ConfTool vs EasyChair

ConfTool is conference management software for academic conferences, congresses, workshops, and seminars, including on-site and virtual events. It supports submissions and reviews, program scheduling, participant registration, administration, and invoicing. With ConfTool Pro, organizers can configure open or blind reviews, optionally use multiple tracks, schedule accepted submissions, and check presenter conflicts. Participants can create personal agendas. Pro registration supports participant groups, time discounts, event options, and admission limits; payments can be handled by bank transfer, PayPal, Stripe, or connections to more than 45 online credit card payment systems. Pro can link sessions and presentations to external virtual-event resources and export data in Excel, Word, CSV, JSON, and XML. ConfTool Standard is free on request for smaller non-commercial events, for up to 150 participants, and requires local installation. Pro is hosted and billed per conference; its fee depends on event requirements and size, and optional modules may cost extra. The maker lists HTTPS access, automatic backups, and role-based access control. Standard comes without support, while Pro includes professional support.

EasyChair is a web service for managing conferences from abstract submission and review through program generation, registration, and proceedings publishing. Its review workflow includes reviewer management, paper assignment, online discussion, and an author rebuttal phase, with support for standard and multi-track conferences. Other listed services include Smart CFP for calls for papers, Smart Slide for presentations, proceedings publishing, and preprints. Executive and VIP licenses include integrations with IEEE copyright management and ACM and Springer proceedings. The free license allows at most 20 submissions and excludes technical support. Professional licenses allow up to 60 submissions, cost $3.90 as a one-time purchase billed per submission, and require credit-card payment. Executive and VIP rates are listed from $6.10, paid once billed per submission, with unlimited submissions; helpdesk and technical support are included, and VIP adds an assigned manager. EasyChair says licenses include encrypted access, data backup, and replication. It is hosted on its own servers and cannot be installed on a customer's server. EasyChair says conferences using the service range from small workshops to events with nearly 5,000 submissions and thousands of participants.