The 5 best platforms for successful virtual events in 2025  

In 2025, virtual event technology has made huge leaps forward with countless AI-based innovations and remarkable advancements in audience engagement features, automation, and content repurposing. The demand for robust platforms capable of delivering seamless and impactful virtual experiences has never been greater.

Whether you’re hosting a corporate conference, a virtual trade show, or a global summit, choosing the right platform can make all the difference in delivering a memorable and effective event experience. In this article, we delve into the five leading platforms that stand at the forefront of facilitating successful virtual events in 2025.

What is a virtual event platform?

A virtual event platform is a software-based event management system (usually SaaS) built to cater to virtual events, something like a brandable “digital venue” enabling smooth execution for online events. The best examples of virtual event platforms provide high-end streaming and various tools and features to equal or surpass important aspects of physical events.

A virtual event platform should facilitate face-to-face connection, networking, and interactive engagement. Beyond that, it should include quality video, audio, and content-streaming features that give your audience access to a virtual event space. Finally, a quality event platform should be capable of scaling to the size you need to realize your event, whether something as limited in scope as an onboarding or webinar or as expansive as a virtual town hall or full conference.

How to choose a platform for a virtual event

Remember, when you’re looking for “the best virtual event platform” that “best” may be a moving target. Your best platform is a solution that achieves your individual goals, supports the type of events you are producing, and puts focus on your audience’s preferences and needs.

On one hand, you might want to narrow your search and/or decide to adhere most closely to a single use case and type of event (or recurring events). On the other hand, if you are likely to be producing many different types of events, the best option can be to invest in a virtual event platform versatile enough to adapt to multiple use cases. Each type of event can have different requirements to be met by your platform.

The 5 best virtual event platforms in 2025

So, without further fanfare, here are our picks for industry-leading platforms in 2025:

Kaltura

Kaltura Events is a full-featured virtual events platform, and we feel strongly that it’s the best all-around choice in the space. Kaltura is built on best-in-class streaming capability for live, real-time, and on demand video. Kaltura products support events of any size and scale up and down easily. Features include the ability to manage all events and content from a single hub, integrations with CRM and marketing, and high-quality data and analytics to get to know your audience and gauge the event’s performance. Finally, Kaltura can provide excellent event planning support including excellent branding and customization features, and brandable templates for events of all types, anywhere from a simple webinar to a flagship branded event experience. Kaltura is a major innovator in the industry and has added a lot of AI capability to its solutions over the last year, such as the AI assistant that monitors event engagement in real-time and offers suggestions on how to maintain or increase that engagement.

Hopin

Hopin offers a comprehensive set of features for managing and hosting virtual events. It works best for connection-focused conferences, however, it’s able to scale to an event size of up to 100,000 attendees. Video tools enable attendees to watch large-scale keynote presentations as well as explore interactive virtual expo areas. As far as features for one-on-one connections, guests can network over live video, exchange virtual business cards, and join breakout rooms. Hopin also offers privacy options for more passive guests, providing the ability to watch talks and sessions anonymously–however anonymous audience members can also choose to make themselves visible for group interactions.

Bizzabo

Bizzabo is “event experience software,” or as they describe themselves, an “Event Experience Operating System” –an all-in-one designed to be equally effective at enabling in-person, virtual, and hybrid events. Bizzabo is fairly intuitive and user-friendly and can take on all aspects of the event lifecycle from ticketing and registration to integrating with CRM and providing custom reporting for actionable data. Also worth calling out are its deployment of personalized engagement features and platform support.

ON24

ON24 is a virtual event platform with a variety of capabilities, typically most helpful for businesses and organizations with small event teams producing a lot of webinars. It’s well-documented and set up to make it easy to template and update specific events. ON24 has also been a name in virtual events for quite a while. However, ON24 can be limited in the area of audience interactions, and as well it’s occasionally criticized for being less user-friendly than expected. But, if you need a medium- to large-scale webinar solution, ON24 is a decent choice.

Zoom Virtual Events

Zoom has made a name for itself in the virtual meeting landscape. However, it also offers the Zoom Events platform for virtual and hybrid experiences. Zoom covers the expected features of a virtual event platform, including event production capabilities, video on demand, and the capacity for hosting multi-day, multi-session events. Additionally, most users will already be familiar with Zoom’s basic functionality. Whether Zoom is the best virtual events platform for your needs is a different question. For one, getting the best experience from Zoom typically involves installing software. They currently have a relatively transparent pricing scheme on their website, and you’ll notice prices can take a leap as you scale up.

The benefits of using a virtual event platform

There are areas where virtual events shine in comparison to in-person. First and foremost, nothing beats virtual events for data and engagement; while in-person events can also foster a sense of community, virtual events can give you actionable insights based on audience preferences and behavior. Second, virtual events are excellent for reaching a wide audience–attendees do not have to travel and can be present anywhere with an internet connection, expanding your event’s impact. Finally, there are lower costs associated with virtual events, as the cost of a venue is eliminated. Even if you pull out all the stops for your virtual event it will likely represent significant savings vs. in-person.

FAQs

How much does a virtual event platform cost?

Always check the website first and see if there is a price list! Platforms can have a range of prices, making this a complicated question to answer. It depends on the particular platform–some list pricing tiers on their website, others do not. Factors in cost can include whether the platform is subscription-based or designed as a standalone purchase, and the level of features, types of events, and support included. At entry level, subscription plans may range around $80-$150 monthly/$700-$1500 annually. If you need a fully featured enterprise event platform, annual or one-time costs could be significantly higher. Usually, it’s best to contact providers directly for quotes.

What are the different types of virtual event platforms?

There are many types of virtual events, and platforms may tend to specialize in one of these specific areas:

Networking – where the goal is for attendees to develop one to one connections.

Broadcasting- which focuses on presenting an event featuring guests and speakers, and where the audience has a more passive role.

Virtual Conferencing- Online information exchanges gathering various individuals at different scales for different types of business objectives.

Workshops- focus on skill development and usually either limit attendees or use breakout rooms to foster a “small classroom” setting.

How do you host a successful virtual event?

This question could easily fuel an entire article, but there are a few main points to be summed up.
Quality audio and visuals: Speaks for itself. Make sure your event is looking and sounding its best. A key part of this will be your virtual events platform.
Demonstrate how the event adds value: Understand who would want to attend and what your event brings to the table.In a best-case scenario this means you know your audience’s needs and tastes, and can directly provide them quality content.
Engage your audience! An engaged audience is better than a passive one.

Meet Kaltura Events – the #1 virtual events platform

• Kaltura Events is a virtual events platform that will help you with every step of your virtual event from creation to execution, to data insights and follow-ups. In other words, it’s our mission to help you put on spectacular virtual events, and we’d love to be your platform of choice.

• We take pride in enabling our users to create any event, any size, accessible from anywhere in the world and built on a foundation of best-in-class video streaming. Create, manage, and measure all your events on a single platform using customizable templates for every need.

• If you’d like to test the water, feel free to request a demo and we’ll be happy to demonstrate how and why Kaltura Events will be the best virtual events platform for you!

Summary

Making a choice between the best virtual event platforms can be a daunting task, but we hope that outlining several of the best options on the market gives you a strong foundation to examine virtual event platforms and make your own decision. Remember that while we may express strong opinions, the best platform for you will always be the platform most suitable to your brand, event, and price point.