| Barrier to entry | Cohezy | Partiful | Evite |
|---|---|---|---|
| App download required to view or respond | Never — works from any link, in any browser | Not required — guests can respond from a browser link | Can vary by invite — some guests are pushed to log in via web or app |
| Account required to respond | No account for guests — organizers do sign in to create and manage a plan | No traditional account, but RSVPing does require a name, phone number, and a texted verification code | Commonly required — many invitations prompt guests to log in or create an account, though a host can loosen this |
| Testing whether your group wants to switch | Send a quick, anonymous poll that walks friends through Cohezy's core features and gauges interest in trying it — before you ask anyone to actually switch tools | No equivalent — Partiful doesn't need to sell guests on Partiful itself, only on attending | No equivalent — same reasoning as Partiful |
Comparison based on each platform's own help documentation and publicly available guest-flow behavior as of August 2026. Both Partiful and Evite change their product regularly and some behavior (especially Evite's login prompts) varies by host settings. Partiful and Evite are trademarks of their respective owners; Cohezy is not affiliated with either.
| Feature | Cohezy | Typical group planning apps |
|---|---|---|
| Finding a time that works for everyone | Overlays free/busy across Google and Apple calendars in one view | Usually manual back-and-forth, or single-calendar only |
| Chat notifications | Throttled — one alert, then quiet until you check back in | Often one push per message |
| Chatting before there's even a plan | Group chat works before an event exists — figure out the "if and when" first | Usually requires creating the event first |
| Polls with tracked answers | Built in, with results saved to the plan — no digging through chat | Often missing, or a separate tool entirely |
| "What to bring" lists | Claimable per item, with status visible to the organizer | Rarely built in |
| Keeping topics separate in one group | Subject-scoped chats let the same group discuss more than one thing without crossing wires | Usually one chat thread for everything |
| Organizing your different friend groups | Social Circles — persistent groups (Family, Game Night, Work Friends) that carry their own chat and polls across every event, with a different nickname for the same person in each one | No equivalent found — invitations are typically per-event, with no standing groups that persist and carry their own ongoing chat |
"Typical group planning apps" reflects common patterns across mainstream event and group-texting tools as of 2026, not any single named product.
| Control | Cohezy | Partiful | Evite |
|---|---|---|---|
| Controlling extra guests (+N) | Host toggles whether plus-ones are allowed at all; each guest then picks their own count when they RSVP yes | Host sets a max number of +1s per guest (0–9, default 1), applied evenly across the whole guest list | Host can cap total guests per RSVP with a per-guest limit, and separately turn on adult/children headcounts |
| Marking an event adults-only / no kids | Dedicated "Adults Only" toggle — adds a polite, consistent note to every invite automatically | No dedicated toggle found — hosts typically add it as a manual note | No dedicated "no kids" toggle found — the family headcount feature counts children attending rather than excluding them |
Same caveats as Section 1: based on current public help documentation as of August 2026, subject to change. Partiful and Evite are trademarks of their respective owners.