7 Best WordPress Events Plugins in 2026 (Compared)

There are dozens of WordPress events plugins, and most roundup posts about them just repeat the same feature list for each one. That’s not that useful, because most of these plugins can technically “do” events. The real differences show up in how they store recurring events, how flexible their event data display actually is, whether they work with the page builder you’re already using, and what you end up paying once you add the features you actually need.

We tested seven of the most commonly recommended WordPress events plugins against those criteria. Here’s how they compare, and what each one is actually best for.

Which plugins we compared

• EventKoi (that’s us)
• The Events Calendar
• Modern Events Calendar
• Sugar Calendar
• Eventin
• WP Event Manager
• Pie Calendar

What we looked for

Four things, in order of how much they actually affect your day-to-day experience running events on WordPress:

1. How recurring events are stored. Some plugins create a new WordPress post for every occurrence of a recurring event, which can mean hundreds of posts from a single weekly event over a couple of years. Others store the rule once and calculate occurrences on demand.
2. How easy and flexible it is to display event data. A fixed set of blocks or shortcode attributes is fine for a simple calendar. If you want to build custom event templates, what matters is how many ways you can get individual fields onto a page and how granular that data is.
3. Page builder support. Native widgets and dynamic tags are different from a shortcode dropped into a text box. We noted which is which for each plugin.
4. Pricing at the tier you’d actually need. Not the cheapest advertised number, the price once recurring events, ticketing, and page builder support are all switched on.

Best WordPress events plugins

EventKoi

EventKoi is a modern WordPress events plugin built for sites using the block editor, full site editing, or a page builder like Bricks, Elementor, Beaver Builder, or Divi. It handles recurring events, ticketing, RSVPs, and frontend event submission in one plugin rather than splitting them across add-ons.

Recurring events: EventKoi allows you to create daily, weekly, monthly, yearly rules and more. You can create as many rules as you want. You can also edit each individual instance.

Importantly, there’s no bloat when you create recurring events with EventKoi. Recurring events are stored as a single post with a recurrence rule attached. Individual occurrence edits or cancellations are saved as small overrides rather than new posts, so a weekly event running for years stays one row in your database instead of accumulating hundreds of posts.

Displaying Event data: Most people have a WordPress website because they care about designing it and making it on brand. EventKoi allows you to design event pages and event lists in granular detail. With EventKoi, you can display a full address, or you can separately design the address, post code, country and city. Similarly, you can display the full date and time, or you can separately display the day, month, year, time and even timezone.

EventKoi allows you to display all these individual pieces of data via: the Event Data block (50 field options in a dropdown), native WordPress block bindings (54 allowed keys, bindable to any core block’s attribute, like an image URL or a button link), a field-level shortcode ([eventkoi data=”…”]), and dynamic tags inside Bricks, Beaver Builder, Divi, and Elementor.

Custom fields: Yes. EventKoi has a native custom field builder, rather than requiring a separate plugin like ACF.

Frontend submission forms: Yes. EventKoi has a full frontend submission form that you can add via shortcode or block. You can select which fields are included and required, whether submissions auto-publish or wait for approval, which user roles can submit, and whether logged-out guests can submit (guests get emailed a link and password to edit their submission afterward).

Page builders: Native integrations for Elementor, Beaver Builder, Divi and Bricks. Each with its own elements or modules, a query loop integration for building event listing templates, and dynamic tags for pulling individual fields into any part of a layout.

Ticketing: Built into the core plugin. Stripe and WooCommerce are both supported, with no added platform fee on top of your payment processor’s cut. QR check-in is included, with master codes for multi-ticket orders so one scan checks in an entire group.

Best for: Sites using the block editor, full site editing, or Bricks, Beaver Builder, Divi, or Elementor, especially if you’re currently juggling several separate plugins for recurring events, ticketing, and page builder support.

Price: Free version on WordPress.org, or Pro from $99/year for one site.

The Events Calendar

The Events Calendar (TEC) is the most-installed WordPress events plugin, with over 700,000 active installs. It’s been around since 2009 and has the largest ecosystem of any plugin in this comparison, including a large library of third-party add-ons.

