The free tools an organiser needs, in the order a conference needs them
From coordinating your committee and finding a time that suits several continents, to streaming, engaging the room and publishing the papers. Each tool has a line on what it is good for, and a tag with its cost and its free-plan limit as the company itself states it.
A curated list; this site has no tie to the makers of these tools. Companies change their limits from time to time — these were checked in October 2026. What this site does itself is tagged «On this site».
Planning with your committee
When2meet
Free
Everyone marks the hours they are free and the common slot appears — no account needed.
Rallly
Free
An open-source poll for finding a meeting time.
Doodle
Free, with limits — one group poll at a time, with ads
The well-known scheduling poll.
Trello
Free, with limits — 10 collaborators per workspace
A task board for the organising committee: who does what, and by when.
Time zones — for an international meeting
Every Time Zone
Free
One sliding bar that compares the time across zones at a glance.
Design and publicity
Canva
Free, with limits
Posters, slides and social posts from templates, with Arabic support.
Adobe Express
Free, with limits
Adobe's tool for flyers and social posts.
Unsplash
Free
High-quality photos you may use under the site's licence.
Pexels
Free
Photos and video clips you may use under the site's licence.
Google Fonts
Free
Arabic and Latin typefaces licensed for use.
Spreading your call for papers
WikiCFP
Free
The best-known directory of calls for papers.
Conference Alerts
Free, with limits — 20 free listings a year
An international conference directory you can add your event to.
H-Net Announcements
Free
Conference announcements in the humanities and social sciences, with a free account.
«Share your call»
On this site
Your call written once in the shape these directories ask for — copy and paste.
Online sessions and streaming
Jitsi Meet
Free
Open-source video meetings in the browser: guests join with no account; the host signs in with Google, GitHub or Facebook.
Zoom
Free, with limits — 40 minutes per meeting, 100 participants
The best-known video meeting platform.
Google Meet
Free, with limits — 60 minutes for three or more, 100 participants
Video meetings from Google.
Microsoft Teams
Free, with limits — group meetings are time-limited
Video meetings from Microsoft.
YouTube Live
Free
Public streaming with no audience limit. Needs a verified channel and age 16+; the first stream can take up to a day to enable.
OBS Studio
Free
Open-source software for recording and streaming sessions.
StreamYard
Free, with limits — its logo on your stream
Browser-based streaming with several speakers.
Engaging the room
Slido
Free, with limits — 100 participants, 3 polls per event
Audience questions and polls from their phones.
Mentimeter
Free, with limits — 50 participants a month
Live polls and charts inside your presentation.
Polls
On this site
Polls you create on the event page, with results in its final report.
Recordings and transcripts
References, papers and publishing
Zotero
Free, with limits — 300 MB of sync storage
Collect references and format them in any citation style.
Zenodo
Free
Deposit conference papers with a permanent DOI, run by CERN.
Overleaf
Free, with limits — one collaborator per project
Collaborative LaTeX writing.
DeepL
Free, with limits — 50,000 characters a month
Accurate machine translation.
Proceedings pages
On this site
Accepted papers published and indexed by Google Scholar.
Reaching a wider audience by email
Brevo
Free, with limits — 300 emails a day
Email campaigns.
Mailchimp
Free, with limits — 250 contacts, 500 emails a month
Email campaigns.
What you do not find here, this site does itself
Registration for your event, receiving and reviewing abstracts and papers, sessions and the programme, and certificates with a verification code — all on your event's page, and publishing it is free.
See what organisers get
