Platform Comparison
Conferences.Center vs Microsoft CMT
Microsoft CMT is free and runs peer review at very large scale for many of the biggest CS conferences. Conferences.Center covers the same review workflow and adds research-integrity checking, publisher-ready proceedings delivery, registration, and a data-retention policy you control rather than one set by a fixed clock.
Comparison as of July 2026, based on publicly available information about Microsoft CMT. Product capabilities and pricing change over time — verify current details with each vendor. Spot something out of date? Tell us and we’ll correct it.
The short version
Microsoft CMT (Conference Management Toolkit) is a free, Microsoft-funded platform used by many major computer-science conferences including CVPR, AAAI, IJCAI and MICCAI. Its bidding and reviewer-assignment engine is genuinely strong, and for a great many program committees it is entirely sufficient.
Two differences matter most when comparing it with Conferences.Center. First, retention: CMT's own documentation states that conference data is retained for no more than about two years after the event, after which it is deleted and, in CMT's words, irretrievable. Second, scope: CMT is a review tool. It does not do plagiarism or integrity checking, registration and ticketing, scheduling, or publisher delivery.
Conferences.Center runs the same core peer review and adds a submission-integrity scanner, AI-assisted reviewer matching that always leaves the decision to a human, IEEE Xplore / ACM / Springer delivery-package generation with Crossref DOI deposit, registration and check-in — with your conference history kept under a retention policy you set.
If your conference is happy with CMT and never needs its archive again, CMT remains a reasonable free choice. If you need integrity checking, publisher delivery, or long-term access to past years, that is the gap this comparison is about.
Feature-by-feature comparison
Conferences.Center vs Microsoft CMT across the workflows that matter for running a conference.
| Capability | Conferences.Center | Microsoft CMT |
|---|---|---|
| AI-assisted conference setup | Yes — AI-assisted setup can draft tracks, timelines, and workflows from a brief or CFP for organizer review. | No — configuration is manual; no AI-assisted setup. |
| Abstract & paper submission | Yes — CFP, abstracts, and full papers with multi-track submission and format checks. | Yes — mature submission handling proven at very large scale. |
| Peer review (blind, COI, rebuttal) | Yes — single- and double-blind review, conflict-of-interest checks, and structured rebuttal periods. | Yes — a core strength, with bidding, conflict handling, and multi-phase review used by some of the largest CS conferences. |
| Reviewer matching / suggestions | Yes — reviewer suggestions from roles, tracks, and workload; organizers approve every assignment. | Yes — subject-area and similarity-based assignment (TPMS-style), a long-standing strength. |
| Ticketing & payments | Yes — built-in ticketing with Stripe-hosted payments where configured. | No — CMT does not handle registration or payments. |
| Live / hybrid event hub | Yes — live/hybrid hub with agenda, Q&A, polls, and attendee access for online and in-person formats. | No — CMT has no live or hybrid event tooling. |
| Attendee networking | Yes — attendee profiles, networking spaces, and meeting workflows, with assisted matching where configured. | No — not part of CMT's scope. |
| Analytics | Yes — dashboards for submissions, reviews, registration, attendance, engagement, and revenue where configured. | Basic — review-progress reporting rather than event analytics. |
| Data export & portability | Yes — structured exports across submissions, reviews, schedules, registrations, and attendees. | Yes — Excel, tab-delimited, and XML exports for chairs. Important: per CMT's own documentation, conference data is deleted roughly two years after the event, so exporting before then is essential. |
| Pricing model | Published per-event pricing from $290 for small events, with plans for larger or recurring conference programs. | Free — funded by Microsoft Research. |
| Best for | Teams that want submissions, peer review, scheduling, registration, attendee operations, and reporting in one platform. | Large CS conferences that need proven, free, high-volume peer review and nothing beyond it. |
Where a cell says “varies by plan”, “add-on”, or “limited”, availability depends on the vendor’s tier or is not a core focus of that product.
Where Microsoft CMT is strong
It is genuinely free, at any scale, with no per-submission fees.
Its bidding and automated reviewer-assignment engine is battle-tested on some of the largest conferences in computer science.
Program committees in ML, CV and adjacent fields already know the interface, which lowers reviewer onboarding cost.
Microsoft's infrastructure backing means capacity is rarely a concern.
Why teams choose Conferences.Center
One platform for peer review, ticketing, and the live event — instead of stitching several tools together.
Your conference history is not on a two-year timer
CMT's documentation states conference data is retained for no more than about two years after the event and is then deleted and irretrievable. On Conferences.Center your data stays under a retention policy you control, with GDPR erasure available when a data subject asks for it — rather than an automatic purge on a fixed schedule.
Research-integrity checking CMT does not offer
Every submitted PDF can be scanned for hidden text and embedded prompt-injection payloads — the class of attack researchers demonstrated can push an LLM-assisted reviewer toward accepting a paper. Findings are advisory and flagged for a human chair; nothing is ever auto-rejected.
Proceedings delivery, not just review
Generate IEEE Xplore delivery packages (metadata, table of contents, copyright manifest, page-1 copyright-line stamping), ACM and Springer LNCS metadata packages, and deposit DOIs with Crossref. CMT stops at the review decision.
One platform through to the event
Registration, QR check-in, scheduling with a keynote-aware optimizer, sponsors and a live hub live in the same tenant as your review workflow, instead of being stitched together from separate tools.
Who should choose which
Choose Microsoft CMT if…
Stay with CMT if you run a large CS conference, need free high-volume peer review, have no proceedings-delivery or integrity-checking requirement, and are comfortable exporting your data before CMT's retention window closes.
Choose Conferences.Center if…
Choose Conferences.Center if you need research-integrity checking, IEEE/ACM/Springer proceedings delivery, registration and event tooling alongside review — or simply want your conference archive to outlive a two-year clock.
Frequently asked questions
Does Microsoft CMT really delete conference data?
According to CMT's own data-retention documentation, conference data is retained for no more than approximately two years after the conference ends, after which it is deleted and described as irretrievable. Chairs are advised to download their data before that point. Please confirm the current policy in CMT's documentation, as retention policies can change.
Can we move an existing CMT conference across?
Yes. CMT chairs can export Submissions, Reviewers and Users from the Chair Console, and our importer reads those exports directly. You get a dry-run preview of exactly what will be created before anything is written, and any import can be rolled back completely. We also tell you plainly what does not come across — reviews, reviewer assignments, bids and anonymity mappings are not part of a Submissions export.
Is CMT's reviewer matching better than yours?
CMT's assignment engine is mature and well proven at scale. Ours suggests reviewers based on topical affinity and existing conflict-of-interest rules, and is deliberately suggest-only: a chair always makes the assignment. If large-scale automated assignment is your single most important requirement, evaluate both.
Do we have to pay to try it?
No. Small academic conferences can run the core peer-review workflow — submissions, reviewer assignment, reviews and decisions with a public conference page — on the free tier. Paid plans add AI-assisted matching, the research-integrity suite, scheduling, registration, and publisher delivery.
Keep exploring
Compare with other platforms
See the conference-operations workflow
Review how Conferences.Center connects setup, submissions, peer review, registration, and live operations in one organizer workspace.