Recurring events: Each occurrence of a recurring event is stored as a separate WordPress post. A daily event running for a year generates 365 individual event posts, each with its own metadata. TEC’s documented advice for managing this is to limit how far recurrences run and avoid bulk edits to the whole series, which manages the symptom rather than the underlying storage model.

Displaying event data: Narrow display flexibility compared to EventKoi. TEC ships around nine fixed meta blocks in the block editor (datetime, venue, organizer, price, category, tags, links, website), each one a separate block rather than a single field picker. The native shortcode is built for embedding calendar and list views with filtering options, not for placing individual fields anywhere. TEC does expose PHP template tag functions (tribe_get_venue(), tribe_get_cost(), and similar) for developers building custom templates, but that’s a code path, not a no-code one. No native block bindings.

Custom fields: Yes. You can build custom fields inside of TEC.

Frontend submission forms: Yes, via the separate paid Community Events add-on, which lets visitors submit events for moderation and approval.

Page builders: Elementor, Divi, and Bricks support all come from separate third-party add-on plugins, not from TEC itself. Beaver Builder’s integration is built and maintained by Beaver Builder directly, with 17 event modules.

Ticketing: Split across separate plugins. Event Tickets (free) covers basic RSVPs and simple Stripe tickets, and includes a transaction fee. Event Tickets Plus (paid) adds WooCommerce, recurring ticket support, and check-in.

Best for: Large, established sites that need to ingest events at scale from external sources (Meetup, Eventbrite, Google Calendar, ICS feeds), community-submitted events with moderation, or advanced ticket seating. If you’re running a university, city, or large directory site with hundreds of events and multiple editors, TEC’s maturity and ecosystem are real advantages.

Price: Free core plugin, or paid plans at $259/year (Essentials), $399/year (Pro), and $599/year (Elite) for one site.

Worth knowing: TEC’s parent company, Liquid Web, retired the StellarWP brand in May 2026 and folded TEC into its own site.

Modern Events Calendar

Modern Events Calendar (MEC) is a design-forward events plugin with a large library of built-in layout skins, aimed at sites that want their calendar to visually match the rest of their theme without custom CSS. One of it’s key selling points is that you can build your event data form, so that you select what data to include or exclude from your events.

Recurring events: MEC doesn’t appear to have recurring event rules, but you can schedule multiple day events and exclude specific days.

Displaying event data: MEC works best with shortcoes. It has a shortcode builder which allows you to decide what to display. No native block bindings.

Custom fields: Yes, this is effectively MEC’s whole approach to event data. You define your own fields (Text, Email, URL, Date, and similar types) under MEC Settings, then optionally display them on the single event page.

Frontend submission forms: Yes, built in. MEC’s Frontend Event Submission module lets you choose exactly which fields (links, cost, images, categories, labels, location, organizer, hourly schedule, and more) appear on the public submission form, and which are required.

Page builders: MEC integrates with Elementor, Divi, and WPBakery primarily through its own shortcode system, plus a set of separate Elementor add-ons (Shortcode Builder, Shortcode Designer, Single Builder, FES Builder) for deeper Elementor-specific control. This is shortcode-and-addon based rather than a single native dynamic-tag system.

Ticketing: Built in, with PayPal and Stripe support and a full booking system in the Pro tier.

Best for: Sites that want a highly customizable events plugin on the admin side and don’t mind managing several MEC-specific add-ons to get there.

Price: Free Lite version (distributed from webnus.net, not the WordPress.org directory), or Pro from $99/year for one site.

Sugar Calendar

Sugar Calendar is a lightweight events plugin, built around simplicity rather than a large feature set.

Recurring events: Recurring events (daily, weekly, monthly, or custom schedules). It appears to only allow a single recurring rule.

Displaying event data: Sugar Calendar has shortcodes, blocks and page builder widgets to display calendars, event lists and other key pieces of information. However, it does not have the ability to display individual event data for customising a design.

Custom fields: No dedicated custom-field builder in the admin.

Frontend submission forms: Yes, a Pro feature, but it works by connecting Sugar Calendar to a separate form plugin you already have (WPForms, Gravity Forms, or Formidable Forms) rather than a submission form built into Sugar Calendar itself.

Page builders: A native Elementor integration with multiple event widgets. We found no additional page builder integrations.

Ticketing: Built-in ticketing via Stripe or WooCommerce.

