Comparison guide
Moving a conference from EasyChair, Microsoft CMT or OpenReview.
What to check, and what we cover.
Seven points that decide whether a switch is worth the effort.
- Review model
- Decide whether you need open, single-blind or double-blind review. Conferences.Center sets this per conference; in double-blind mode reviewers never see author identities.
- Reviewer assignment and conflicts
- We rank reviewer suggestions by topic and workload, flag shared affiliations and past co-authorship, and a chair approves every assignment before invitations go out. Suggestions are advisory.
- Your own forms
- Review questions, reviewer limits per paper, deadlines, reminders and an optional rebuttal window are configured by you.
- Decisions and camera-ready
- Scores, reviews and rebuttals are shown together, decisions are recorded on the paper, and camera-ready upload opens only for accepted papers.
- Proceedings
- For IEEE-sponsored conferences, where enabled, we track copyright form status and assemble a delivery package from accepted papers. You still hand it to the publisher yourself.
- Beyond the review
- Schedule, registration and ticketing, QR check-in, certificates and visa invitation letters (where enabled) run in the same platform as the review, so nothing is copied between tools.
- Data and exit
- Ask any system how you export submissions, reviews and attendee records, and who owns them. For ours, see the privacy and data retention pages.
Questions to put to any vendor.
Features, plans and terms change. Check each vendor’s current documentation and pricing rather than relying on a third-party summary, including this one.
- Which stages of your conference run in this system, and which still need a spreadsheet or a second tool?
- How are reviewers invited, and who approves assignments?
- What do authors see about their submission, and when?
- Can registration and the schedule use the accepted-paper list directly?
- What does it cost for your size of conference, and what is excluded? Check each vendor's current pricing page.
- How do you get your data out at the end of the cycle?
Moving in practice.
Move between cycles, not in the middle of one. Start a new conference, set its tracks and deadlines (the setup assistant can draft them from your call for papers text, and you review every field), then invite your committee.
We do not promise an automatic import from another system. Export what your current system lets you export and tell us what you have; we will say plainly what can be loaded and what is better re-entered.
The vendors’ own sites are EasyChair (opens in a new tab), Microsoft CMT (opens in a new tab) and OpenReview (opens in a new tab). They are linked only so you can read each vendor’s current documentation.
See also the neutral comparison checklist and the academic solution.
Bring your next cycle's timeline.
We will set up a walkthrough around your review model and committee roles.
EasyChair, Microsoft CMT, OpenReview, IEEE and other names are trademarks of their respective owners. Conferences.Center is not affiliated with or endorsed by them. Names appear only to identify the products organizers may be moving from.