Buyer's guide
Every list ranks these apps by features and star ratings, but you do not get paid in features. Rank them on outcomes instead: what attendees came for, the meetings they get, and proof your sponsors accept.
There is no single best one, because each product wins for a different buyer. Whova wins on all-in-one breadth at a mid-market price, and Cvent wins on enterprise scope and procurement. Swapcard and Grip win on meeting schedules at scale. Brella wins on the in-app experience for meeting people, and b2match on structured delegation programmes. Ask which outcome you answer for, then pick the product that delivers it.
We build one of the products on this page, so read it with that in mind. We judge only products that we have reviewed, and each verdict shows its review date. Our own numbers include the events where they were bad.
Feature grids compare what software can do. They cannot compare what it does at your event, and the disappointment lives in the gap between those two. Nearly every product in this category lists an AI matchmaker, and most of them tell the truth. None of that tells you how many of your attendees end up in a conversation that mattered.
Three things decide the results, and a feature list shows none of them. No engine can match an attendee who never installs the app. An engine that reads half-filled profiles does clever work on thin data. And a platform reports only on the attendees in the app, not on your whole audience.
Star ratings have the same problem. Attendees rate the interface, but your job depends on whether sponsors renew. A high score does not tell you that they will. The five questions below test what a feature grid cannot.
Each question has an answer that sounds good and an answer that you can check. Ask for the second one.
01
How many attendees tell you what they came for?
A profile says "interested in AI". An attendee in their own words says "we need to buy an API gateway this quarter". Only the second one gives you a good match.
How to test it: ask for the number out of all registered attendees at a named event, not out of active users. Those two numbers are often far apart.
02
Can it tell buyers from sellers?
At FOST Munich, 9 of 58 identified attendees said plainly that they came to sell, and representatives of three sponsors were among them. At CPME31, 60% of profiled attendees came for client acquisition. A directory treats them the same as buyers.
How to test it: ask what the system does differently when two sellers match each other. If the answer is nothing, your buyers absorb the pitches.
03
Does it make introductions, or hand over a directory?
A directory that attendees search themselves puts the work back on them, and most never do it. When the system makes the introduction, it reaches the person with the reason attached.
How to test it: ask who makes the first move. If the attendee has to open something and search, that is a directory with a recommendation engine attached.
04
Can you prove sponsor value after the event?
The renewal conversation needs evidence: which qualified attendees engaged which sponsors, and why. This is the report that carries it.
How to test it: ask to see an anonymized sponsor report from a real event. Not a template, not a dashboard screenshot. The document a sponsor actually received.
05
Does participation require an install, an account, or a new habit?
Every install and login costs you attendees. Senior buyers, the people your sponsors paid to meet, are the least likely to download a conference app for two days. A browser app removes the download, but attendees still have to go to it.
How to test it: count the steps between "attendee registers" and "attendee receives something useful". Each one is a place people leave.
The most useful independent map of this market is BoldPush's Q1 2026 event technology landscape. It sorts vendors into thirteen circles, with no overall rank. Three of those circles matter for attendee introductions, and the circle a vendor sits in tells you more about fit than any feature grid.
The largest circle on the map, with more than a hundred vendors. Cvent, RainFocus, Eventbrite, Bizzabo, InEvent, Whova and Zuddl are among them. These run registration, tickets, agenda and the attendee app. Attendee introductions are one module among many, and that is a reasonable trade when the alternative is four separate contracts.
A tighter circle of fifteen, with Brella, Grip, Braindate, Jublia, Krowden, MeetMatch and Delegate Select among them. These are the specialists. For them, matches and meeting schedules are the whole product, and it shows at large trade shows.
Forty-plus vendors and no settled definition. Sena sits here, outside the Networking circle. That is a fair view of what we are. It also shows that no settled category exists yet for products that learn why attendees came and prove sponsor value.
The map puts Grip in the Networking circle, outside AI, and that is no criticism of Grip. A mature platform that uses AI as a feature is a different thing from a product built AI-first. That distinction tells you more than a count of whose website says "AI" most often.
