Brownbag vs Eventact

Brownbag is web-based conference-management software for academic research. It combines public conference pages, calls for papers, submissions, peer review, program planning, email, and analytics. Organizers can build pages with headings, images, tabs, and submission blocks. Submission forms can require fields, define file types and deadlines, and collect co-authors; authors can reuse uploaded details across conferences. Review workflows support internal and external reviewers, custom labels, score tracking, and CSV export. Accepted papers can be arranged into sessions, rooms, and time slots, then published for viewing on any device. Organizers can email authors, reviewers, or attendees and schedule messages. Analytics show views, referrers, and devices without a third-party tag. Brownbag describes a ChatGPT connection for organizer and reviewer tasks while carrying its permissions across. Stripe handles Premium upgrades from the dashboard. A help center provides guides for organizers, reviewers, authors, and attendees. Attendee registration is marked “Coming soon.” The Free plan costs nothing, billed per conference, with organizer views capped at 100 submissions. Premium costs $1,000, paid once and provides unlimited submissions in organizer views.

Eventact is an event management system for conferences, exhibitions, and in-person or hybrid events. Its tools span registration forms, ticketing, attendee communications, exhibitor support, and onsite check-in. Forms can use custom fields, validation, conditional logic, separate attendee flows, and centralized records. The platform also supports abstract submissions, reviewer workflows, committee decisions, agenda building, and program publishing to event websites and apps. Onsite operations include QR and barcode scanning, offline check-in with later synchronization, badge printing, access control, and attendance reports. Virtual and hybrid events can use live or prerecorded sessions, embedded streams, RTMP, virtual rooms, chat, Q&A, polls, and video on demand. Eventact offers a website builder and an installable Progressive Web App that does not require an app-store download. The platform has no free plan but offers a 30-day trial. Pricing is noted as “From $49”; listed monthly options include $210 a month for Registration, Website under 2,000 attendees per year, and $415 a month for Registration, Abstracts, Event App, Website under 2,000 attendees per year. It runs on Android, iOS, web, and API.