Buyer's guide
Every list ranks networking apps by features and star ratings. Organizers do not get paid in features. Rank them on outcomes instead: declared intent, routed meetings, and proof your sponsors accept.
There is no single best one, and any list that crowns a winner is selling something. Whova wins on all-in-one breadth at a mid-market price, Cvent on enterprise scope and procurement, Swapcard and Grip on meeting scheduling at scale, b2match on structured delegation programmes, Brella on in-app networking. The right question is which outcome you are judged on, then which shape produces it.
We build one of the products on this page, so read it accordingly. Two rules govern what follows. We publish a verdict only on products someone here has reviewed, with the review date attached and quote-based pricing named as such. And every number about Sena is stated as a count over its base, including the deployments where the numbers were bad.
Feature grids compare what software can do. They cannot compare what it does at your event, and the gap between those two is where the disappointment lives. Nearly every product in this category lists AI matchmaking. Most of them are telling the truth. None of it tells you how many of your attendees end up in a conversation that mattered.
The reason is that networking outcomes are gated by three things a feature list does not show. Adoption gates matching: an attendee who never installs the app cannot be matched by any engine, however good. Input quality gates relevance: a matching engine reading half-completed profile fields is doing sophisticated work on thin data. And observation gates reporting: a platform can only report what it can see, so a sponsor report built on in-app behaviour describes app users rather than your audience.
Star ratings have the same problem. Attendees rate the interface; organizers get judged on whether sponsors renew. Those correlate less than you would hope. The rubric below compares the gates instead of the features.
Ask these of every vendor on your shortlist, including us. Each has a version that sounds good and a version that is verifiable. Ask for the second one.
01
What share of attendees state real intent?
Not profile completion. Stated goals, in the attendee's words. Profiles say "interested in AI"; intent says "buying an API gateway this quarter".
How to test it: ask for the number as a count over registered attendees at a named event, not a percentage of active users. The gap between those two denominators is usually where the story is.
02
Can it tell buyers from sellers?
At FOST Munich, 9 of 58 identified attendees said plainly they came to sell, including representatives of three sponsors. At CPME31, 60% of profiled attendees came for client acquisition. A directory treats them identically to 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 route people, or expose a directory?
Self-serve browsing puts the work back on attendees, and most never do it. Active routing brings the right introduction to 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 afterward?
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 deployment. 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. The ones you lose are not a random sample: senior buyers, the people your sponsors paid to meet, are the least likely to download a conference app for two days. Removing the download is not removing the destination. A browser app still has to be visited.
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, which sorts vendors into thirteen circles rather than one ranked list. Three of those circles matter for networking, and knowing which one 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 including Cvent, RainFocus, Eventbrite, Bizzabo, InEvent, Whova and Zuddl. These run registration, ticketing, agenda and the attendee app. Networking is one module among many, which is a reasonable trade when the alternative is four separate contracts.
A tighter circle of fifteen, including Brella, Grip, Braindate, Jublia, Krowden, MeetMatch and Delegate Select. These are the specialists. Matching and meeting scheduling are the product rather than a feature, and at large trade shows that difference shows.
Forty-plus vendors and no settled definition. Sena sits here rather than under networking. That is a fair reading of what we are, and a signal about the category: there is no established segment yet for products whose job is capturing intent and proving sponsor value.
Grip is classified under networking rather than AI, which is not a 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 counting 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, which moves them out of the pure-networking box.
Source: BoldPush Q1 2026 event technology landscape map, curated by Julius Solaris.
Read this as a map of shapes rather than a scoreboard. Each of these is good at what it was built for, and the differences below are design decisions rather than defects. The column that matters most is the third one: where the system's idea of an attendee comes from.
Swipe the table to compare every column
| Platform | Shape | Access | Intent source | Routing | Genuinely 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, sourcing, procurement |
| Swapcard | Event platform with AI matchmaking | App or web | Profile and behaviour | Recommendations and booking | Meeting scheduling at scale |
| Brella | Networking app, independent | App | Onboarding form | Suggested one-to-ones | In-app networking experience |
| Grip | Enterprise trade-show matchmaking | App or web | Profile and behaviour | Recommendations and booking | Very large exhibitions |
| b2match | B2B matchmaking programme | 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 | Proactive messaging | Multi-channel consumer reach |
| Sena | Intent and sponsor-ROI layer | Nothing to install | Conversation | Proactive, reason attached | Intent capture and sponsor evidence |
Positioning verified July 2026 from vendor sites and public listings. Prices are omitted deliberately: most of this category is quote-based, varies by attendee count and module, and any figure we published would be stale within a quarter. Ask each vendor directly.
