OpenStation vs Event Genius – Event Management, Events Calendar, Registration, and RSVP

wp-admin forgets. OpenStation doesn’t. You know the moment. You’re deep in a post and you need one image from the Media Library. You click over, find it, click back, and everything you had going is gone. Your scroll position, your half-typed thought, the three other things you had queued up in your head. That’s not a bug you hit. That’s the design. wp-admin shows you one screen at a time, and every navigation throws the last one away. It has worked this way since 2003, like a fridge that empties itself every time you close the door. WordPress has rebuilt almost everything else. The editor, the site editor, the patterns, the styles. The admin’s one-screen-at-a-time model is the layer nobody touched. OpenStation touches it. Install it and admin screens become draggable, resizable windows. Edit a post while the Media Library sits open next to it. Drag an image from one window straight into the other. Keep comments open in the corner. Reload the browser and your window layout — open pages, positions, sizes, and window states — comes back where you left it. OpenStation itself is free, GPL, and opt-in per user. One click in the admin bar turns it on for you. One click turns it off. Nobody else on your site sees anything change, and deactivating the plugin restores the classic admin exactly. No Core patches and no lock-in. Optional AI providers may charge for their service. Built and maintained by Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com, Jetpack, WooCommerce, and Tumblr. Work on more than one thing at once Admin pages open as windows, including pages added by most other plugins. Drag them, resize them, snap them, tile them, minimize them to a taskbar. The admin menu becomes a dock of icons. Two editors open at once is one click away. Never lose your place Moving between open windows leaves each page in place. Across reloads, OpenStation remembers your open pages, window positions, sizes and states, virtual desktops, and focus. Closing a window with unsaved changes warns you first. A desk you can actually put things on Drop posts, media, and links right onto the wallpaper. Sort them into folders. Trash them to a Trash that actually holds things. The stuff you’re working on this week can just sit out where you can see it. One desktop per job Virtual desktops, the way your operating system does them. One for writing. One for the store. One for comment triage. One for that redesign you keep poking at. Switch between them without closing anything. Find anything with Cmd+K The full WordPress command palette, plus slash commands from your plugins, all under one keystroke. Turn on the optional AI assistant and you can ask it things like “which post had the comment asking for the recipe?” and it searches your own content to answer. (Requires an AI provider configured in Settings → Connectors on WordPress 7.0+. Details under “External services” below.) See how your site fits together The Corkboard is an interactive, zoomable map of how your posts, pages, and products link to each other. Pan around it. Find the orphans. Find the hubs. Running a store? Orders, Products, Coupons, and Customers become browsable folders with stock and sale ribbons. Open a customer to see their lifetime spend and what they buy most. Follow a product to its buyers, or a coupon to who redeemed it. Make it yours Wallpapers, from color presets to animated scenes to your own photo. Live widgets pinned to the desktop: drafts, stats, recent comments, a focus timer. Uploadable desktop themes, including a built-in Legacy theme that brings the old WordPress blue back in one click. And Mio, a soft-body desk companion that drifts across your wallpaper and gets bumped around by your windows. Off by default. You’ll turn it on. For developers Extend OpenStation through documented PHP and JavaScript APIs. Register windows, icons, wallpapers, widgets, commands, and settings tabs through stable openstation_register_* PHP APIs and a typed JavaScript API; customize dock items through documented hooks; add AI tools with the WordPress Abilities API. Copy-paste examples live in the developer docs on GitHub. External services No external service is required for OpenStation’s desktop interface. The optional AI Assistant and two user-initiated enrichment features make the external requests described below. AI Assistant The optional AI Assistant sends data to the AI provider you configure in WordPress’s Settings → Connectors (for example OpenAI, Anthropic, or Google). Generation is routed through WordPress 7.0’s built-in AI Client, which supplies the credentials stored in Connectors. The plugin never handles an API key itself. With no provider configured in Connectors, no external AI requests are made. When the AI Assistant is enabled and a user invokes it (via Cmd+K or the slash-command palette): What is sent: the user’s prompt, the conversation history for the active session, and tool-call metadata. The plugin’s built-in tools (search_posts, search_pages, search_comments) run WordPress’s native keyword search and may include excerpts of the matching posts/pages/comments in tool results, which are then sent back to the provider as part of the agentic loop. When it is sent: on user-initiated AI requests, and (if an administrator enables “Score new