Guidebook Alternative for Research-Driven Conferences
Guidebook is a campus-wide events platform for universities. HEPCon is an app for one kind of event — the research conference whose programme lives in Indico, EasyChair, ConfTool, or Confex. Checked against Guidebook's pages in September 2026.
A Platform for Every Campus Event, or an App for the Conference
Guidebook sells to universities as a whole: admissions days, orientation, alumni weekends and conferences on one platform, under a single-event, multi-event or department licence. It connects to the systems a campus runs — Slate, Cvent, Eventbrite, Salesforce — and its app keeps most content available offline once a guide is downloaded.
A research conference is a different shape of event. Its programme is built by a scientific committee in a submission system, it can run to a thousand contributions, and it keeps changing until the last day. That is the event HEPCon is built around.
Where HEPCon Is Stronger
1. The programme comes from the submission system
Guidebook's routes into a schedule are manual entry, a schedule spreadsheet template, an AI importer that reads spreadsheets, PDFs and Word documents, and connectors to registration and CRM systems such as Cvent. Its integrations page lists no academic submission system. HEPCon reads the programme from your Indico, EasyChair, ConfTool, or Confex link, and when the committee moves a session, it re-reads the same link and applies only that change — nothing is re-imported by hand.
2. You see your conference before you talk to sales
Every Guidebook plan is priced by contacting sales. HEPCon's instant preview builds your real programme from your Indico, EasyChair, or public ConfTool link in about 30 seconds, and the prices are on the pricing page: €500–€900 for workshops and research days, €900–€2,500 for most conferences, free under 50 contributions. The band for each number of contributions is on the quote page.
3. Built for programme density
These are programmes HEPCon has carried, with the numbers from the case studies:
- ICHEP 2026 — 1,023 contributions from 916 speakers in 192 sessions, up to 12 running in parallel.
- GIREP MPTL 2026 — 296 contributions in 102 sessions over five days.
At that density, what matters is whether attendees can see which of twelve parallel sessions to walk into, and find a talk by searching its abstract — with or without the venue Wi-Fi.
What HEPCon Deliberately Leaves Alone
- Registration and ticketing stay where they are. HEPCon never touches your registration data.
- Abstract submission and review stay with your programme committee's system. HEPCon reads the accepted, scheduled programme.
- Campus events that aren't conferences — orientation days, alumni weekends — are not what HEPCon is built for. It is built for the research programme.
That focus is the point: a thousand contributions in twelve parallel sessions is an ordinary week for HEPCon, not an edge case.
HEPCon on Screen
Also in HEPCon
- Clash warnings. When two saved talks overlap, the attendee's schedule says so.
- AI Help Desk (add-on, from €500). Attendees ask in their own words, and every answer shows the passages it relied on.
- AI moderator (add-on, €300). Screens every Q&A question and discussion post as it arrives, and hides abuse and spam before attendees see it.
- Programme book (PDF) (add-on, from €250). A print-ready programme and book of abstracts from the synced programme.
- Reports for the committee. A post-event report with Pro and Enterprise, and a report for each sponsor with Enterprise.
Side by Side
| Guidebook | HEPCon | |
|---|---|---|
| Getting the schedule in | Rebuilt in the builder: manual entry, a spreadsheet template, or a document import | Link to Indico, EasyChair, ConfTool, or Confex, or an export |
| Academic submission systems | None listed among its integrations | Read directly from the programme link, and re-read as it changes |
| Pricing | Every plan quoted by contacting sales | Published ranges by programme complexity; free under 50 contributions |
| Time to see your own programme | "Most teams have their first event live in 2 weeks" | Private preview in about 30 seconds from a supported link |
Questions Organizers Ask
Our university already licenses Guidebook. Why use HEPCon for one conference?
Because a campus-wide licence is bought for the campus, and your conference has a problem the campus does not: a programme built by a scientific committee in Indico, EasyChair, ConfTool, or Confex that keeps changing until the last day. HEPCon reads that programme from its link and re-reads it as the committee edits, so nobody carries the changes across by hand. Your preview is free to build, so you can see the difference on your own programme before deciding.
Does HEPCon work offline?
Yes. Once opened, sessions, contributions, abstracts and authors are stored on the device and can be read and searched without a connection.
Can HEPCon import a PDF programme?
Not directly. HEPCon reads programme links, exports and spreadsheets — the formats submission systems already produce. If your programme exists only as a PDF, send it over and we will tell you the quickest route into the app.
See Your Conference in HEPCon
Paste your programme link and open the preview with your committee before deciding.
Comparison based on each vendor's published documentation, September 2026. Guidebook's pricing page checked again in October 2026.
Comparing Other Platforms?
The same evaluation applies across the generic event-app market — see how HEPCon compares to each, or start from the vendor checklist: