Methodology
How we score 45 vendors.
The whole site stands or falls on whether you trust the scoring. Here's exactly how it works.
1. Aggregate ratings, not editorial reviews.
This is a list of best event apps, so the composite weights the mobile experience and the B2B reputation equally:
composite = 50% mobile app (App Store + Google Play) + 50% G2 + Capterra
Within each half, sources are weighted by review count — a vendor with 5,000 ratings carries more weight than one with 50 — and any single source with fewer than 10 reviews is dropped as noise.
To appear in the ranking, a vendor must clear two bars:at least 100 reviews on G2 or Capterra andat least 100 ratings across the App Store and Google Play — enough on both sides that the numbers actually mean something. A platform with no app (or too few app ratings to judge) is listed but shown as "Not ranked"; same for a vendor under the 100-review B2B bar. Neither gets a made-up number.
Every rating on a vendor profile links to its live source and shows its review count and the date we last verified it (last verified 2026-05-31 — G2 from its live listings, Capterra and Google Play from each product listing, and the App Store via Apple's official ratings API).
2. Hard filters first — and we never eliminate on missing data.
When you fill in the quiz, hard filters run first. A vendor is removed when it definitely doesn't fit: it doesn't list events of your size (too small or too big — a platform built for 500+ isn't recommended for your 60-person workshop), it can't do hybrid when you have remote attendees, its listed price is over your budget, it typically takes over a month to set up when your event is weeks away, or it confirmed-lacks a must-have you picked.
If a vendor's public materials don't say whether it has your must-have, we keep it and flag it "unverified" — you decide. An integration available via Zapier counts as partial. Quote-based vendors are never removed by budget unless you tick "listed price only".
Every vendor that passes gets one score, 0–100, a weighted average of:
| 30 | Essentials for your event type | what a trade show, workshop or conference typically needs (45 if you skip Q3) |
| 30 | Your attendee priorities | the up-to-3 things you picked |
| 20 | Customer rating | the composite above ÷ 5; vendors under the review bar score at the rated average — neither helped nor hurt |
| 15 | Must-have confidence | confirmed 100 · via Zapier 70 · unverified 40 (only if you picked must-haves) |
| 10 | Event-type fit | does the vendor position itself for your kind of event |
| 10 | Budget fit | a listed price inside your budget beats "we can't confirm" (only with a budget ceiling) |
| 10 | Setup speed | only when the event is under a month away (5 for 1–3 months) |
That number is what you see and what we rank by. There is no separate bonus, penalty or tiebreaker, so #1 always shows a higher match than #2. We deliberately don't score how you like to buy — sales-led vs self-service, or whether a vendor publishes prices — because that describes the vendor's sales motion, not your event. The price that applies to your attendee count is shown on every result instead.
The scenario tests in the source repo verify this behaviour — including that an unverified must-have never eliminates and that the rank order never contradicts the shown percentage. The build fails if a change breaks them.
3. Same quiz, same answer. Always.
We don't personalise. We don't track. We don't show different rankings based on who's asking. The scoring function is a pure function of your quiz answers — give it the same answers tomorrow, you'll get the same top 3.
The algorithm is open source. You can read the code, run it locally with your own quiz inputs, and verify the output matches what we show you.
What the category tags mean.
Every vendor carries two or three focus tags so you can tell at a glance what it's built for — the first tag is its primary focus. They're descriptive, not part of the score.
- All-in-one platform
- Runs the whole event end to end — registration, the attendee app, check-in, analytics, often exhibitor and badge tools too. One system instead of stitching several together.
- Mobile event app
- App-first: the product is the attendee's phone app — agenda, profile, networking, notifications. Lighter than a full platform, and pairs well with registration you already use.
- Registration & check-in
- Owns the front door — registration and RSVP forms, ticketing, on-site check-in and badge printing.
- Networking & matchmaking
- Built around connecting people: attendee profiles, AI or recommended matches, and 1:1 meeting scheduling as the headline feature, not an add-on.
- Trade shows & exhibitors
- Tuned for expos — exhibitor and booth profiles, lead retrieval and badge scanning, interactive floor plans and wayfinding.
- Virtual & hybrid
- Strong tooling for remote attendees — streaming and virtual spaces — for events that run an online audience alongside the room. We focus on in-person and hybrid apps; this flags the ones that also handle the virtual side well.
- Association & community
- A year-round member or community app, not just a one-off event — recurring engagement for associations and member organisations.
Operator disclosure.
This site is operated by Eventee s.r.o., one of the vendors we rank. The scoring code is forbidden from referencing any specific vendor by name — a static-analysis test in CI rejects any change that adds such a branch.
On your results page Eventee appears in a clearly labelled card ("from the team behind bestevent.app") showing its real rank and score from the same scoring — or stating plainly that it isn't a fit for your event. That label is the only special treatment it gets.
See the editorial policyfor the full conflict-of-interest treatment.
Vendor data — how we fill it in.
Vendor records come from the vendor's own public materials — pricing pages, feature pages, security pages, public roadmaps. When a vendor's public materials are ambiguous, the field is marked "Unknown" and we score it conservatively (i.e. we don't credit the vendor for capabilities they haven't publicly stated).
Vendors (or anyone) can request corrections by emailinghello@bestevent.app. Every correction request is reviewed against the source; the change goes live within a day if confirmed.