Brownbag vs OpenConf

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.

OpenConf is a system for managing peer review, conferences and abstracts. Organizers can build submission forms from built-in fields or add their own, then assign reviews manually or match submissions and reviewers by topic or bids. Its workflow includes scoring, acceptance decisions, notifications and committee discussion. Accepted submissions can be scheduled into a web program or print booklet, and proceedings can be published online. OpenConf can be installed on a customer's server or used through a hosting service administered by the maker. Authentication options include passkeys, magic links and single sign-on using OIDC and SAML. Privacy tools include policy links, cookie banners, consent checkboxes, personal-information review and administrator-managed data deletion. Professional Edition lists IEEE eCopyright, ACM copyright export and ORCID reviewer credit features. OpenConf 8 requires an HTTP server with TLS/SSL, PHP 7.3 or later and MySQL 8.0.4 or later. Support is included for hosting account and license contacts; Community Edition users receive no support. Community Edition has no listed price and is limited to three or fewer events and journals per calendar year.