Pick an event plugin on the demo and you are comparing feature lists. Pick one on what happens in month four, when the calendar has thirty events on it and three different people are trying to add their own, and you are comparing something else entirely: who actually owns the workflow once the launch excitement wears off.
Last updated: 6 November 2026
Quick answer: Pick Modern Events Calendar for public sites that need layout variety and bundled virtual-event tools. Pick Eventin for a single, well-defined conference built in Elementor. Pick Eventonomy when the real question is who else can add events, with BuddyPress and BuddyNext integration and a member dashboard.
Modern Events Calendar, Eventin, and Eventonomy solve that problem from three different starting points. Modern Events Calendar (MEC) bundles a huge feature set, from 60+ layouts to virtual-event scheduling, behind one site-tiered Pro license. Eventin is built around Elementor, with speaker grids, session tracks, and QR badges aimed squarely at a single conference. Eventonomy skips the page-builder theatrics and ships a free core built for the opposite problem: members on a community site creating and RSVPing to their own recurring events. This guide compares real pricing, what each plugin is actually built for, and where each one runs out of road.
None of these three were designed in a vacuum, and the differences show up fastest once a second person is allowed to touch the calendar. A single admin publishing a public events page barely notices whether a plugin has a member dashboard. A community site with chapters, groups, or local organizers submitting their own listings notices immediately, because that is where a conference-first tool and a community-first tool stop behaving the same way. This comparison is written from that angle: not which plugin demos best, but which one survives contact with more than one person adding events.
Table of Contents
Market snapshot
- The global event management software market (all vendors, not just WordPress plugins) was valued at USD 9.90 billion in 2025 and is projected to reach USD 32.62 billion by 2034, a 14.16% annual growth rate over 2026 to 2034, according to Fortune Business Insights.
- Eventin reports 10,000+ active installations on WordPress.org (checked 6 November 2026).
Table of Contents
- The WordPress.org Reality Check
- 1. Modern Events Calendar
- 2. Eventin
- 3. Eventonomy
- A Real-World Scenario
- Side-by-Side Comparison Table
- Which Should You Actually Pick
- FAQs
The WordPress.org Reality Check
Of the three plugins compared here, only one is still listed on WordPress.org: Eventin, distributed under the slug “Eventin - Events Calendar, Tickets, Registration, Booking & WooCommerce,” with 10,000+ active installations and a 94% approval rating across 413 reviews (370 five-star, 25 one-star). Modern Events Calendar’s free Lite version was closed on WordPress.org on May 11, 2022, for a guideline violation, and is now distributed only from Webnus’s own site. Eventonomy never had a WordPress.org listing in the first place; it ships directly from eventonomy.org as self-hosted, GPL software.
That split matters for more than bragging rights. A WordPress.org listing means independent reviews, a public changelog, and a directory a site owner can audit before installing. Losing that listing, or never having one, does not make a plugin worse, but it does mean you are trusting the vendor’s own site for support history and version transparency instead of a third party.
1. Modern Events Calendar
Modern Events Calendar, built by Webnus, is the feature-maximalist option of the three. A single Pro license unlocks 60+ display layouts, booking and ticketing, time-slot-based appointments, seat reservation, QR check-in, and native integrations for Zoom, Google Meet, Jitsi, BigBlueButton, and Webex. It is the plugin to reach for when a site runs public-facing calendars with real variety: a venue with weekly shows, a university with departmental events, an agency managing several clients’ calendars under one umbrella license.
Key Strengths
- 60+ event display layouts ship in one license, covering grid, list, map, and timeline styles without buying separate add-ons
- Booking, ticketing, and appointment scheduling (time-slot based) are bundled rather than sold piecemeal
- Native virtual and hybrid event support across five platforms (Zoom, Google Meet, Jitsi, BigBlueButton, Webex)
- Site-count pricing ($99 to $999/yr) makes multi-site and agency licensing predictable
- Frontend event submission works on the free tier, not gated behind Pro
Falls Short
- The free Lite version was closed on WordPress.org in May 2022 for a guideline violation; downloads now only come from webnus.net
- No native BuddyPress or BuddyNext integration, so community sites get a calendar but not a connected member layer
- Hundreds of settings across dozens of panels make the learning curve steeper than either Eventin or Eventonomy
- Heavier by design; the breadth that makes it feature-dense also means a larger footprint on shared hosting
- No member-facing dashboard for people managing their own submitted events across multiple listings
At scale, MEC’s site-count pricing is straightforward to budget for. A small team running one site pays $99/yr and gets the full Pro feature set; an agency managing a hundred client sites under one umbrella pays $799/yr instead of negotiating a hundred separate licenses. The tradeoff is that every one of those sites gets the same calendar-first tool regardless of whether any of them actually need a member layer, which most community and membership sites do.
