Cvent alternative for academic conferences

Ex Ordo vs Cvent: which suits your conference?

Cvent is a general event management platform that runs events of every kind, from corporate meetings and trade shows to webinars and hotel room blocks, with abstract management available as an add-on. Ex Ordo is a scholarly-first conference management platform, built around the conferences, symposia, and meetings that accept submissions, put them through peer review, and build a programme from the results. If your conference starts with a call for papers, Ex Ordo is built around that work; if you need one platform for a large, varied events programme, Cvent covers far more ground.

The two are built for different jobs, so the right choice depends on where most of your effort goes: on the academic content of one conference, or on running many kinds of events across an organisation.

How do Ex Ordo and Cvent compare at a glance?

Cvent details are from its own abstract management, registration, and pricing pages, read on 5 November 2026.

What does scholarly-first mean in practice?

It means the call for papers, peer review, and programme are the centre of the platform rather than one module among many. Every workflow in Ex Ordo is designed around how research conferences actually run.

Ex Ordo runs conferences with thousands of submissions and complex review: many tracks, each with its own deadlines and chairs, large volunteer reviewer pools, panels, and rolling review. That scale is what the platform is built for, not an exception.

The allocation engine is at the heart of it. In Ex Ordo's peer review software, you set how many reviews each submission needs and how many submissions each reviewer can take, and the engine matches every submission to the best-qualified reviewers based on relevance and expertise, in a single action. You can test the allocation and rerun it until it is right, start allocating as soon as submissions arrive, and re-assign, close, or disable reviews as the process moves. Conflicts of interest are checked at the point of allocation, as our abstract management software page explains, and review can be single-anonymous or double-anonymous. No spreadsheets, and no days of manual matching.

Once reviews are in, chairs filter by score, decide from a dropdown, send letters from the dashboard, and can ask authors for camera-ready copies.

Panels and symposia get the same care. Panel organisers submit themed sessions, reviewers see them as clusters, and you accept or decline a panel in one click before it becomes a session in your conference programme, where the conflict checker flags presenters booked in two places at once.

Cvent's abstract management page describes customisable submission forms, assignment by track, topic, or expertise, scoring and voting, automated emails, and sessions created from accepted submissions. It does not describe anonymous review, conflict of interest checks, or limits on each reviewer's workload.

Organisers notice the difference. 'What used to take days of careful manual work is now a matter of pressing a button, while still keeping full control over the process,' says Jef Verschueren, founder of the International Pragmatics Association, whose conferences run up to 17 in-person parallel streams. Read the IPrA story. The Society of Engineering Science used the same workflow to review submissions across 54 topics with 152 reviewers and 20 parallel sessions.

Which works better with a membership system?

Both connect to membership systems; they do it in different ways. Ex Ordo builds membership into the conference itself, from sign-in through to member-only fees.

Submitters and reviewers can sign in to Ex Ordo with their existing membership account through SAML or OpenID Connect, so nobody needs another password. Ex Ordo integrates with Naylor AMS, and Naylor membership types feed member-only fees in registration, so delegates can only buy the fees they qualify for. The International Pragmatics Association uses single sign-on with its own membership system.

Cvent's registration page lists association management integrations such as iMIS, and its pricing page includes single sign-on in the Enterprise package.

How do the mobile apps compare?

Cvent's Attendee Hub is a broad engagement suite, with chat, Q&A, polling, gamification, networking, and exhibitor and sponsor tools. Ex Ordo's mobile app brings that kind of engagement to scholarly events, with your programme flowing straight in from the platform where you built it.

Our mobile conference app is powered by Guidebook, a leading mobile event app developer whose technology has powered more than 50,000 events. Partnering with a specialist means your delegates get an app built for security and usability, in several licence options so you choose the level your event needs. Delegates get a programme that works without wifi, a personalised itinerary, messaging, and meeting booking; you get push notifications, live polls, an interactive venue map, and sponsor banners with usage statistics.

Where is Cvent the better fit?

Cvent is a strong choice in these cases:

• you run many kinds of events across your organisation, not mainly scholarly conferences;
• you need onsite check-in, self-service kiosks, and badge printing;
• you source venues or manage hotel room blocks for your events;
• exhibitors and sponsors are central, with lead capture and appointment booking;
• your registration and event app already run on Cvent and you want to keep everything there.

Ex Ordo covers the whole conference lifecycle and can be used end to end or in partnership with other tools, so an organisation that runs most of its events elsewhere can still give its call for papers and peer review a scholarly-first home.

How does pricing compare?

Both price by quote. Cvent lets you license only the solutions you need or take its full Enterprise package, with abstract management sold as an add-on. Ex Ordo sends a detailed price built around your conference.

What sets your Ex Ordo price:

• the number of submissions you expect; Ex Ordo can manage thousands and thousands and submissions.
• the products you choose, such as review, registration, and virtual or hybrid, plus add-ons like the mobile app and book of proceedings;
• how many events you run with us: we offer flexible discounts for multiple events and multiple years.

What comes with every Ex Ordo conference:

• onboarding, with our team configuring your workflow and testing it with you before launch;
• hands-on support from set-up through to programme building, including your busy submission and review periods;
• tracks, peer review, and panels in the review product, with panels never an add-on.

Getting a price: tell us your expected number of submissions and your currency, and your detailed price arrives in under 30 minutes. Get a price for your conference.

Questions organisers ask when moving from Cvent

Can we run abstract submission, registration, and the mobile app in one place?

Yes. With Ex Ordo's conference registration, authors and delegates submit, register, and pay from one account, and the programme you build syncs to the mobile app in one click.

Can we bring our submissions across from another system?

Yes. Ex Ordo imports submissions from other systems, and our team helps configure and test your workflow before launch.

See it on your own conference

Tell us how many submissions you expect and your detailed price arrives in under 30 minutes. Ask for your price, or read how organisers use Ex Ordo in our customer stories.

Last updated 5 November 2026, when Cvent details were checked against its own website.