A comparison the author wins on every row is an advertisement. Below is what each of these is genuinely better at than we are, and the trade-off attached to it.
Every entry has a review date. Where a product's pricing is quote-based we say so rather than guessing, and where a claim came from a third-party listing rather than the vendor we treat it as an estimate. If something here is wrong, tell us and we will correct it. We have had to correct this page once already.
All-in-one event app
Reviewed July 2026
Wins on. Breadth for the money. Agenda, attendee directory, community boards, polling, session Q&A, sponsor listings and registration in one contract, at a price a mid-sized event can actually approve. The community feed generates genuine attendee-led activity, which is rare in this category.
The trade-off. Networking is a directory plus a message inbox. Attendees browse and reach out themselves, so the people who most need an introduction are the least likely to get one, and sponsor reporting can only describe the attendees who were active in the app.
Pick it when. You want one product to run the whole event, and networking is a feature you would like rather than the outcome you are judged on.
Enterprise all-in-one platform
Reviewed July 2026
Wins on. Scope, and the procurement posture large organisations require. Registration, venue sourcing, badging, onsite check-in, speaker management and programme-wide reporting. Venue sourcing in particular 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, and matchmaking downstream inherits that ceiling. Its LeadCapture product records who was scanned, not who was worth scanning.
Pick it when. You run a large programme of events and need registration, sourcing and compliance under one contract. Nothing here replaces that.
Event platform with AI matchmaking
Reviewed July 2026
Wins on. Meeting scheduling as industrial infrastructure: slots, calendars, confirmations and hosted-buyer programmes that hold up at trade-show scale. 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. Recommendations run on profile fields and click behaviour. The scheduling is excellent; what it schedules against is still a form. Sponsor evidence is meetings booked and leads scanned rather than why the attendee came.
Pick it when. Booked meetings are the product you sell to exhibitors, or you are consolidating vendors and want one platform across registration and engagement.
Networking app, independent
Reviewed July 2026
Wins on. The best-known name in attendee matchmaking, with the strongest in-app networking experience here for events whose attendees genuinely install things. Mature across meetings, sponsorship and analytics, and now offering ticketing and registration alongside matchmaking.
The trade-off. Value starts after a download, an account and a profile. Matching runs on the interests typed during onboarding. 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 matchmaking
Reviewed July 2026
Wins on. Scale, maturity, and the most sophisticated signal in this list. They combine explicit preferences with behavioural cues such as profile clicks, session views and calendar actions, which is a real step past static profile matching, and they are comfortable with thousands of exhibitors.
The trade-off. Behaviour is still a proxy for intent: clicking a session does not tell you someone is replacing a vendor this quarter. Every signal also requires the attendee to be active in the platform, so non-users generate nothing. Scoped and priced for the top of the market.
Pick it when. A large exhibition where exhibitor-attendee matchmaking is a core commercial product with its own revenue line.
B2B matchmaking programme
Reviewed July 2026
Wins on. The right shape for structured meeting programmes: trade delegations, cluster and brokerage events, where the meeting schedule is the reason the event exists. Widely considered the most cost-effective option for European B2B conferences, and tiers bundle consultation hours so setup comes with human support.
The trade-off. The model assumes a motivated participant who completes a detailed profile and works a meeting-request queue. That holds in delegation formats and thins out fast at open conferences. AI matchmaking is an add-on rather than the default.
Pick it when. Your event is a structured matchmaking programme and attendance is contingent on the meetings.
Browser-based event app with AI concierge
Reviewed April 2026
Wins on. No download. A progressive web app means attendees open a link, and it bundles agenda, maps, matchmaking, 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 navigate to it and stay inside it, so if they never visit there is no way to reach them. Published engagement rates are not available.
Pick it when. You need a full event app including agenda and maps, want matching bundled in, and 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, which covers US audiences WhatsApp alone does not, and adds Apple and Google wallet passes as a push channel.
The trade-off. Built for 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.
Intent and sponsor-ROI layer
Reviewed this is us
Wins on. Intent captured in conversation rather than in a form, so a match runs on what someone said they came to do. The gates reject by default: two sellers never get matched to each other, and anything the attendee would answer "why?" to does not get sent. Introductions are routed to people with the reason attached, and every sponsor gets evidence afterwards. Nothing to install.