Best for: Sites that want a simple, fast, no-frills calendar and don’t need deep page builder integration or a large event data set.

Price: Free (Sugar Calendar Lite on WordPress.org), or paid plans starting around $49.50/year (Basic) up to $299.50/year (Elite). Recurring events require at least the Plus tier.

Eventin

Eventin is a full-featured event management plugin that leans into virtual and hybrid events, with Zoom integration, AI-generated event content, and a certificate builder available even in the free version.

Recurring events: Recurring events (daily, weekly, monthly, or annually) are supported. One additional feature that Eventin has is custom dates, which allow you to create a recurring event on specifically selected dates, rather than a rules based selection.

Displaying event data: Eventin has a wide range of fixed purpose shortcodes and Elementor widgets for displaying event information. These cover events, speakers, locations, calendars, tickets, and more.

Custom fields: You can add additional custom fields at an event level under the Advanced tab.

Frontend submission forms: Yes, built in. Eventin allows logged in users to submit multiple types of event information via frontend forms. This includes: Events, speakers, and schedule.

Page builders: Eventin supports a large number of page builders, including Elementor, Divi, WPCafe, Bricks, and Oxygen via dedicated fixed purpose widgets.

Ticketing: Built-in, with WooCommerce support in the free version and a multivendor marketplace feature for multiple organizers selling tickets on the same site.

Best for: Conferences, virtual and hybrid events, and sites that want a large free-tier feature set (Zoom, AI content generation, seat maps, certificates) without paying immediately.

Price: Free version on WordPress.org, or paid plans starting around $179/year (Standard, single site).

WP Event Manager

WP Event Manager is built around event listings and frontend submission, closer to a job-board-style directory plugin adapted for events than a calendar-first tool.

Recurring events: You can set a single recurring rule for daily, weekly, monthly, yearly and more. You can also set custom dates so that you can create a recurring event that happens on a specific set of dates, rather than based on a recurring rule.

Displaying event data: WP Event Manager has the weakest display options of all plugins reviewed here. You will find shortcodes and basic Elementor widgets and dynamic tags.

Custom fields: Yes. WP Event Manager has a field editor lets you add, edit, or delete fields on the event submission form, even in the free version, so you’re not limited to a fixed field set.

Frontend submission forms: Yes, logged in users or site visitors can both submit events. The frontend submission form can be extensively customised via their field editor. Display the form via shortcode.

Page builders: Supports Divi and Elementor basic widgets.

Ticketing: WooCommerce integration for ticket sales, plus a “Woo Paid Listing” feature that lets you charge organizers a commission for posting events on your site, which is a distinctive feature if you’re running an events marketplace rather than your own events.

Best for: Event directories and marketplace-style sites where visitors or organizers submit events from the frontend, rather than a single organizer managing their own calendar.

Price: Free core plugin on WordPress.org, with 37+ individually priced add-ons and bundles starting around $99/year.

Pie Calendar

Pie Calendar is the most lightweight plugin in this comparison. Instead of a dedicated events post type, it lets you turn any existing post, page, or custom post type into an event.

Recurring events: Pie Calendar has a strong recurring events feature. It allows you to set multiple recurring rules and also includes black out dates.

Pie Calendar is explicit that it does not duplicate posts for recurring events. Occurrences are calculated on the fly from a recurrence rule, the same underlying approach EventKoi takes, which keeps the database from accumulating extra rows as a series repeats over time.

Displaying event data: Pie Calendar primarily relies on shortcodes plus a calendar block and an event info block.

Custom fields: Pie Calendar doesn’t ship its own custom-field builder; instead it reads existing custom fields from Advanced Custom Fields or Meta Box, which is a good fit if you already use one of those, and less useful if you don’t.

Frontend submission forms: Pie Calendar connects third-party form plugins (like Gravity Forms, Fluent Forms, or WS Forms) to its meta fields so visitors can submit posts that appear as events.

Page builders: No native integrations, but is compatible with Beaver Builder, Elementor, GeneratePress, and Divi.

Ticketing: No built-in ticketing. However, Pie Calendar is compatible with WooCommerce, SureCart, or Easy Digital Downloads products.

