---
title: "Radicale, a self-hosted CardDAV/CalDAV server on Debian"
language: en
topics: ["Freedom", "Windows", "android", "apple", "cloud", "data", "iPad", "iPhone", "linux", "networking", "office", "server", "web", "work"]
full_article_url: https://willem.com/en/2020-02-28_your-own-addressbook-and-calendar-cloud/
---
# Radicale, a self-hosted CardDAV/CalDAV server on Debian

*Your own contacts and calendar sync without the big cloud.*

> In 2020 I compared Apple's abandoned Calendar Server, the do-everything ownCloud and Radicale, and picked Radicale: a small, actively developed free CardDAV/CalDAV server that only does addressbook and calendar sharing. On Debian it installed with apt-get install radicale.

CardDAV (RFC 6352) and CalDAV (RFC 6638) are open standards on top of WebDAV, so one server feeds clients on macOS, iOS, Android, Windows and Linux. The server hardly needs resources; people run this on a Raspberry Pi, a small VPS, a NAS or an old computer.
Of the three serious options, Apple's open source Calendar Server is archived and no longer developed, and ownCloud tries to do everything, including mail and file sharing. Radicale just does addressbook and calendar sharing and its development is alive.
On Debian, apt-get install radicale gets you going with username and password authentication from a file. Plugins can authenticate against an existing IMAP mail server, and running it behind an NGINX reverse proxy adds hardening and Let's Encrypt TLS certificates.