2. Eventin
Eventin, from Arraytics (ThemeWinter), is purpose-built for Elementor. Its pitch is a conference page you can assemble visually: speaker bios with photo grids, sessions organized into tracks, a certificate builder, and QR-code badge generation, all wired to WooCommerce for ticket sales. It added AI-assisted event creation and a BuddyBoss integration in recent releases, but its core design still assumes one organizer running one event series, not a community where members submit their own.
Key Strengths
- Elementor-native widget library (21+ components) lets non-developers build a polished conference landing page without custom code
- Speaker management, session tracks, and QR-code badge generation cover the specific needs of a multi-day conference
- WooCommerce-powered ticketing with multi-tier pricing, custom attendee fields, and capacity controls
- 10,000+ active WordPress.org installs with a 94% approval rating, the only one of these three plugins still independently verifiable through the directory
- Annual pricing starts at $69/yr for two domains, with lifetime options from $119
Falls Short
- No member-facing dashboard for attendees or organizers tracking RSVPs across more than one event
- Recurring events exist but sit behind the same page-builder-first workflow built for single conferences, not a feed of community-organized meetups
- BuddyBoss gets a listed integration, but neither BuddyPress nor BuddyNext has an equivalent connection at any tier
- Requires Elementor (or at least tolerates it running) to use the page-builder widgets that are the plugin’s main selling point
- Agency-tier pricing ($239/yr for unlimited domains) is the cheapest unlimited-site option here, but still carries a yearly renewal MEC’s top tier shares
Eventin’s recent additions are worth noting on their own. The AI-assisted event creation tool generates a full event listing, description, and suggested schedule from a short prompt, which is a genuine time-saver for an organizer building out a conference agenda from scratch. The certificate builder and webhook support also point at a plugin maturing past pure page-building into event operations. None of that changes the core shape of the tool: it is still one organizer’s conference toolkit, not a shared workspace for a community’s members.
3. Eventonomy
Eventonomy, built by Wbcom Designs, starts from a different question: what does a WordPress community site need from an events plugin, not what does a single event organizer need. The free core ships unlimited events and RSVPs, guest counts with automatic waitlists, daily/weekly/monthly recurring series with an ICS feed, and a member dashboard at /manage-events/ where people track what they have RSVP’d to or submitted. It is the only plugin of the three with tested, native integration into BuddyX, BuddyPress, and BuddyNext.
Key Strengths
- Free tier is a complete events platform, not a crippled trial: unlimited events, RSVPs, waitlists, recurring series, and member submissions with no cap
- Native BuddyX, BuddyPress, and BuddyNext integration, including a group Events tab with Eventonomy Pro and feed surfacing on BuddyNext
- Built-in importers for WP Event Manager, The Events Calendar, EventON, and Events Manager make migration low-friction
- Guest RSVP via magic link removes the signup wall for one-off attendees who are not site members
- 4.8/5 on Trustpilot from 96 reviews, with a 30-day money-back guarantee on Pro and both annual ($99-$249/yr) and lifetime ($249-$629) pricing
Falls Short
- Four calendar views on the free tier (Grid, List, Month, Upcoming) versus MEC’s 60+; Week and Day grid views sit behind Pro
- No speaker-grid, session-track, or certificate-builder tooling, so a genuine multi-track conference still fits Eventin or MEC better
- No dedicated virtual-conferencing scheduling panel yet; a join link works today, but there is no built-in Zoom/Webex scheduling flow like MEC Pro’s
- Younger product with a smaller third-party add-on ecosystem than either competitor
- Not on WordPress.org, so discovery depends on direct traffic to eventonomy.org rather than directory search
Eventonomy’s technical baseline is modern by design: WordPress 6.5+, PHP 8.1+, with English plus six translations shipped in core. It stores event data in custom database tables rather than treating every event as a bloated custom post type, which keeps query performance predictable as an events list grows into the hundreds. Pro carries a 30-day money-back guarantee, and the plugin holds a 4.8-out-of-5 rating on Trustpilot across 96 reviews, which is a different kind of signal than a WordPress.org star rating but still an independently hosted one rather than a testimonial page the vendor controls.
A Real-World Scenario
Take a professional association running its member community on BuddyNext: a few thousand members, local chapters that each run their own monthly meetups, and one flagship annual summit with paid tickets, named speakers, and sponsor booths.