Best for: Sites that already have a simple content structure and just need a lightweight calendar layer on top, without adopting a new events post type or a heavier plugin.

Price: Free version on WordPress.org, or Pro starting around $49/year.

Quick comparison

FAQs about WordPress events plugins

What’s the best free WordPress events plugin?

It depends on what you need in the free tier specifically. EventKoi Lite, The Events Calendar’s free core plugin, Sugar Calendar Lite, Eventin’s free version, WP Event Manager’s free core, and Pie Calendar’s free version all cover basic single and simple recurring events. Eventin’s free tier has the widest feature set (Zoom integration, AI content tools, WooCommerce ticketing) of the plugins compared here.

Which WordPress events plugin avoids database bloat from recurring events?

EventKoi and Pie Calendar both calculate recurring event occurrences on demand instead of creating a new post for each one. These two plugins in particular were built specifically to avoid bloat and to be performant.

Do I need a paid events plugin?

If you’re only running single, non-recurring events with a basic calendar display, most free tiers cover that. Recurring events, custom event data fields, native page builder integration, and ticketing are gated behind paid plans on every plugin in this comparison.

What’s the difference between an events plugin and a calendar plugin?

A calendar plugin generally just displays dates. An events plugin manages event-specific data (location, tickets, RSVPs, organizers, recurrence rules) and usually includes calendar display as one of several ways to show that data. All seven plugins here are events plugins, not simple calendar plugins.

Which plugin works best with my page builder?

For Bricks, Beaver Builder, Divi, and Elementor with true dynamic-tag support (not just pre-built widgets), EventKoi is the only plugin here with native integration across all four. Eventin has the widest widget coverage across builders. The Events Calendar’s page builder support comes from third-party add-ons rather than the core plugin. If you’re specifically building with Elementor, see our full comparison of the best event calendar plugins for Elementor for a deeper look at widgets, dynamic content, and templates.

Can I migrate from The Events Calendar to another plugin?

EventKoi has a built-in one-click migration tool for TEC that imports events, venues, categories, recurrence rules, and featured images. Check each plugin’s own documentation for migration tools before switching, since not all of them offer one.

Which WordPress events plugin lets visitors submit their own events?

WP Event Manager, Modern Events Calendar, Eventin, and EventKoi all have frontend event submission built into the core plugin, including guest submissions and an approval workflow. The Events Calendar and Sugar Calendar both support it, but as a separate paid add-on or an integration with a third-party form plugin rather than a built-in feature.

Which WordPress events plugin gives the most flexibility for displaying event data?

This comes down to how many mechanisms a plugin offers, not how many fields it has somewhere in the admin. EventKoi is the only plugin here that combines a field-picker block (50 field options), native WordPress block bindings (54 keys), a field-level shortcode, and page builder dynamic tags across four builders (45 tags each for Elementor, Bricks, and Beaver Builder, 43 for Divi). The Events Calendar and Modern Events Calendar mostly rely on fixed blocks or shortcode attributes; getting individual fields into a page builder usually means a third-party add-on or developer work. Sugar Calendar and Pie Calendar can both be wired into a builder’s generic custom-field dynamic tag if you already use meta fields or ACF, but neither builds its own dynamic tags.

Which WordPress events plugin should you choose

If you’re already committed to a page builder like Bricks, Beaver Builder, Divi, or Elementor, or you build with the block editor and full site editing, EventKoi gives you recurring events, ticketing, and native page builder support in one plugin without the database bloat that comes from duplicating posts per occurrence.

If you’re running a large, established site with community-submitted events, need to import from multiple external sources at scale, or need advanced ticket seating, The Events Calendar’s maturity and ecosystem are hard to match.

If design flexibility with pre-built layout skins matters more than a lean codebase, Modern Events Calendar is worth the extra add-on management. If you want the absolute simplest calendar with the smallest feature set, Sugar Calendar or Pie Calendar fit. If you’re running virtual or hybrid conferences, Eventin’s Zoom and multi-session tools are built specifically for that. And if you’re building an event directory or marketplace where the frontend submission workflow itself is the main point, rather than a feature layered onto an existing calendar, WP Event Manager is built around that from the ground up.

Try EventKoi’s recurring events and page builder integrations yourself in the live Pro demo, no signup needed, or start with the free Lite plugin.