ConfTool vs Microsoft CMT

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.

Microsoft CMT is a free web-based conference management system for academic and scientific peer review. It supports roles for chairs, senior meta-reviewers, meta-reviewers, reviewers, authors, and proceedings editors. Organizers can create any number of independently configured tracks and customize forms with separate question visibility. The workflow covers abstracts, full papers, supplementary material, revisions, camera-ready files, and presentations. Reviewer assignment can be manual or automatic, with Toronto Paper Matching System integration. Review collaboration includes bidding, reviewer suggestions, threaded discussion, virtual program committee meetings, and author rebuttals. Uploads are unlimited, with a 100 MB maximum per file, and supported types include PDF, DOCX, audio, video, and others. Conference data exports to Excel, XML, or CSV. CMT runs on Microsoft Azure with geo-replicated data, logs submission and file activity, and offers a schedule builder and IEEE eCopyright workflow. After a conference ends, CMT removes its data. The Free plan costs nothing.