Conferencer vs PaperCall.

PaperCall is the easy way to manage your call for papers. Conferencer is free, open-source software for the same job — the call, the review, the decisions, the onboarding, the agenda and the public site — that you run yourself.

Open the live demo PaperCall pricing page

What it costs

PaperCall: $0 — until 31 August 2026. Conferencer: $0.

PaperCall: $0 — until 31 August 2026; PaperCall was free for everyone. The homepage notice: existing events and submissions remain available until 31 August 2026, and new events can no longer be created.

Conferencer

$0, always

MIT licensed and self-hosted: no plan, no per-event fee, no limit on submissions, no share of your revenue. Your only bill is the box it runs on, and a $5 VPS covers it.

What PaperCall is

The easy way to manage your call for papers.

PaperCall is — was — a free, well-liked hosted tool for running a call for papers: customizable event pages, automatic opening and closing of calls, optional anonymous submissions and a centralized speaker database. Its homepage now carries a shutdown notice: it closes on 31 August 2026, and new events can no longer be created.

Who it is for: Community conferences and meetups running an open call — now looking for somewhere to go.

Side by side

The same job, line by line.

The PaperCall column states only what their own public pages state; the sources are linked at the foot of the page. The Conferencer column is checkable in the repository.

ConferencerPaperCall

Price

Conferencer$0, always

PaperCall$0, until 31 August 2026

Still available

ConferencerYes — and it cannot be sunset on you

PaperCallExisting events only; new events can no longer be created

Who controls the shutdown date

ConferencerYou do — it runs on your machine

PaperCallThe vendor

Call for speakers

Conferencer14 field types, show-when logic, saved drafts, per-person limits, close dates

PaperCallCustomizable event pages, automatic open and close, anonymous submissions

After the call

ConferencerReview, decisions, onboarding, agenda and the public site

PaperCallCFP management was the product

Speaker database

ConferencerYour own CRM across your own events

PaperCallA centralized speaker database on their platform

Where PaperCall is genuinely better

It was free and genuinely easy: Credit where due: PaperCall proved a call for papers could be simple and cost nothing, and a lot of community conferences ran on it for years.
Zero setup: Hosted, nothing to install, a call live in minutes.
Speaker-side reach: Speakers used one account across many events' calls, and the WeeklyCFP list gave calls extra exposure.

Where Conferencer differs

It cannot be switched off: Self-hosted and MIT licensed: no vendor date on the calendar, no licence server, nothing to phone home to. An abandoned repository still boots, and you can fork it.
The whole programme, not just the call: Committee review, decisions with templated emails, speaker onboarding, the agenda grid and the public site — the loop PaperCall started, finished.
Your data is a file you already have: No export deadline. The database sits on your disk from the first day.

Sources for every claim about PaperCall on this page, read on 12 August 2026: papercall.io. If a figure here has gone stale, the linked page is the truth.