10 Evite alternatives: The good and the bad

I recently used Evite to send invitations for a party at my house. Overall, I was pleased with the experience. The selection of invitation styles was huge. The invitee tracking tool was informative. But the site's user interface made it too complicated to send an invitation. Worse, Evite hasn't really embraced the social networking space--there's no Evite app on Facebook nor Twitter integration. And the closest it comes to going mobile is sending SMS invites and offering a mobile site.

So I set out to find some alternatives to Evite to see if they could provide a better service.

Crusher provides a ton of options.

(Credit: Don Reisinger/CNET)

CircleUp Though it's not specifically designed to provide invitations and tracking, CircleUp does let you invite others to an event and track their attendance. The page detailing whether or not invitees will be attending the event is especially good. But CircleUp simply isn't as useful as Evite, nor as convenient.

Crusher I like Crusher. It's simple and clean. Creating invitations can take less than a minute. But if you're the type who wants to tweak an invitation to fit your needs, the site also has a CSS editor. You can add video, chat, photos, and much more. It's great for the Web geek and the Web novice alike. And it's better than Evite.

Enclude Unlike Evite, Enclude lets you send e-cards. But its invitation creation tool doesn't provide as many planning options as Evite's. And if you really care about the design of the invite, you'll find fewer cards on Enclude. I also wasn't impressed with its invitee tracking tool. Simply put, it's no Evite.

Facebook Most of the people who I would invite to a party are my friends on Facebook anyway, so creating an event and sending out an invitation through the social network is quite convenient. Creating an invitation in Facebook takes less than a minute. Everyone can see who will be attending the party. Attendance tallies are updated as soon as the invitee responds. If you don't need to invite too many people outside of your Facebook friends list, Facebook is a fine invitation tool. It's much simpler than Evite.

Invitastic Invitastic is ugly, too simple, and unable to compete on any level with Evite. That said, it might come in handy when you want to quickly send out an invite to a couple friends and you don't want all the extras Evite provides. But even in those circumstances, I'm hard-pressed to find a reason to use Invitastic instead of other simple services, like Zoji.

MyPunchbowl Though it's not as popular as Evite, MyPunchbowl is better. It lets you create an invitation and give your invitees the option to let you know what times might be better for them. So if 7 p.m. doesn't work for most of your invitees, you can change the party's starting time to, say, 8 p.m. to make it fit into their schedules. You can also set some attendees as VIPs, so their scheduling needs are met before everyone else. And unlike Evite, MyPunchbowl is connected to the social network space--you can sign up with Facebook Connect. I highly recommend it.

Pingg puts it all on one page.

(Credit: Don Reisinger/CNET)

Pingg Unlike most invitation services, Pingg puts all the steps in building an invitation onto one page. That makes it much easier to get through the process. But Pingg really shows its value when you use its tools to share invitations on social networks, like Twitter and Facebook. Plus, its invitee tracker is outstanding. I like it a lot.

Renkoo Renkoo's social planner is unique in the space because it helps you invite friends through SMS, IM, or email. But it's that focus on immediate communication that turns me off to Renkoo. If I want to invite friends to go somewhere, I can use SMS or IM without Renkoo's help. Granted, its invite tool will help me do that more efficiently, but I don't like Renkoo as much as Evite.

Socializr Creating invitations and sifting through designs was more difficult than it should have been on Socializr. Though I liked that I could add videos, photos, or even chat with friends in my invite, once I did send out the invitation, my tracking options were limited. Socializr might want to best Evite, but so far, it doesn't.

Zoji Zoji is designed to be simple. After you get to the site, you can pick an invitation design, input the information about your event, add attendees, and you're done. Sending out invites took me just a few minutes. It was much simpler than Evite and its tracking was just as good. I'd use Zoji over Evite.

The Top 3

To recap: Evite is toast! Many of the services covered here do a better job. Here are my top three picks. Use one of these, you won't go wrong:

1. Pingg

2. Crusher

3. MyPunchbowl

[lidja]

Don, I have an event coming up that can only accommodate a certain number of attendees (although I expect many, many more people will want to come than will be physically possible). Are there any programs that facilitate the ordering of attendees and assign numbers according to the order in which they RSVP? (something like getting a seat on a Southwest flight maybe?) TIA, L

[PurpleTrail]

Hi Lidja,

I am product manager at http://purpletrail.com/- an online invitations service. Though WebWare did not put us in this list we definitely are one of the top online invitations and party ideas site out there.

And probably the only one who has the feature you need. You can set a guest limit and after the limit has been reached more guests will not be allowed to RSVP yes.

Would love you to try PurpleTrail and let me know what you think.

Anuj

[Anyvite]

Hi Lidja,

Anyvite.com allows you to set a maximum number of guests who can RSVP "Yes" to an invitation as well. Best of luck with your event!

Jeff

I just used Pingg for a fundraiser event & found it to be very useful. It also has the ability to limit the number of guests and whether your guests can invite other guests. I have also used PurpleTrail & Evite & I think that Pingg is the best so far of those three, at least for my needs. I don't work for any of them, I'm just a regular person who organizes lunch meetings and occasional fundraisers & I'm always looking for a better way to do it that gets a better response and saves me time. Good luck!

[taylorishere]

The biggest problem with Facebook invites is that there is SO MUCH invite/application noise, that most and many event invites get ignored. It has happened on numerous occasions for me.

Here are some examples of events: "I LOST MY PHONE" or "WATCH THIS TV SHOW TONIGHT!". I would love for Facebook to allow events to be split up into parties, events, meetups, etc.

[anthonymking]

Dude, anyvite.com is where it's at! Totally awesome!

[PurpleTrail]

Hi Don,

How about giving http://purpletrail.com/ a spin. I am part of the team at PurpleTrail and quite disappointed not to see us in the list.

Especially given the traffic numbers we have as compared to a lot of the sites you covered. Infact we were the first online invitation service to have implemented features like Facebook connect.

Let me know what you think. I can be reached on anuj at mangospring.com

[garrickk]

Many people I know (particularly in my soccer leagues) are starting to use Google Calendar. It turns your calendar entry into an "Evite" entry, where users can add guests, post replies, and even add comments. Also, if you use Google, the entry is automatically placed on the calendars of everyone who has responded Yes. I like it.

[dmrnj]

Meetup.com is a great too for multiple group events like Soccer Leagues. They send out automatic reminders, have comments, message boards, mailing lists, good wait list management, and tools to collect dues or entry fees.

[idfubar]

Unfortunately an annual fee is charged to members who wish to host a group on Meetup.com.

[jbaumel]

Thanks! This was just what I was looking for (evite is so cumbersome). Based on your recommendation, I went to Pingg. Within minutes I got an invitation that looked exactly as I wanted it. Unless I have trouble managing the list, this looks like the way to go.

[reyvillar]

My friends and I have basically stopped using Evite, especially for our groups. MeetUp and Zoji are just so much better and easier to use.