On Modern Events Calendar, both event types live on the same calendar with good display variety, and Pro covers the summit’s ticketing and virtual-attendance option in one license. What it will not do is let each chapter’s organizer log in and manage only their own meetups from a personal dashboard, or surface any of this activity inside BuddyNext’s member feed; MEC has no concept of a BuddyPress member at all.
On Eventin, the flagship summit is where the plugin shines: Elementor-built speaker pages, session tracks, and QR badges for a few hundred attendees are exactly the workflow it was designed for. The dozen monthly chapter meetups are the harder fit. There is no member dashboard for a chapter lead to claim and manage just their own events, and nothing ties attendance back to a BuddyPress or BuddyNext profile.
On Eventonomy, the chapter meetups are the easy part: any member can submit a recurring monthly event from their own /manage-events/ dashboard, guests RSVP through a magic link without creating an account, and the event surfaces in the BuddyNext feed automatically. The flagship summit works too, with Pro-tier Stripe ticketing, a door check-in scanner, and organizer analytics, but without a dedicated speaker-grid or badge builder, the event page will look plainer than one built in Eventin’s Elementor widgets.
The honest takeaway: an association running mostly recurring, member-driven events with one annual showcase gets the most out of Eventonomy, possibly supplementing the summit’s landing page with manual design work or a page builder of its own. An organization running mostly one-off, ticketed conferences with the occasional secondary event is better served by Eventin or MEC.
Total Cost of a Feature-Complete Setup
Price alone is a poor way to compare these three, because “feature-complete” means something different for each one. For a single site that needs paid ticketing, a real calendar, and recurring events, here is what reaching that baseline actually costs per year:
- Modern Events Calendar: $99/yr (1-site Pro license) covers booking, ticketing, and recurring events in one purchase. No separate add-ons needed.
- Eventin: $69/yr (Standard, 2 domains) covers ticketing through WooCommerce and basic recurrence, but a true multi-track conference setup with full speaker and badge tooling pushes most organizers toward the $139/yr Premium tier.
- Eventonomy: $0/yr for a fully functional free core with unlimited recurring events, RSVPs, and member submissions. Paid ticketing, maps, and SMS reminders move the cost to $99/yr Pro, but only once a site actually needs to charge for tickets.
The number that does not show up on any pricing page is what it costs to bolt a member layer onto MEC or Eventin after the fact. Neither has one to buy; a site would need a separate community plugin and custom development to connect it, a cost Eventonomy avoids by shipping that connection in its free tier.
Side-by-Side Comparison Table
| Plugin | Starting Price | Builder / Widgets | Recurring Events | Member Submissions | Community / BuddyPress | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Modern Events Calendar | Free / $99-$999/yr by site count | Shortcodes + widgets, 60+ layouts | Free and Pro | Yes, free | None native | Feature-dense calendars with virtual events bundled in |
| Eventin | Free / $69-$239/yr by domain count | Elementor-native, 21+ widgets | Yes, but built for a single series | No member dashboard | BuddyBoss listed; no BuddyPress/BuddyNext | One Elementor-built conference with speakers, tracks, and badges |
| Eventonomy | Free / $99-$249/yr, lifetime from $249 | Works with any theme or builder | Free (yearly rules; Week/Day views in Pro) | Yes, free, with a member dashboard | BuddyX, BuddyPress, BuddyNext | Community sites with recurring, member-organized events |
Looking to put a real event calendar in front of your community without a second license to manage? Download Eventonomy free and connect it to BuddyX, BuddyPress, or BuddyNext in a single afternoon.
Which Should You Actually Pick
Match the plugin to who is still touching the calendar in month six, not to which demo looked best on day one. Modern Events Calendar earns its keep on public-facing sites that need calendar variety and bundled virtual-event tooling without a community layer attached: venues, multi-location businesses, universities. Eventin earns its keep on a single, well-defined conference or summit where Elementor-built speaker pages and QR badges matter more than who else can add events. Eventonomy earns its keep the moment “who else can add events” is the actual question, because it is the only one of the three built around a member dashboard and native BuddyPress/BuddyNext integration from the free tier up.
None of the three is wrong in isolation. The expensive mistake is buying Eventin’s conference tooling for a site whose real need is twenty members running their own monthly meetups, or buying MEC’s bundled breadth for a site that will only ever use four of its sixty layouts.
