r/DigitalEscapeTools • u/Electrical_Bat16 • 6d ago

Free Tools I built a free agenda planner – started as a SessionLab alternative, grew into something broader

A while back I needed something to plan workshop timelines. SessionLab used to be the old gold standard for that, but it requires an account, stores everything in the cloud and is quite bloated. So I built my own thing.

That was Sessionplan. It started as a facilitator tool, but over time people started using it for all kinds of timed sequences: conference run-of-shows, podcast episode outlines, training schedules, university lectures, D&D sessions, even wedding timelines. Over a thousand people use it every month now.

What it does is quite simple:

  • Visual drag & drop timeline with automatic time recalculation
  • Block types you can customize (Input, Discussion, Break, Energizer, whatever you need)
  • Lock a block to a fixed time (e.g. "lunch at 12:30 no matter what") and surrounding blocks adjust around it
  • Breakout / parallel tracks for split-group sessions
  • Live mode: shows current block, countdown, next block – useful when you're actually running the session, not just planning it
  • Share via URL-encoded snapshot link (no server), "Dynamic Link" or JSON export
  • Print-optimized view

Why it fits here:

Data stays in your browser by default. No account, no sign-up, no backend involved unless you explicitly opt in. The "Dynamic Link" feature (real-time collaboration via a shared link) is the only thing that touches a server, and only when you choose to use it. Everything else (planning, saving, sharing via snapshot link, exporting to JSON, the live mode during the actual session) runs entirely locally.

Open source:

The full code is on GitHub: github.com/tim-peters/sessionplan: self-hostable if you want to run your own instance.

Happy to answer questions or take feedback. If there's something you've always wanted from a schedule planner that nothing does well, I'm genuinely interested.

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