The trade-off. Not a platform. No registration, ticketing, badging, agenda, maps or streaming. It runs alongside one of the products above, never instead of one, and the engagement numbers depend heavily on the organizer promoting it.
Pick it when. Sponsor and exhibitor ROI is the number you are judged on, and your current stack cannot tell you why any attendee came.
Competitor pricing is deliberately omitted. It is quote-based, varies by attendee count and module, and any figure here would be stale within a quarter. Ask each vendor directly. If something above is wrong or out of date, tell us and we will correct it.
This is the most common complaint we hear, and it is rarely a problem with the app itself. It is a problem with the order of operations. The app asks for four things before it gives one: download, account, profile, then browsing. 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, with well-run deployments of dedicated networking apps reaching roughly 40%. Those numbers are survivable if you only need an agenda. They are corrosive if you sold sponsors on access to an audience, because the attendees who skip the install are disproportionately senior, disproportionately time-poor, and disproportionately the people the sponsor paid to meet.
There are two honest responses: reduce the steps, or move to a channel the attendee already has open. Removing the install removes the largest single drop-off. At CPME31, 76% of Speed Business participants opted in (159 of 209) and 92% of delivered WhatsApp templates got a reply (113 of 123). Across the full funnel, including the attendees the send never reached, that figure is 65%. At FOST Singapore, 67% of messages reached a read receipt.
The counterweight belongs here too, because a page arguing for denominators cannot then hide its own. Removing the install does not make promotion optional. At FOST Singapore, without heavy organizer promotion, 309 of 1,596 registered attendees engaged, which is 19%. In one deployment where the organizer did not promote Sena at all, engagement sat near 6%. Channel choice removes one barrier; it does not remove the need to tell attendees the thing exists.
Not a scorecard of vendors, but of two approaches. Most events end up running 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 delivered WhatsApp templates answered at CPME31 (113 of 123) |
| Declared intent | Half-filled profiles | 69% completed full discovery in conversation (CPME31); 61% at FOST Singapore |
| Recommendation quality | Rarely measured or reported | 93% session match quality at FOST Paris (909 of 976 rated high quality) |
| 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 |
Every Sena figure is stated with its denominator and its event. Engagement depends on organizer promotion at registration; where promotion was absent it fell to around 6%. We will tell you exactly what activation takes; ask.
Pick the row that describes the number your job is measured on.
Whova at the mid-market, Cvent at enterprise scale, and Swapcard now that it runs registration through check-in as well. Networking will be a module rather than the product, and that is a reasonable trade if the alternative is stitching four contracts together.
Swapcard or Grip at scale, b2match if the event is a structured delegation or brokerage programme and cost matters. Scheduling infrastructure 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 networking experience is strong and 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 your audience is consumer-facing or US-heavy enough that SMS and iMessage matter more than WhatsApp.
This is the gap Sena was built for, and it sits on top of whichever platform you already run. The question it answers is not who attended but why they came, and that answer has to be collected before the event to exist at all.
Your event is under about 100 attendees, or has no sponsor or exhibitor revenue to defend, or is virtual-only, or is a consumer event with no B2B matchmaking economics. You should also not choose Sena if what you need is registration, badging 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 stated intent rather than on profile similarity. Ask each attendee what they came to do, in their own words, then route introductions to them instead of publishing a directory and hoping. Similarity matching pairs people who look alike; intent matching pairs a person who needs something with a person who has it.
Yes, and there are two shapes of it. Browser-based tools such as Highbar and b2match remove the install but still require the attendee 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; only the second removes the visit.
Because the app asks for effort before it gives value. Download, account, profile and browsing 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, and the people who skip it are not a random sample.
It depends on the outcome you are judged on. For booked meeting slots at scale, Swapcard and Grip are built for it, and b2match is the cost-effective choice for delegation and brokerage formats. If your problem is that nobody knows why attendees came, the gap is intent capture rather than scheduling, and more scheduling will not close it.
The useful ones do a specific job with event data: matching attendees on stated intent, answering attendee questions during the event, and turning conversations into sponsor evidence. Treat any tool that calls itself AI-powered without naming the job it does, and the denominator behind its numbers, as unproven until it shows you both.
Usually yes, and most events already do. Registration, the attendee app and the networking layer are separable, and a layer that captures intent has to sit on top of a platform because it does not do registration or badging. The real constraint is attendee attention: two products both asking for a profile will get one of them ignored.
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