comments with AI”) on comment-save hooks for spam analysis. Posts, pages, and taxonomy terms are not sent automatically. Why it is sent: to obtain model completions and tool-call decisions that drive the AI Assistant. Who provides the service: whichever provider you configured in Settings → Connectors. Which provider (and endpoint) receives the data depends entirely on that configuration. Review the chosen provider’s own terms and privacy policy (e.g. OpenAI, Anthropic, or Google). URL shortcut favicons When an authorized user creates a desktop shortcut to an external URL, OpenStation asks that URL for its page HTML and favicon so the shortcut can display the site’s icon. The request is made from your WordPress server and sends the requested URL, the server’s IP address, an OpenStation user-agent string, and normal HTTP request metadata to the operator of that site. This happens only when a user creates the shortcut. The destination site’s terms and privacy policy apply. WordPress.org plugin information When an authorized user opens or refreshes parts of OpenStation’s Plugins window, OpenStation may request public plugin details, update metadata, and review excerpts from WordPress.org. These requests send plugin slugs, the site’s locale, and normal HTTP request metadata to WordPress.org. This information is used only to display and manage plugins. Review the WordPress.org Privacy Policy. OpenStation’s OAuth relay does not contact a service by itself. Third-party plugins that configure the relay may contact their own providers and are responsible for disclosing those services. Credits OpenStation is brought to you by Automattic. The plugin is open source under GPLv2-or-later; contributions are welcome on GitHub. Third-party libraries The plugin bundles the following third-party JavaScript library, loaded on demand only when a feature that needs it is in use: PixiJS (MIT License) — used by the Corkboard window, built-in canvas wallpapers (e.g. the animated WordPress logo), the Mio desk companion, and the Inkfall typing game. PixiJS is loaded from the plugin’s own assets/vendor/ directory; no CDN requests are made. Data files The Inkfall game’s word list (assets/games/inkfall/words.txt) is generated from the following sources (attribution also ships in the file’s header): FrequencyWords by Hermit Dave (CC-BY-SA 4.0) — English word-frequency ranking derived from the OpenSubtitles corpus. english-words by dwyl (Unlicense) — used as a validity filter. LDNOOBW English list (CC-BY 4.0) — used as an exclusion filter.

Complete WordPress Event Management & Registration Solution Event Genius is a powerful yet easy-to-use free event registration plugin designed for schools, sports organizations, pickleball clubs, membership sites, fitness classes, conferences, and any business needing comprehensive event registration capabilities. Whether you need a simple RSVP form, virtual event registration, hybrid event management, or a full-featured event registration system, Event Genius makes event planning effortless. Event Genius is a modern WordPress event management plugin built by an experienced team with a deep understanding of what event organizers need. It offers a streamlined alternative to plugins like The Events Calendar and Events Manager, with a focus on flexibility, performance, and ease of use. Our goal is to provide a robust and intuitive event management experience that works out of the box while still offering the flexibility to grow with your needs. If you need help, our team is here to support you. Migrate from The Events Calendar in minutes Automatically import events, recurring events, registrations, venues, organizers, categories, tags, and more from supported versions of The Events Calendar ecosystem. Your existing calendar remains active while you review imported events before switching. Event Management Features Unlimited Events & Event Registrations No limits on how many events you can create or attendees you can manage through our event registration and ticketing system. Perfect for creating event lists or an interactive calendar where your visitors can register for events. Built-In Migration Wizard Import events, recurring events, registrations, venues, organizers, Event Tickets attendees, categories, tags, and settings from supported versions of The Events Calendar while keeping your existing calendar active. Event Details Control Set custom start and end dates, assign venues and organizers to an event, set a cost, set a registration capacity, add images and descriptions for each event. Virtual & Hybrid Events Create in-person, virtual, or hybrid events from the same event editor. Add Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Webex, or other meeting links, include virtual instructions, and automatically protect join links until attendees register. Confirmation emails and calendar downloads include virtual event details for registered attendees. Multiple Event Calendar Views Choose from list, month, and grid views for displaying your events in an organized event calendar format. Allow visitors to toggle between the views and filter based on venue, category, and search terms. Google Calendar & iCal Event Sync Allow users to add your events to their personal calendars with a few clicks, which will significantly increase your event attendance. Dedicated Venue and Organizer