My experience with radicale

https://wiki.gardiol.org/doku.php?id=services%3Aradicale

I currently use it, from android with dav5x (F-droid)

It's how you can copy/backup/sync calendar and contacts.

on my phone I installed davx5 which does the copying over to my radicale instance on my server. Then my server backs up my calendar and contacts.

When I get a new phone I can sync all of it over easily. Bonus points, google doesn't have that data.

but I have no idea how to use it

Install davx5, connect to radicale, and allow your calendar/contacts access to it.

I'd like to be able to self host my own calendar and contacts. Is radicale appropriate for this?

Yes.

Is it safe to self host a calendar?

Define "safe".

Can a self hosted calendar still send and receive invites to other calendars?

Short answer: no. You are describing caldav/cardav integration with email.

I've recently set up Baikal on a cheap shared host. It doesn't even need a dedicated database, it just creates a file-based sqlite db. i've just copied some files to a php webhost and followed the quickstart guide for setup, i'm pretty happy with the result

Baikal was easy to migrate. All i needed to do was to copy the single db file.

Follow up questions:

I seed to have created multiple users, how can I manage users?

Does Radicale have a dashboard?

Exactly for what you want it for. I've been using it about 3 months. Contacts and calender. It's a real pain to set up. Not straight forward. I didn't a lot of time with ai as could not get my head round the guide.

Can also check out Nextcloud. Yes, its more overkill than just calendar and contact sync but its not that hard to set up and self-host. It has an interface for you to fix your calendar and contacts graphically and works well with DAVx5, if on Android. Believe you can just add the CalDav and CardDav for iOS, but have not tried it personally.

I personly used Radicale. You have to click the plus icon to create a new calendar, then if you use an app that supports CalDAV (I personally use Thunderbird on desktop and Dav5x + Etar on Android) you can sync the calendars easily. Very nice!

I found Radicale easy to install and set up. Unfortunately, using it with an Android phone means Davx5 - there really doesn't seem to be a viable alternative. And I couldn't get Davx5 to work after days of effort, so I gave up on the idea of self-hosting contacts and calendar at all.

are you on android or iOS?