pretalx vs Session Canvas

pretalx manages conference calls for participation and the work that follows, including submission review, talk selection, speaker communication, scheduling, and publication. Organizers can customize call pages, set multiple deadlines, accept submissions in multiple languages, and use a chosen domain. Review teams can rate and discuss submissions, and organizers can add questions for reviewers. The schedule editor uses speaker availability and warns about conflicts; published schedules can include an RSS feed and public changelog. Organizers can use full API access or download static schedule pages for hosting elsewhere. pretalx is open-source software under the Apache License and can be installed with pip. It can be self-hosted or used as a hosted service. Self-hosted software costs nothing, but server costs and maintenance apply. Hosted service includes backups, certificates, updates, operational maintenance, and assistance; pricing is per event and varies with conference size and ticket price, with no price listed here. The hosted service says it uses servers in Germany, encrypts data in transit, and does not track attendees with cookies, analytics, or sensitive IP logging. Event-page and schedule availability is usually guaranteed for six months after an event.

Session Canvas is open-source software for managing conference submissions, reviews, agendas, speakers, and event communications. Organizers can build calls for papers with reordered questions, conditional rules, required fields, deadlines, and draft submissions. The review process supports track-based routing, a passwordless evaluator view, and optional blind review. Agendas have day, room, and list views, with warnings for potential time, room, and speaker conflicts. Speakers can use magic links to check submission status, update profiles, and complete tasks. Organizers can send templated acceptance or rejection emails, reminders, and calendar invitations that update when event details change. For sharing event information, it provides embeddable schedule and speaker widgets, a public JSON schedule feed, and whole-event iCal export. Five public widgets are viewable without logging in. Optional Airtable sync is off by default. Session Canvas runs on the web and is self-hosted on the organizer’s Supabase project. It is MIT-licensed and costs nothing.