The map is already behind on one vendor. In April 2026 Swapcard unified registration, engagement, networking and onsite check-in into a single platform. That takes them out of the specialist box.
Source: BoldPush Q1 2026 event technology landscape, by Julius Solaris.
No scores here. Each product is good at its own job, and each difference below is a choice the vendor made. The column that matters most shows where each product learns what an attendee wants.
Swipe the table to compare every column
| Platform | Type | Access | Attendee goals from | Introductions | Best at |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Whova | All-in-one event app | App or web | Profile fields | Directory and community feed | Breadth at a mid-market price |
| Cvent | Enterprise all-in-one platform | App or web | Registration data | In-app recommendations | Registration, venues, procurement |
| Swapcard | Event platform with an AI matchmaker | App or web | Profile and behaviour | Recommendations and booked meetings | Meeting schedules at scale |
| Brella | Networking app, independent | App | Sign-up form | Suggested one-to-ones | The in-app experience to meet people |
| Grip | Enterprise trade-show matchmaker | App or web | Profile and behaviour | Recommendations and booked meetings | Very large exhibitions |
| b2match | Platform for B2B meeting programmes | Web | Detailed profile | Meeting requests | Delegations and brokerage events |
| Highbar | Browser-based event app with AI concierge | Web, no install | Stated goals | In-app agent | Lightweight all-in-one |
| Advcy | Multi-channel conversational platform | Messaging channels | Conversation | Messages sent to the attendee | Multi-channel consumer reach |
| Sena | Attendee goals and sponsor ROI | Nothing to install | Conversation | Sent to the attendee, with the reason | Why attendees came, and sponsor evidence |
We checked each vendor's own pages and public listings in July 2026. Most pricing in this category is quote-based, so we leave it out. Ask each vendor.
A comparison that the author wins on every row is an advertisement. Each card below says what that product does better than Sena, and what you give up for it.
Every entry has a review date, and most vendor facts come from the vendors' own pages. If something here is wrong, tell us and we will correct it. We have corrected this page once already.
All-in-one event app
Reviewed July 2026
Wins on. Breadth for the money. Agenda, attendee directory, community boards, polls, session Q&A, sponsor listings and registration come in one contract. The price is one that a mid-sized event can actually approve. The community feed produces genuine activity that attendees lead themselves, and that is rare in this category.
The trade-off. For meeting people, Whova gives you a directory plus a message inbox. Attendees browse and reach out on their own, so the people who most need an introduction are the least likely to get one. Sponsor reports can only describe the attendees who were active in the app.
Pick it when. You want one product to run the whole event, and introductions are a nice extra, because your job depends on other outcomes.
Enterprise all-in-one platform
Reviewed July 2026
Wins on. Scope, and the procurement terms that large organisations require. It covers registration, badges, onsite check-in, speaker management and reports across a whole programme of events. It also does venue sourcing, which is a genuine moat and completely outside our scope.
The trade-off. The richest thing Cvent knows about an attendee is what that attendee typed into a registration form. Its matches carry that same limit. Its LeadCapture product records who got a scan, not who was worth a scan.
Pick it when. You run a large programme of events and need registration, venues and compliance under one contract. Nothing here replaces that.
Event platform with an AI matchmaker
Reviewed July 2026
Wins on. Meeting schedules at trade-show scale: slots, calendars, confirmations and hosted-buyer programmes. As of April 2026 they also unified registration and onsite check-in into the platform, so they now run end to end.
The trade-off. Its recommendations come from profile fields and clicks. The meeting schedules are excellent, but they still start from a form. Sponsor evidence is meetings booked and leads scanned, not why the attendee came.
Pick it when. Booked meetings are the product you sell to exhibitors, or you want fewer vendors and one platform across registration and engagement.
Networking app, independent
Reviewed July 2026
Wins on. The best-known attendee matchmaker. For events whose attendees genuinely install things, it has the strongest in-app experience on this list for meeting people. It is mature across meetings, sponsorship and analytics, and it now offers ticket sales and registration as well.
