gives an unusual account of how the project was made. According to that post, the developer handles the architecture and design, AI tools write a large share of the code, and the developer then reviews and iterates on the output. The developer has worked in web development for about a decade and says they also designed the logo.
That approach is increasingly common among independent developers, but it also means that the project's quality will be judged by users as much as by its author. The developer says version 0.6 felt like the right moment to share the project widely and invite people to test its limits, which is a reasonable signal of an early-stage tool rather than a finished product.
Who might use it
Mitra will appeal most to people who already run their own servers or are comfortable with Docker, the containerisation tool that packages software with its dependencies. Installing a single container and pointing it at a folder is simpler than assembling a full productivity suite, but it still assumes some technical comfort. Users who want a polished hosted service with customer support will likely look elsewhere for now.
The AGPL-3.0 license matters here too. It is a copyleft license, meaning anyone who modifies and runs the software on a network must make their changed source code available to users. For organisations weighing self-hosted tools, that is a condition to review with legal advisers before adoption.
A live demo is available at demo.mitracal.com without sign-up, so readers can try the interface before installing anything. The project's GitHub repository is the place to follow development and report issues.
What comes next
Version 0.6 is still early, and the developer has asked for feedback in the comments of the original post. Whether Mitra gains a wider following will depend on how well it handles real-world sync conflicts, multi-user setups and mobile use over time. For now, it stands out as an open, self-hosted attempt to merge two tools that most people still keep apart.
Related: NoteDiscovery Adds HTTP MCP Server for AI Clients · Catch: A Self-Hosted Google Keep Alternative You Run Yourself
Comments (0)