10 Best Virtual Event Software of 2023 Compared

The world is slowly making its way back into physical spaces. Yet, the world for hybrid and virtual events platforms is still thriving. Virtual events have made their benefits apparent during the pandemic. With increased ROI, reduced costs, and greater global reach, it is still now the preferred choice. Perhaps you agree, that is why you are reading this blog.

Is your company on the hunt to find the Best Virtual Event Software to suit their needs? Look no further, we have sifted through ten best ones just for you.

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10. vFairs

vFairs is a physical, virtual and hybrid events platform that caters to large and small businesses alike. It offers an entirely customizable 3D virtual environment, packed with everything you would see in a physical space. You enter a virtual lobby from where you can venture into virtual exhibit halls, auditoriums, networking lounges, and more.

From virtual meetings, conferences, job fairs, product launches, and tradeshows, vFairs offers a comprehensive list of event solutions. You can create bespoke events with your brand personality.

What really sets vFairs apart, however, is its customer support. Customers are provided with a dedicated project management team. This team sees your virtual event from start to finish. Not to mention, you have a 24/7 technical support team at your behest on your live days.

“Superb project management, excellent support, amazing virtual platform,”

says Lisa Taylor-Stone, Head – Development Cooperation and Resource Mobilization, OECS Commission.

However, if you are tech-savvy, you won’t even need too much support from your team with a perfectly user-friendly backend.

Recognized as the market leader with G2, vFairs earned 6 more badges this quarter. G2 is a peer-to-peer business review site that ranks softwares based on customer feedback and market share. Based on their quarterly reports, vFairs has been recognized as the best in seven consecutive quarters. Badges include Higher Performer Spring 2022, High Performer Mid Market, and Easiest to Do Business With 2022.

Having existed in the market since 2016, vFairs has evolved and consistently added value to its software with customer feedback. It includes all sorts of integrations such as with Zoom, Ms Teams, Kahoots, Slido, Miro Whiteboard, Hubspot, Salesforce, and Interprefy among many.

Gamification features allow the event to be more engaging, through a virtual leaderboard, scavenger hunt, spin the wheel, trivia and more! Various networking tools allow individuals to share business cards with the use of bar codes. Attendees can simply collect business cards and download them at the end of the event as a spreadsheet. Not to mention, 1:1 audio, video and text chat options are also available.

Accessibility features also make vFairs an inclusive platform. Including transcription, multiple language availability, color and font adjustments. With a mobile app, one can also ensure that their event is accessible across devices. This ensures that participants can join in from wherever they are.

Not to mention, vFairs offers detailed analytical reports for your event during and after. You can use these to inform future event planning, sales, marketing and even learn about new audiences!

What we like most about vFairs, is that you make a payment with the purchase of an event license. Based on your budget, you simply pick and choose the features you wish to include, and make a one time payment. Most other platforms require a monthly or yearly payment plan.

For all the reasons listed above, vFairs makes it to the top of our list for ten best virtual event platforms.

SpotMe

SpotMe is a virtual and hybrid event platform that brings events to the audience’s virtual doorstep. You can create all your content from backstage or if not you can tap into and get the support of a stagehand. This platform is also mobile-accessible and customizable. You can brand your event throughout with logos and your brand color palette.

The platform is appropriate for simple webinars to elaborate events. With templates that you can use to create your entire event through an event builder. It has engagement features such as live polls, Q&A, networking tools, and more.

It’s definitely a good tool for sales outreach as you can host product demos and more. Payment is determined by plans: standard, business, advanced, and enterprise. Their site suggests that each has features that are limited to the plan, however. Depending on your budget, this might be something you need to work around.

What we like about SpotMe is that you can personalize journeys to individual users. They can see their trip summary, event times and get notifications.

Some users have suggested technical difficulties from time to time. “The technology isn’t always reliable onsite and the level of expertise varies from SpotMe contact to SpotMe contact,” says an Administrator in Professional Training & Coaching.

ON24

ON24 is a sales and marketing platform for online engagement. This it does through webinars, virtual events, and personalized content experiences. They offer live streaming for virtual events, virtual conferences and roundtable experiences.

What we like about ON24 is that you completely brand and customize your webinar experience. With engagement features such as Q&A, polls and surveys, webinars can be a truly fun experience. What’s more is you can convert leads from within webinars with conversion tools such as Request a Demo, Book a Meeting or Start a Free Trial. Allowing you to generate leads in real time.

It also seems like a great tool for conducting training and courses. Webinar setup is also easy and user friendly. Participants can see the profile of the speaker, partake in Q&A sessions, tap into links for other topics and more.

ON24 might be a good tool specifically for webinars and training. Perhaps not for a full blown virtual event. It doesn’t seem to have a dedicated project manager available to help with technical difficulties either.

If you want to conduct a not so complicated event, with a slight spin on your average, boring webinar, ON24 might be the platform for you.

WebEx

Formerly called Socio, WebEx supports multi-track events. It allows for custom virtual venues, mobile apps, live and on-demand streaming. You can use your preferred live streaming solution with integrations.

WebEx allows you to customize anything, down to the icons for the announcements tab. Push notifications keep attendees informed about their activities during the event. A mobile app helps you to not only attend the event but make use of networking features as well.

You can even keep your community engaged and active with virtual roundtables, discussion rooms, gamifications and more. You can send alerts for meetups that are targeted to specific group members.

