BagEvent vs Session Canvas

BagEvent provides event websites, registration, ticketing and payments, on-site check-in and badges, and reports for conferences, corporate events, and trade shows. It runs on the web, Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows. Staff check-in apps can scan an event roster downloaded in advance and sync queued check-ins when the connection returns. Ticket sales carry a 0% platform fee and settle to the organizer’s own Stripe or PayPal account. Pro costs $99/month billed annually or $129/month billed monthly, and includes five events per month, up to 1,000 attendees per event, five team members, and one custom domain. Business costs $479/month billed annually or $599/month billed monthly, with an API and webhooks. The API reads attendee and order information but cannot create registrations or change orders; the service has no built-in one-click CRM connectors. A 14-day Pro trial requires no credit card, though paid-ticket use is limited to 50 registrations, $10 per order, and $500 total. Organizer and attendee data is hosted on Google Cloud Platform in Singapore. BagEvent says it holds no security certification.

Session Canvas is open-source software for managing conference submissions, reviews, agendas, speakers, and event communications. Organizers can build calls for papers with reordered questions, conditional rules, required fields, deadlines, and draft submissions. The review process supports track-based routing, a passwordless evaluator view, and optional blind review. Agendas have day, room, and list views, with warnings for potential time, room, and speaker conflicts. Speakers can use magic links to check submission status, update profiles, and complete tasks. Organizers can send templated acceptance or rejection emails, reminders, and calendar invitations that update when event details change. For sharing event information, it provides embeddable schedule and speaker widgets, a public JSON schedule feed, and whole-event iCal export. Five public widgets are viewable without logging in. Optional Airtable sync is off by default. Session Canvas runs on the web and is self-hosted on the organizer’s Supabase project. It is MIT-licensed and costs nothing.