Tips and Tricks
4 min read Fourwaves vs. Whova
Matthieu Chartier, PhD.
Published on 28 Jan 2025
Whova is a generic purpose event software. It offers a nice mobile app that is great for networking and sharing photos, but its corporate focus and complex interface often miss the mark for academic and scientific conferences.
Fourwaves was built for academic and scientific events and provides the features you need to avoid making trade-offs that can ruin the organizer and participant experience.
Why Whova Falls Short for Academic Events
- Lack of academic focus: Whova isn't adapted to academic and scientific events. Small details add-up making organizers work much less efficient and decreasing the participant experience.
- Complex interface: Many organizers report that Whova’s admin tools are clunky, unintuitive, and time-consuming to learn. Academic event organizers are often busy academics and don't have days to spend learning a new software.
- Excessive notifications: Frequent attendee notifications and features like “nudging” are unnecessary for scientific events, distracting from the core event experience.
- Affordability and lenghty sales process: Whova requires numerous sales call, and have a complex pricing structure where you often end up paying a lot more than other better solutions out there.
- Design issues: Aesthetics and ergonomics feel outdated, with limited customization options for event branding to provide a modern professional look and feel for your academic event.
"There are many features that cannot be turned off. There are emails that go out to attendees without notice" – Software Advice user review.
Feature Comparison: Fourwaves vs Whova
Below is a side-by-side comparison of the core features offered by each platform.
| Feature | Fourwaves | Whova |
|---|---|---|
| Author data capture | Uses a structured multi-author grid that formats superscripts automatically and keeps submitter, presenters, and co-authors distinct. | Stores authors and affiliations in a single text field, so names can’t be superscripted or indexed and you can’t target individual presenters later |
| Accurate communication | Lets you filter and message submitters, presenters, or any author role with one click. | Treats the submitter as the sole “speaker,” organisers can email only that person |
| Abstract-booklet export | Generates a fully formatted Word booklet (grouped, sorted, with images and an author index) in seconds. | Offers no way to export an abstract booklet, forcing organisers to copy-paste every abstract into Word or InDesign. |
| Custom abstract numbering | Fourwaves lets you edit numbers in bulk or individually to match any scheme. | Auto-numbers abstracts sequentially, you can’t apply academic nomenclature like “P85” or “S3.O1. |
| Single and Double Blind-review modes | Gives you single- or double-blind and lets you customize which fields are hidden to reviewers. You can also decide to share specific fields to authors and decide to hide reviewer identity or not. | Blind option is hidden behind enterprise pricing. Also it doesn't allow to share reviewer feedback to authors. |
| Review assignment | Fourwaves bulk-assigns by track, keyword, or load balance and fires automated reminders. | You assign submissions to reviewers one-by-one. |
| Nested sessions | Supports sessions that contain multiple presentations, each with its own start time. | Treats sessions and presentations at one level. |
| Advanced abstracts reporting | Lets you sort, filter, and export on any submission or registration field—including checking for missing files or unpaid invoices. | Data view shows limited columns. |
| Programme exports | Can export simplified or detailed schedules (with authors and affiliations nicely formatted, and room grids) to PDF or Word. | Outputs a basic PDF agenda. |
| Registration workflow | Flexible form where fields, prices, quotas, and conditional logic live in the same builder. | Ticket-first model forces organisers to juggle tickets, default questions, extra forms, and registration pages. |
| Presenter-registration check | Flags unregistered presenters instantly and can bulk-email reminders. | Requires manual reconciliation. |
| Virtual poster sessions | Intuitive and simple. Hosts zoomable posters, video pitches, asynchronous Q&A and allows organizers to setup a virtual poster sessions in about 60 seconds with hundreds of integrated video conversation rooms. | Complex and clunky. Only attaches PDFs to sessions; there’s no interactive gallery. |
| Pre- and post-event content access | Lets organisers choose any window, so attendees can browse abstracts months before and replay content after. | Typically opens content to a limited time before the event (often a 90 day window). |
| Archive of previous editions | Keeps past editions live indefinitely for grant reporting and citation. | Hides events after a set window. |
| Learning curve & UI | Sports a modern interface with a five-step launch wizard and contextual tooltips. | Reviews label Whova “overwhelming” and “hard to navigate.” |
| Reviewer rubric flexibility | Accepts numeric, short and long text, multiple-choice questions, and file-uploads, so reviewers can attach annotated drafts or qualitative feedback. | Limits reviewers to numeric scores. |
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