23 Best Virtual Conference Platforms For Online Events (2023)

Make no mistakes about it — webinars and virtual events are here to stay.

You can use a virtual conference platform to create brand awareness, generate sales, and network with professionals in your industry.

Without the perfect virtual conferencing technology, you may give excuses why you shouldn’t host an event.

That’s why 32% of businesses don’t run virtual events. According to the WildApricot Survey Report, they said that they don’t have the technological infrastructure to run them properly.”

This is a comprehensive guide to the best virtual conference platforms that are easy to set up and use, integrate with 100s of third-party platforms & apps, and customizable options.

The majority of these virtual conference tools come with free plans and affordable plans. Livestorm, Airmeet, GoToWebinar, ClickMeeting, and Zoom are great examples.

In this guide, you’ll discover:

• What the best virtual conference platforms are
• What to consider when choosing a virtual conference platform
• How to avoid losing ‘money’ on virtual conference platforms that are dated & hard to use
• The benefits of using virtual conference websites to host online meetings and webinars to grow your audience and sales.

If you’re ready, let’s dive right in.

What Are The Best Virtual Conference Platforms?

Here are my picks for the best virtual conference platforms for 2023. Then, you’ll find an in-depth review of each virtual conference tool.

Alright, let’s dive right in. Here’s a breakdown of the 23 best virtual conference platforms of 2023:

1. Livestorm

Best for virtual event analytics

Livestorm is a cloud-based, end-to-end virtual event platform that helps teams craft engaging events that will generate leads, build authority, and captivate viewers.

The platform allows users to host events, create custom slides, and send recordings.

Using Livestorm is easy and affordable, and it offers a free plan with reasonable features.

When hosting a webinar, you can even integrate the service with your existing business applications.

Key Features

• Provides on-demand, live, and pre-recorded virtual events
• Enables end-to-end engagement
• Powerful integration with apps such as Slack and Zapier
• Detailed and clean dashboard analytics
• Schedule on-demand and automated webinars
• Evaluate meeting report with details about participants, attendance, and deadlines

Pros

• It’s intuitive and easy to create landing pages
• Send promotional emails and reminders with ease
• It’s easy to integrate chat, polls, and Q&As to make your online event interactive
• Adding more sessions to a pre-existing webinar is super easy
• Easy to customize and use

Cons

• There’s a limit to the number of live attendees in an event (2 – 3,000 only)
• It doesn’t offer pricing per event (only monthly or annually)

Pricing

Livestorm offers 3 plans with flexible pricing:

• Free ($0/month): Unlimited events, unlimited moderators, 20 minutes per event, etc.
• Premium ($109/month): All features in free, plus 4 hours per event, unlimited event registrant, and more.
• Enterprise: Get all the features in Premium, plus more than 3,000 live attendees, and more. Contact the sales team for a custom quote.

Note: Switch to annual payment schedule and save 30% of the total cost.

2. WebinarJam

Popular virtual conference platform

WebinarJam is a popular online platform that lets you create powerful sales webinars quickly.

Its built-in live chat feature enables you to highlight audience comments and presenter responses.

In addition, you can customize your registration page so it looks just how you want it to. This feature also allows you to manage multiple time zones.

For example, if someone did not attend the webinar, but left early, you can send them a different kind of message.

You can also ban trolls from participating in the webinar.

Key Features

• View your sales pipeline in real-time
• A clean, visual dashboard
• Manage unlimited users, up to 1,000,000 contacts
• Integrate with 1,000+ apps
• Multi-touch revenue attribution

Pros

• It’s easy to integrate with third-party platforms
• Easily duplicate successful webinars to get new registrants
• Customizable and professional webinar templates
• You can post offers directly inside the webinar to make sales
• The panic button is super helpful
• Getting started in fun, no need to download or install any software

Cons

• Templates are often too “basic” and simple (except you build your own)
• Sometimes, there’s lag/delay between real-time and what the attendees were seeing or hearing
• The dashboard seems dated. It could use some redesign or improvement

Pricing

Here are the 4 different plans and pricing from WebinarJam:

• Starter ($39/month billed annually): 100 attendees, unlimited webinars, 1 host, 1 hour max duration, live chat, and more.
• Basic ($79/month billed annually): 500 attendees, 2 hours max duration, replica replays, and everything in Starter.
• Professional ($229/month billed annually): Everything in Basic, plus 2,000 attendees, 4 hosts, 3 hours max duration, flexible scheduling, and more.
• Enterprise ($379/month billed annually): Everything in Professional, plus 5,000 attendees, 6 hosts, 4 hours max duration, fully-customizable pages, and more.

3. HeySummit

Best virtual conference platform for branding

HeySummit is an all-in-one virtual conference platform that makes it easy to create and run online events.

The platform offers a variety of features that make organizing and facilitating a conference a breeze, including the ability to integrate with other tools such as Zoom and Hopin.

It also makes it easy for speakers to share their content and interact with attendees.

Regardless of the size of your event, you can easily manage all of the details with HeySummit’s simple dashboard.

