EVOCA vs AhaSlides: questions from a meetup, or polls in the deck?

AhaSlides shows up on every Slido alternatives list, usually as the affordable classroom deck. Wooclap, in that same list and in Mentimeter alternatives, is the teaching product. If the search is for the smaller free tools instead, start with free live Q&A and reaction tools. This comparison is the other job: a meetup or a single talk where the room should ask, upvote, and react, and the host does not want the night to become a quiz.

EVOCA does not include live polls. AhaSlides does, and their own pricing page describes the product as live polls, quizzes, word clouds, and more. Both products also do Q&A and emoji reactions. The difference is where those live, and which plan a monthly meetup actually fits. The speaker path on our side is how to run a talk, and the reaction detail is live emoji reactions for talks.

At a glance

Where AhaSlides wins

Polls, quizzes, and word clouds, inside the slides, with a PowerPoint import and a way to drop AhaSlides into a deck you already have. Their pricing FAQ says both. If the meetup is a designed sequence of those slides, this is the tool, in the same way Mentimeter is. EVOCA does not include live polls.

Q&A is a real feature, not a footnote. Their docs describe a dedicated Q&A slide and, on plans that include it, a button to ask from any slide. Questions can be anonymous, upvoted, and sorted with the most upvoted first. Moderation, which holds each question until you approve it, is not on every plan. One presentation has one shared question list, even if you add more than one Q&A slide. Questions can run to 1,000 characters.

Reactions are five choices: Like, Love, Haha, Wow, and Sad. Their docs say you turn on the ones you want, and they appear on screen during the presentation. On plans that include the Excel export, that file has a sheet for a private rating out of 5 and comments. Joining is a QR code, a link, or a code at audience.ahaslides.com, with no account and no app.

Where EVOCA wins

A lineup, not a single deck. Each talk is its own session, so the 7pm speaker is not answering questions left from 6pm. The Ask tab stays available through the talk. The top unanswered questions sit beside the slides. Reactions are six emoji, and an optional note of up to 160 characters is a text card on the live wall. AhaSlides' own docs say running more than one live presentation at a time is possible and not something they will guarantee, and they recommend presenting one at a time. That is a fine rule for a single speaker. It is a weak fit for two rooms at once. Parallel tracks are the conference case, covered in EVOCA vs Slido and tech conferences.

The free room is larger. Their public FAQ caps a free live session at 50, and anyone past the limit cannot join. Our free organizer event covers 100. A speaker who is only giving the talk, not hosting the series, gets 5 personal talks on the speaker free tier. When the session ends, people still on the link leave a star rating, in half-star steps, and an optional comment.

Pricing

For a recurring meetup, Series is the plan we would actually buy: €19.99/month, one series, unlimited talks in that series, 100 attendees per live session, and the host as the admin. A one-off night over 100 people is the One-time Event at €49 for 7 days, unlimited attendees, 1 admin. Growth is €29/month (3 admins, call for papers). Scale is €89/month billed yearly. Speaker Pro is €5/month billed yearly. Those cards are on the pricing page.

Series does not lift the room above 100. If the meetup outgrows that, the organizer plans are the ones with unlimited attendees. AhaSlides prices per presenter and raises the participant cap on paid plans. On 11 November 2026 the plan cards on ahaslides.com/pricing were filled in by the page's scripts, so we are not pinning a dollar amount to Essential, Plus, or Pro. The page's own structured data listed a low price of $7.95 and a high price of $49.95 in USD, without saying which plan or which billing period each figure belongs to. Their FAQ does say you can pay monthly or yearly, and that a free live session is 50 participants with unlimited presentations per month. Open the card for your headcount before you budget.

A host who wants a poll or a quiz every meetup should pay AhaSlides, not us. Series is the question list, the reactions, and the rolling lineup. It is not a polling tool.

The verdict

Pick AhaSlides when the talk is a deck of polls, quizzes, or word clouds, especially in a classroom or a workshop. Pick EVOCA when a meetup or a speaker needs upvoted questions and emoji reactions for the whole talk, and the host wants a Series price that covers every night under 100 people. The live demo shows the question panel beside the slides.