Cvent Event Management vs. Dryfta

The breadth of features is such that Cvent Event Management is a strong choice for events of significant scope and complexity, particularly in volume and diversity of programming. The learning curve may be on the steep side for customers with simpler needs, though Cvent Event Management is addressing this by providing more streamlining in their solution suite.

Incentivized

I can't provide a scenario where Dryfta could be well suited. I guess it's a matter of delivering what has been promised on time, and without having to invest thousands of hours in extra work, as it was in our case. If it worked properly it could be a good tool for any conference.

• Registration platform can handle nearly any need.
• Event websites are easy to build and support customization.
• Support is available in multiple formats should you run into issues.
• There is a large user community where you can reach out for ideas and help.

Incentivized

• It has a lot of functionalities (website and administration) all included in the same platform. If it worked properly, it allows you to organise a conference paper-free.
• Help desk responds quite quickly
• They consider making improvements when asked for.
• It’s not too expensive.

• You have to implement a workaround to use images in your session descriptions.
• They tend to add features by acquiring other platforms, but then don't always cleanly integrate them into Cvent itself, so they always seem sort of ratcheted on.
• The media and document library is pretty basic, so you need to take extra steps to link PDFs and other documents within the registration process if you choose to host the docs on Cvent.

Incentivized

• Multilingual issues. Although it is advertised as multilingual, it didn’t really work as such. The many issues that popped up throughout the conference preparation were fixed little by little at a cost in time, from help desk emails and to struggles with the unfriendly UX.
• Admin pages reloaded every time you clicked on a button (their developers seem to ignore Ajax technologies). It was time-consuming and required constant page searches.
• Inflexibility in many of the supposed functionalities it offers.
• Certificates were not modifiable nor custom when we had to send them (it was solved months after the conference finished when we were surprisingly contacted by the help desk).
• Problems with the size of images to be displayed on the site, very small fonts and limited options to display content. We had to hire a professional developer in order to get a graphically consistent and presentable website.
• Very poor mobile version. Too big margins, unreadable text, endless text blocks and lists, distorted pictures, etc.
• Issues with the ordering of the authors’ names for different proposals (authorship being so important in research).
• Fixed, inflexible fields in the contact sheets, speakers info, and so on.
• Special character issues (due to Latin characters and other types used in linguistic research).
• Not being able to include links in the HTML editor due to Dryfta's inadvertent decisions to block them.
• Only one Superadmin user allowed to access the full functionalities of the platform, so we had to share it (consequently not knowing who did each action).
• Problems with the generation of reports and the high complexity of their interface.
• Some issues on the mandatory anonymity. The double-blind review process not fully respected due to unclear user info and options, with other issues coming up on the go such as unwanted info in automated notifications and messages in the Welcome dashboard.
• Not being able to use the other payment methods on the platform because they were incompatible with the conference country.
• Missing information and time wasted when creating events for sessions with info that already existed in the server that randomly failed to be selected. These issues were reported even with video proofs (help desk didn’t believe us), and were never solved. We had to repeat the same processes again and again, never knowing what was going on

I enjoy the app and what it has to offer. It makes working in events a lot easier! Before I would have to go to our warehouse and print name badges and write out different names if they needed it. Attendees also did not have access to our breakout sessions. Now, I can adjust names onsite and we can allow attendees to access our sessions before the event begins

Incentivized

Cvent has a lot of functionality, which can be overwhelming to new users who are not too technically savvy. However, Cvent does a great job of providing tools and support for users to learn and troubleshoot. I also appreciate the work and progress that Cvent has been making in Accessibility.

Incentivized

Cvent does go down pretty frequently. And while it often doesn't impact day to day use usually, if it does go down at the wrong time, you may not be able to access very important event information when you need it. Usually outages do not last very long, but it could still be a very bad situation if this happens at the wrong moment

Incentivized

When pulling reports and it can sometimes lag a bit and that can be frustrating when you are trying to get things done on a timeline

Incentivized

The company offers 24/7 customer support, including phone, email, and chat support, to ensure that we can get help when we need it. Additionally, the platform has a comprehensive help center and knowledge base, including user guides, tutorials, and FAQs, which help us troubleshoot issues on our own. Cvent also provides training and support resources, including onboarding assistance, live training sessions, and webinars, which help us get the most out of the platform. Overall, Cvent appears to be committed to providing excellent customer support and resources to its users, which can help ensure a positive user experience and successful events.

Incentivized

It was quick, that's all we can say. Quite a few times they sorted out the problems and issues. But, sadly, sometimes their answers were useless and irritating (not addressing the problem or simply ignoring it, "passing the buck"). In some cases, they pretended the problem didn't exist and we had to send them videos as proof. No response to that.

Our on-site trainer was very knowledgeable in the product and gave us very important pointers on best practices and how to perform tasks in the simplest manner

Incentivized

It was all self-driven and I had to do a lot of searching around in the community to get answers.

Incentivized

It would have been nice during implementation if we had received more pointers on how to organize our parked report folders, libraries, etc. to avoid the mess we find ourselves in today. If we had known ahead of time the limitations we could have planned better.

Incentivized

Honestly, Cvent Event Management's registration platform is superior. The logic, setup options are far better than what the companies above have to offer. The only downfall is that it is far more expensive, and sometimes isn't needed for the most basic of registration sites.

Incentivized

We use Cvent for many different clients and events. It's very easy to customize the experience for the event that you need

Incentivized

• The Cvent suite of events has drastically reduced redundant work throughout our events department allowing us to streamline a lot of the registration/software aspects of our events and allow us to focus on other areas of our events that had previously been placed on the back burner.
• Since Cvent Event Management is so widely use, many of our attendees, exhibitors and speakers are familiar with the platform so they are able to seamlessly operate within it for their needs with little to no learning curve.
• We're able to pull more accurate and customized reports based on specific information we need with each event.
• We able to offer our registrants a more customized experience with their registration and event platforms. This allows us to customize and innovate our events in new ways we previously hadn't been able to.

Incentivized

• The overall performance was okay in the end, but it was due to our team's commitment and effort. Without that extra work, the results would have been awful.