OpenConf is a practical academic submission and peer review system when committees want control over forms, assignments, bidding, reviews, decisions, proceedings, and program output. It is less polished than modern event suites, but the self-hosting option and academic feature depth make it useful for cost-sensitive research teams.
OpenConf focuses on submission and peer review, not full attendee lifecycle management.
Advanced features such as hosting, SSO, payments, plagiarism checks, certificates, and mobile program publishing depend on paid editions.
The free Community Edition assumes PHP, MySQL, server access, and organizer-side maintenance.
Independent review sites show limited OpenConf review volume, so peer references may be more useful than ratings.
| Plan | Price | Details |
|---|---|---|
| Community Edition | Free | Self-hosted and self-supported basics for submission, review, acceptance, and notification |
| Plus Edition | Paid | Adds support, responsive design, bidding, discussion, rebuttal, proceedings, and more customization |
| Professional Edition | Paid | Adds hosting option, priority support, advanced modules, SSO, payments, program publishing, and copyright-related workflows |
OpenConf is built for the academic work around a conference: collect submissions, assign reviewers, manage reviews, make decisions, and publish proceedings or a program. It is especially relevant when teams want either a self-hosted route or a focused peer review system.
The tradeoff is scope. OpenConf can be a strong review backbone, but most public-facing event, registration, onsite, or attendee engagement workflows will need separate tools or a broader conference platform.
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