Key Features

• Create unlimited online events
• Easy integrations with popular webinar and video platforms
• Generate dynamic landing and registration pages to capture attendees information
• Send customizable emails
• Run giveaways and competitions
• Live and pre-recorded events

Pros

• Excellent and responsive support
• Super easy to and quick solution for virtual events
• It’s easy to showcase speakers, schedule, and sell tickets
• Seamless integration with Zoom to enjoy more functionalities
• It’s plug & play, really easy to learn

Cons

• It’s not as intuitive to personalize as Livestorm
• Some of the email templates have inactive elements that don’t work
• You might struggle to send custom emails (there seems to be an issue)

Pricing

HeySummit offers 3 straightforward plans:

• Starter ($33/month or $300/year): Unlimited active events, 250 registrants, landing pages, etc.
• Growth ($99/month or $900/year): Everything in Starter, plus 1,250 registrants, unlimited team members, and more.
• Success ($299/month or $2,340/year): Everything in Growth, plus 5,000 registrants, unlimited team members, and more.

4. Riverside

Best virtual conference platform for podcasters

Riverside is the all-inclusive audio and video recording platform.

This innovative virtual conference platform enables users to record virtual conferences, including keynote speakers, roundtable discussions, and live Q&As.

This feature allows participants to view and listen to recorded sessions. In addition, the user can receive individual audio/video tracks.

The recording can be played back at a later date and has studio-quality audio and video.

With a range of customizable plans, Riverside is perfect for entrepreneurs, indie creators, budding podcasters, and enterprises.

Key Features

• Schedule and invite people to your event
• Local recordings up to 4k video resolution
• Uncompressed crystal clear audio
• Separate audio & video tracks
• Edit your virtual event with the Magic Editor
• Screen share recording
• Convert your podcasts and videos into texts in seconds

Pros

• You can easily separate audio & video tracks
• Screen share recording is easy
• You can expect studio-quality audio, all from the browser
• It’s easy to record podcasts with guests at any time via the iOS app
• The team is always releasing new updates and features

Cons

• It can only be used on Google Chrome (no other browser is supported)
• Sometimes, there may be delays during session recording

Pricing

Riverside comes with 4 pricing plans to help you pick what’s right for you:

• Basic ($9/month): 2 hours per month of video and audio recording, and more.
• Standard ($19/month): 5 hours per month, live stream to Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, etc.
• Pro ($29/month): 15 hours per month, separate video & audio tracks, and more.
• Enterprise: Get in touch with the support team for a custom quote.

Note: Save 21% of the total cost when you switch to a yearly plan.

5. Weve

Best virtual conference platform for teams

Weve is an online platform that hosts online experiences and virtual events. If you’re looking to run a virtual meeting, Weve can make the experience enjoyable.

With customizable training modules, Weve helps you conduct interactive meetings and engage your employees.

Not only does Weve support online meetings, but it also gives you the option of live streaming events to keep your team connected even if everyone is scattered around the world.

Weve also offers professional emcees and hosts to help you make your event a success.

Key Features

• Event Manager Dashboard to track every activity
• Drive interaction with gamification tools (such as quizzes)
• Collaborate with your team at a deeper level
• Easily switch between work and play mode
• Hosted and self-hosted online events
• Professional templates for registration pages

Pros

• The video calling feature is intuitive to use
• The customer support is reliable. They’ll get back to you on time.
• It’s user-friendly and fun to use (especially for beginners)
• Lots of customization features that puts you in control of the event

Cons

• The theme could improve overall (to be more appealing)
• You may experience laggy or delayed audio (I’m sure they’re working on improving it)

Pricing

The plans and pricing structure that Weve offers is rather complicated. It’s based on number of participants and rooms.

• STANDARD ($299 per room): Up to 10,000 participants, all game types, and more.
• PRO ($799 per room): Everything in STANDARD, plus spectate and play mode, planning call, pre-assigned teams, etc.
• PREMIUM ($1,299 per room): Everything in PRO, plus live stream & webcast, event support team, and more.

6. GoToWebinar

Best for ease of use

GoToWebinar is a service that allows you to hold a live web conference without using a traditional conference room.

This tool simplifies every aspect of webinar creation and management.

From planning to promotion to engagement to conversion, and analysis, everything is streamlined.

This tool also allows you to share your screen with other participants, which can be useful if you’re trying to convince potential customers to purchase a product or service.

Key Features

• Create and host live and pre-recorded events
• Accept online payments through Stripe
• Iron-clad security and privacy to keep you safe
• Track engagement and webinar performance
• Automated communication for invites with reminders and follow-ups

Pros

• A great alternative to Zoom
• Easy to use and learn (especially for beginners)
• New features and learning resources constantly added
• Reports are quite detailed for attendee tracking, Q&A submissions
• Responsive design on multiple devices

Cons

• You can’t run customized reports
• Hand raising feels a bit hokey (Zoom offers multiple options for this)
• Lack of professional background templates to use

Pricing

GoToWebinar has 4 plans:

• Lite ($49/organizer/month billed annually): 250 participants
• Standard ($99/organizer/month billed annually): 500 participants
• Pro ($199/organizer/month billed annually): 1,000 participants
• Enterprise ($399/organizer/month billed annually): 3,000 participants

Note: All plans include unlimited cloud storage, polls, handouts, and Q&As, Reporting & Analytics, automated emails, and more.