The trade-off. Value starts after a download, an account and a profile. Matches run on the interests that attendees type when they sign up. If your attendees install things, Brella does this well. If they do not, no engine inside it can reach them.
Pick it when. A captive, multi-day audience that reliably adopts the event app, where one-to-one introductions are the format that matters.
Enterprise trade-show matchmaker
Reviewed July 2026
Wins on. Scale, maturity, and the most advanced matches on this list. Grip uses what attendees state and what they do in the app. That is a real step past matches on profiles alone, and Grip handles thousands of exhibitors.
The trade-off. A click on a session does not tell you that someone will replace a vendor this quarter. Grip also sees only the attendees who use the platform. Its scope and price suit the top of the market.
Pick it when. A large exhibition where matches between exhibitors and attendees are a core commercial product with their own revenue line.
Platform for B2B meeting programmes
Reviewed July 2026
Wins on. A fit for structured meeting programmes: trade delegations, cluster and brokerage events, where the meeting schedule is the reason the event exists. It has a wide reputation as the most cost-effective option for European B2B conferences. Its tiers include consultation hours, so setup comes with human support.
The trade-off. The model assumes a motivated participant who completes a detailed profile and works through a queue of meeting requests. That holds in delegation formats and thins out fast at open conferences. The AI matchmaker is an add-on rather than the default.
Pick it when. Your event is a structured meeting programme, and attendance depends on the meetings.
Browser-based event app with AI concierge
Reviewed April 2026
Wins on. No download. It runs in the browser, so attendees open a link. It bundles agenda, maps, a matchmaker, an AI concierge and lead retrieval into one product, with fast self-serve setup and results-based pricing.
The trade-off. Still a destination. Attendees have to go to it and stay inside it, so if they never visit, there is no way to reach them. Highbar does not publish engagement rates.
Pick it when. You need a full event app with agenda, maps and matches in one bundle, and you prefer a low-risk self-serve experiment to a vendor relationship.
Multi-channel conversational platform
Reviewed April 2026
Wins on. Reach beyond WhatsApp. It consolidates WhatsApp, SMS, iMessage, Telegram and Discord into one inbox, and that covers US audiences that WhatsApp alone does not. It also adds Apple and Google wallet passes as a push channel.
The trade-off. It targets consumer and entertainment audiences, with proof points to match. The promise is community, belonging and advocacy rather than exhibitor ROI, and pricing is a setup fee plus usage.
Pick it when. A consumer or brand-community audience, a US-heavy attendee base where SMS beats WhatsApp, or a programme that continues long after the event ends.
Attendee goals and sponsor ROI
Reviewed this is us
Wins on. Sena asks each attendee what they came to do and matches on the answer. Two sellers never get a match with each other. Sena holds back any match that makes the attendee ask "why?". Each introduction comes with its reason, and every sponsor gets evidence afterwards. Nothing to install.
The trade-off. Not a platform. No registration, tickets, badges, agenda, maps or video streams. It runs alongside one of the products above, never instead of one, and the engagement numbers depend heavily on promotion from the organizer.
Pick it when. Sponsor and exhibitor ROI is the number your job depends on, and your current stack cannot tell you why any attendee came.
Organizers bring us this complaint more than any other, and the cause is usually the order of the steps. Download, account, profile, then a search through the directory: value arrives fifth, if the attendee is still there.
Organizers we work with put typical event-app usage around 20 to 30% of registered attendees. Well-run dedicated apps for meeting people reach roughly 40%. Those numbers are survivable if you only need an agenda. They are corrosive if you sold sponsors on access to an audience. The attendees who skip the install are disproportionately senior and time-poor. They are also, disproportionately, the people the sponsor paid to meet.
You have two honest responses: cut the steps, or move to a channel the attendee already has open. Take away the install and you take away the largest single drop-off. At CPME31, 76% of Speed Business participants opted in, and 92% of the attendees who got our first message replied. Out of all attendees who opted in, 65% replied. At FOST Singapore, attendees read 67% of the messages that reached them.
