Conferencer vs Whova — an honest comparison

What it costs

Whova: Not published. Conferencer: $0.

Whova: Not published; Whova publishes no prices. The pricing page is a quote form — you describe the event and they send a number.

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 Whova is

All-in-one event management platform.

Whova is a hosted all-in-one event platform: registration, an attendee app, networking, sponsors and speakers, with call-for-speakers and speaker-management modules inside the suite. Its banner counts 15 million users, 50,000+ events and 170+ countries.

Who it is for: Corporate and association events that want one suite for everything.

Side by side

The same job, line by line.

The Whova 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.

ConferencerWhova

Published price

Conferencer$0 — MIT licensed, no plans, no per-event fee

WhovaNone — a quote form

Scope

ConferencerThe programme: call, review, decisions, onboarding, agenda, public site

WhovaThe whole event: registration, app, networking, sponsors, speakers

Call for speakers

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

WhovaA call-for-speakers module inside the suite

Committee review

ConferencerMulti-round plans, anonymized rounds, 8 scorecard types, conflict-of-interest recusal, auto-distribution with caps

WhovaNot listed among the call-for-speakers features

Speaker onboarding

ConferencerOnboarding tasks, versioned file requests, a deliverables matrix, a speaker portal

WhovaSpeaker information collection and reminders

Public site

ConferencerA full public site — sessions, speakers, agenda, itinerary, gallery, personal .ics schedule — no login

WhovaEvent web pages plus the attendee app

Self-hosted

ConferencerYes — one container, one SQLite file, Node 22+

WhovaNo — hosted only

Where Whova is genuinely better

The attendee app: An award-winning mobile app, in their words, with networking and engagement tools. Conferencer publishes a website, not an app.
One suite for everything: Registration, badges, sponsors, exhibitors and attendee engagement alongside the speakers.
Scale and recognition: 15 million users, 50,000+ events, 170+ countries, per their site.

Where Conferencer differs

You can see the price: $0: No quote call, no per-event negotiation. The LICENSE file is the whole pricing page.
Programme depth over suite breadth: Multi-round blind review, versioned deliverables and agenda clash detection — the programme half of the event, done properly.
You own the database: One SQLite file on your disk, readable by any tool that speaks SQL. Leaving is a copy.

Sources for every claim about Whova on this page, read on 12 August 2026: whova.com/pricing · whova.com/call-for-speakers. If a figure here has gone stale, the linked page is the truth.

Conferencer vs Whova.

Whova: Not published. Conferencer: $0.

All-in-one event management platform.

The same job, line by line.