Lead retrieval is made easier from the lead retrieval app.This enables exhibitors to scan attendee badges, follow up and capture leads.

Some customers have suggested a few limitations, however. Such as hosts cannot chat with attendees directly from the backend. “We had to place people in the audience to communicate with the attendees,” says Gayle E, Engagement Manager, Member Services. Some customers have also mentioned bugging issues due to integrations.

Thus, WebEx is a decent platform for small-scale events with fewer attendees or business meetings.

Airmeet

The Airmeet platform replicates a live event, and is an immersive environment with interaction, and engagement features. This includes chat, polls, or Q&A sessions throughout the event. As with most other platforms, you can plan, create and organize events yourself. You can customize and add your own logos, set up ticketing rules for private events, and personalize it to reflect your brand.

Attendees can also watch videos on features, or products that are presented. It is strange that participants can’t interact 1:1 on it though. However it has an ability to organize startup pitch sessions and demo days for investors and mentors. What we really like is the backstage feature for your speakers, where other speakers can also wait and chat with one another. Virtual tables and chairs are another fun feature on the platform.

You can create different speaker rooms, add logos and links to any freebies within each room.
Some customers have mentioned that its cross device functionality isn’t great, but the support team is ever ready to help.

Aventri

The Aventri platform offers virtual, hybrid and in-person events. With event marketing, data analytics, and various engagement tools, you can really create an immersive user experience. Users have mentioned that they truly benefited from their logistical management.

It offers live streaming, real-time attendee participation, and multi-session capabilities. Sprinkle your colors and logos within your event and create branded graphics. This platform is suitable for small events, as users have mentioned the software to be a little clunky at times.

The backend might be a little confusing too. If you have little experience with virtual events management then this might not be for you.

It offers various integrations such as with Hubspot and Salesforce. Using hubs and tags, it finds out how participants engage with and react at different points within the event. This is great insight for creating future events, and understanding the user journey.

InEvent

With an easy to use backend, InEvent markets itself as built to assist industries including marketing, finance, pharmaceuticals, insurance and others. Customers design their own websites and applications with their own logos, colors, and themes.

Other participants and speakers can interact using the mobile app and share updates, news, and announcements. It too offers integrations such as with Facebook Pixel, Zapier, Apple Wallet, etc.

What is particularly interesting about InEvent is that they offer their services based on marketing managers, travel managers, HR partners and so on. From what we understand, the website then highlights the features that would most suit your particular goal in a company. Whether sales, market reach, recruitment etc. If you have people flying in, it even tracks and manages bookings, shuttle services, flight times and so on. This was a real plus for us!

However, some customers have said it has a lot of features that can get overwhelming if you aren’t tech-savvy with the back end. One might need to be an experienced virtual events planner for this reason.

Whova

Another virtual and hybrid events platform, Whova offers event management solutions for all users.

It is trendy and attractive which then engages attendees really well. With a mobile app, online registration, event marketing, and other tools, the platform has pretty much everything. It has various engagement features, and a virtual platform that offers everything from presentations, booths, mobile features, and more.

A community board enables easy discussions and networking. Engagement features such as polls, gamifications, social wall and Q&A keep attendees present. You can have targeted messages for specific audiences and with event analytics you can plan future events even better.

For some reason it only markets virtual expo and career fairs on its website as solutions. Some customers have mentioned that it is user friendly, but because it has so many features the platform tends to get cluttered. This they said can be overwhelming for attendees and prove an over stimulation. They also mentioned it does not offer customizations the way other platforms might.

Hopin

Hopin is an all-in-one event management platform, managing both virtual and in person events. It helps you create a truly immersive experience by replicating a physical environment.

It has some great features and integrations that are offered through the Hopin app. You have a virtual venue, use Streamyard to tune into webinars, have onsite management for in person events and more. The platform is always updating with new features so you are likely going to find what you need here. However, you will need some backend support if you aren’t exactly an I.T person.

Hopin provides its services through a payment plan and there is even a free option with limited features. This is great for non-profits or someone who has a very small event in mind and little funding. Though the payment plans might be on the pricier side, if you want additional features.

They provide solutions such as summits, forums, trade fairs, workshops and more. You can create an event to your brand’s image. They also provide event marketing support.

Hubilo

Hubilo is a virtual and hybrid event platform. First and foremost, its mission is to drive engagement in order to yield better business results. This is further backed by customer reviews on G2. You can create a branded experience tied in with engagement and a customer success team.

It caters to marketing events, internal events, education seminars and conferences. Each customer is provided with a client experience team that sees you from end to end. Data analytics, and integrations are also provided. However, the integrations aren’t as extensive as other platforms.

There are some drawbacks however. “One of our biggest issues was trying to play an on-demand video while having the speakers available for live Q&A after. The video must be played from someone’s computer. It would be nice if the video played from Hubilos’ servers,” says Garrett W, Statewide Strategic Program Manager.

Rounding Off

There you have it. A list of the top ten virtual event platforms out there that we could find. If anything it should help you double down, and sift some out for your next virtual event

Disclaimer:

The views and opinions expressed here are those of authors associated with Growthbuk. Any content provided by our authors is of their opinions based on independent research and is not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything. While we always strive for accuracy we can and will be wrong at times, as any honest human will have to admit. If you find any such inaccuracy or that may look misleading please do contact us via team[at]growthbuk[dot]com we’ll be happier to correct them after verifying them very carefully and responsibly.

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