MeetingHand Abstract Management vs SimplyConf

MeetingHand Abstract Management helps academic event organizers collect, review, schedule and publish submissions. Organizers can configure submission forms with topics, presentation types, rules, deadlines and author fields, and accept text, file or multimedia uploads. Review features include assigning reviewers, recording scores and comments, tracking progress on dashboards and conducting blind peer review. Authors can edit abstracts until the deadline if the organizer enables that permission. Accepted submissions can be scheduled into a multi-track agenda and exported as a book of abstracts. Abstract submission can connect with conference registration through single sign-on, with an option to require payment for submissions. MeetingHand says the system is designed for events with hundreds or thousands of submissions. Pricing depends on registrations or abstracts collected: Free covers up to 25, Pay as you go costs $4.90 a month and is charged according to collected registrations and abstracts, and Small is a prepaid plan at $990 a month for 250. The Medium plan covers 1,000, but no price is listed. The software is web-based. MeetingHand offers human support and a knowledge center; it also notes that its site is not tailored to regulations such as HIPAA or FISMA.

SimplyConf is a WordPress platform for managing academic conferences, workshops, and symposiums, from submissions and peer review through registration, payments, email, and scheduling. Its free core plugin supports unlimited events, submissions, users, and authors, with tracks, custom statuses and fields, file attachments, and a frontend submission portal. Add-ons cover reviewer assignment, single- and double-blind review, scoring criteria, conflict detection, and track chair oversight. Other tools provide automated email triggers and bulk messaging, Stripe registration payments with pricing tiers and discount codes, multi-track schedules, and exports. Organizers can publish interactive schedules on their conference website and download submission data as CSV or create PDF abstract books and programs. SimplyConf offers self-hosted and managed hosting. Self-hosted use requires WordPress 6.0 or higher, PHP 7.4 or higher, and MySQL 5.7+ or MariaDB 10.3+; HTTPS is recommended. The core plugin supports 12+ languages. The core is free; annual add-ons start at $29 a year, while listed monthly plans cost $19 a month for Starter and $29 a month for Pro.