Now our weak numbers. A channel with no install still needs your promotion. At FOST Singapore, without heavy promotion from the organizer, 19% of registered attendees engaged. At one event where the organizer did not promote Sena at all, engagement was near 6%. A channel with no install removes one barrier. You still have to tell attendees that the channel exists.
This table compares two approaches rather than vendors. Most events end up with both.
Swipe the table to see the Sena column
| Outcome | Typical event app | Sena |
|---|---|---|
| Agenda, maps, registration | Strong. This is what apps are built for. | Not Sena's job. Keep your platform. |
| Attendee adoption | Install rates routinely disappoint organizers | 92% of attendees who received our message at CPME31 replied |
| What attendees came for | Half-filled profiles | 69% told us their goals in full at CPME31, and 61% at FOST Singapore |
| Recommendation quality | Vendors rarely measure or report it | 93% of session recommendations at FOST Paris got a high-quality score |
| In-event questions | FAQ page and a staffed desk | 2,634 attendee questions answered at FOST Paris, each under three seconds |
| Sponsor evidence | Impressions and booth traffic | Per-sponsor report: who engaged, why, next step |
Source: Sena at CPME31, FOST Singapore and FOST Paris. Engagement depends on your promotion at registration. Without it, engagement fell to around 6%. Ask us what it takes at your event.
Pick the row that describes the number your job depends on.
Whova at the mid-market, Cvent at enterprise scale, and Swapcard now that it runs registration through check-in as well. Introductions will be a module rather than the product. That is a reasonable trade if the other option is four contracts that you stitch together.
Swapcard or Grip at scale, and b2match if the event is a structured delegation or brokerage programme and cost matters. Infrastructure for meeting schedules is genuinely hard, and these three have spent years on it. Sena does not replace it.
Brella. If you have a captive multi-day audience that genuinely adopts the event app, its in-app experience for meeting people is strong. The install objection does not apply to you.
Highbar, if you still need agenda and maps in the bundle and want a self-serve setup. Advcy, if you have a consumer audience, or a US-heavy one where SMS and iMessage matter more than WhatsApp.
We built Sena for this gap, and it sits on top of whichever platform you already run. It tells you why each attendee came. You have to collect that answer before the event, or you never get it.
Your event has under about 100 attendees, or it has no sponsor or exhibitor revenue to defend. The same applies if it is virtual-only, or a consumer event where the economics of B2B matches do not apply. Do not choose Sena either if you need registration, badges or an agenda, because it does none of those. In all of those cases a platform from the map above, on its own, is the right call.
Match on what each attendee came to do. Ask them in their own words, and send each one the right introductions. A directory leaves that work to the attendee. A similarity match pairs people who look alike. A good match pairs a person who needs something with a person who has it.
Yes, of two kinds. Browser-based tools such as Highbar and b2match remove the install, but the attendee still has to visit a destination and log in. Conversational tools such as Sena and Advcy reach attendees on channels they already use, so there is nothing to open at all. Both remove the download, but only the second removes the visit.
Because the app asks for effort before it gives value. Download, account, profile and search all come before the first useful thing happens, and most attendees leave somewhere in that sequence. Organizers we work with put typical event-app usage around 20 to 30% of registered attendees. The people who skip it are often the senior buyers your sponsors paid to meet.
It depends on the outcome you answer for. For booked meeting slots at scale, Swapcard and Grip do that job, and b2match is the cost-effective choice for delegation and brokerage formats. If your problem is that nobody knows why attendees came, more meeting slots will not fix it. You need to ask each attendee.
The useful ones do a specific job with event data. They match attendees on what they came to do, answer attendee questions during the event, and turn conversations into sponsor evidence. Some tools call themselves AI-powered but do not name the job they do or say how many attendees their numbers cover. Treat those as unproven until they show you both.
Usually yes, and most events already do. Registration, the attendee app and introductions are separate jobs. A tool like Sena sits on top of a platform, because it does not do registration or badges. The real limit is attendee attention. If two products both ask for a profile, attendees will ignore one of them.
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