Fourwaves vs Microsoft CMT

Fourwaves is a conference management service for academic and scientific events, covering abstract submissions, peer review, registration, event websites, programs and attendee apps. Submission forms can support calls for papers and abstracts, and organizers can export abstract books with author indexes. Review workflows offer single- or double-blind processes, reviewer conflict detection and custom scoring grids. Its iOS and Android app includes the event program, personal agenda, participant list and presentation materials, and works offline. An API with organization-specific keys provides endpoints for event, registration, form, submission and session data. The free Starter plan costs nothing and caps yearly submissions at 25. Essential costs $999 a year with a 100-submission limit; Advanced costs $2,599 a year with a 300-submission limit. Each lists a 3% service fee. When a yearly cap is reached, new submissions pause until an upgrade, though existing submissions, registrations and event websites remain accessible. The company describes its audience as research communities, universities, scientific societies and research networks.

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.