Summary
Three plugins, three different bets on what “event management” means. Modern Events Calendar bets on breadth: one license, sixty-plus layouts, built-in virtual-event platforms, no community layer. Eventin bets on depth for a single use case: an Elementor-built conference with speakers, tracks, and badges, run by one organizer. Eventonomy bets on the community itself doing the work: a free dashboard where members create, RSVP to, and manage their own recurring events, wired natively into BuddyPress and BuddyNext.
If the honest answer to “who manages this calendar in six months” is “our members, mostly,” Eventonomy’s free tier costs nothing to test against your actual event list this week. If the honest answer is “me, for one big event a year,” Eventin’s Elementor workflow will get a polished conference page up faster than either alternative.
Interesting Reads
- 8 Best Eventin Alternatives in 2026 (Free and Paid)
- WP Event Manager vs Modern Events Calendar vs Eventonomy: Which WordPress Event Plugin in 2026?
FAQs
Is Eventin really free, or is that a stripped demo?
The free Eventin plugin on WordPress.org covers basic event listing, a set of Elementor widgets, and simple RSVP collection. Speaker management, session tracks, certificate and badge generation, AI event creation, and WooCommerce ticketing are all gated behind a paid plan starting at $69/yr.
Why was Modern Events Calendar Lite removed from WordPress.org?
The Lite version was closed on the WordPress.org plugin directory on May 11, 2022, over a guideline violation. Webnus continues to develop and sell the plugin, but distribution now runs entirely through webnus.net rather than the official directory.
Can members submit their own events for free on any of these three?
Modern Events Calendar and Eventonomy both allow free-tier frontend event submission. Eventin’s free tier covers basic listing but has no member-facing dashboard for tracking or managing submitted events after the fact, and of the three, only Eventonomy pairs submission with a dashboard members actually use at /manage-events/.
Which of the three works with BuddyPress or BuddyNext?
Eventonomy. It is tested against BuddyX, surfaces activity inside the BuddyNext feed and member profiles, and adds a native Events tab to BuddyPress groups with Eventonomy Pro active. Eventin lists a BuddyBoss integration but nothing for BuddyPress or BuddyNext specifically, and Modern Events Calendar has no community-platform integration at any price.
Does Eventin’s BuddyBoss integration cover BuddyPress sites too?
Not directly. BuddyBoss is a separate commercial platform built on top of BuddyPress, and Eventin’s integration targets BuddyBoss specifically. A site running plain BuddyPress or BuddyNext without BuddyBoss installed does not get the same connection.
Which plugin is cheapest for a single site that needs paid ticketing?
Eventin’s Standard plan starts at $69/yr for two domains and includes WooCommerce ticketing. Eventonomy Pro starts at $99/yr for one site with Stripe, PayPal, or WooCommerce checkout. Modern Events Calendar Pro’s cheapest tier is also $99/yr for one site. Eventin is the lowest sticker price, but its two-domain floor and conference-first feature set matter more than price for most recurring-event use cases.
Do any of these plugins offer lifetime pricing?
Yes, all three do in some form. Eventin sells lifetime licenses from $119 (one domain) to $359 (500 domains). Eventonomy sells lifetime licenses from $249 (one site) to $629 (unlimited sites). Modern Events Calendar’s pricing page lists annual site-tiered licenses as the primary option; check webnus.net directly for any current lifetime offer.
Can I migrate from Eventin to Eventonomy?
Eventonomy’s free plugin ships built-in importers for WP Event Manager, The Events Calendar, EventON, and Events Manager. A direct Eventin importer is not currently on that list, so a small Eventin catalog, which is often just the handful of events tied to one conference series, is usually faster to recreate by hand than to script a migration for.
Does Modern Events Calendar or Eventonomy have Eventin’s speaker and badge tools?
Not in the same dedicated way. MEC focuses on calendar views, booking, and virtual-event platforms rather than a speaker-grid-and-track builder. Eventonomy currently has no speaker, track, or badge-generation tooling at all. If a certificate builder and QR badges for a named-speaker conference are the deciding feature, Eventin remains the most complete option of the three.
Which plugin has the most verifiable install base?
Eventin’s 10,000+ WordPress.org installs are the only figure independently checkable through the plugin directory, since Modern Events Calendar Lite was delisted in 2022 and Eventonomy was never listed there. That does not make Eventin the better product for every use case, but it is the only number here that is not a vendor claim.
Is Eventin or Modern Events Calendar better?
Modern Events Calendar bundles many layouts and virtual-event scheduling behind one Pro license, and sits outside the WordPress.org directory. Eventin is Elementor-based, built for one conference, and lists 10,000+ active installs on WordPress.org. For a single summit with speaker pages choose Eventin, for a public multi-layout calendar choose Modern Events Calendar.