Pages Create individual pages for venues and organizers with detailed information and lists of related events. Show social proof that the venues and organizers of your events will create meaningful experiences. Event Registration Form Builder Create custom event registration form solutions with drag-and-drop ease, adding fields like text inputs, dropdowns, and checkboxes. Make fields required, add a terms and conditions acknowledgement, and prevent duplicate registrations. Create event registration forms exactly as you need them. Accept RSVP submissions and allow users to access tickets. Flexible Registration Display Registration forms automatically appear on event pages, or use blocks and shortcodes to place them anywhere on your website. Attendee List Management Display attendee lists on event pages or use dedicated blocks and shortcodes for flexible placement. Automated Event Emails Send confirmation emails to attendees and notifications to event organizers automatically. Customizable Email Templates Customize both attendee confirmation emails and organizer notification emails with your own branding and messaging. Event Registration Controls Set registration start/end times, event capacity limits, or disable registration entirely while keeping event information visible. Self-Cancellation System Attendees can cancel their registration or RSVP through secure email links for better event management. Event Management Admin Tools Add, edit, delete events, export event reports, and manage event attendees from your WordPress dashboard. CSV Export Functionality Export all event registrations to CSV format for easy data analysis and management. Free Recurring Events Support Create daily, weekly, or monthly repeating events for ongoing event management needs. Free recurring events support is included in Event Genius. Advanced SEO for Recurring Events Prevent duplicate content penalties with automatic canonical URLs, smart sitemap filtering, and 301 redirects for invalid instances. Each recurring event instance gets its own unique URL optimized for search engines. Learn more about recurring events SEO. Why Choose Our WordPress Event Management Plugin? Fast & Lightweight Event Calendar – Optimized for performance, even on high-traffic websites. Mobile-Friendly Event Registration – Fully responsive event forms and event calendar for seamless experience on all devices. Virtual Event Ready – Easily manage webinars, online classes, hybrid conferences, virtual meetings, and live training sessions with protected meeting links and built-in registration. Block Theme & Full Site Editing Support – Complete compatibility with WordPress block themes and full site editing (FSE). Design custom event pages, organizer pages, and venue pages using the Site Editor without any custom code. Perfect for block themes like Twenty Twenty-Four. SEO-Optimized Event Pages – Advanced SEO features for recurring events including unique canonical URLs, automatic redirects for invalid instances, and smart sitemap filtering. Compatible with Yoast SEO, Rank Math, and other popular SEO plugins. WordPress Caching Plugin Compatible – Built-in support for WP Super Cache, W3 Total Cache, WP Rocket, and LiteSpeed Cache. Automatically clears cache and refreshes dynamic content to ensure accurate registration information on cached pages. Flexible Registration Confirmation – Choose when registrations are confirmed and when the confirmation email is sent: automatically after registration or manual review only, with a one-click Send Confirmation Email from the registration in the admin. Regular Event Management Updates & Dedicated Support – We want to provide the best possible experience for our users. Please reach out if we can help. Perfect For Event Management Needs: Event Planners – Comprehensive event management tools for professional event planning Event Organizers – Streamlined event registration, RSVPs, and attendee management Event Websites – Complete event calendar and event management solution Event Businesses – Professional event registration, tickets, and event management capabilities Sports Clubs – Perfect for sports registration and pickleball registration needs Schools & Organizations – Ideal for managing event list displays and RSVP form requirements Upgrade to Event Genius Pro Unlock powerful advanced features to help you manage events more efficiently: Accept Payments & Sell Tickets – Accept payments through Stripe and PayPal, or track offline payments manually. Multiple Registration Forms – Create unique forms for different event types with customized confirmations and notifications. Multiple Registration Types – Define separate registration options on one event (for example General, VIP, or early bird), each with its own name, price, and optional capacity, so attendees pick the tier that fits them. Event Waiting Lists – Let visitors join a waiting list when events fill up, then automatically or manually promote attendees when spots become available. Check-in & Attendance Tracking – Streamline check-in and track attendance status with automated follow-up emails. Event Series Management – Group related events into series with flexible registration options for full series or individual dates. Scheduled Event Reminders – Automatically send reminder emails before events and follow-up messages after to improve engagement. Multiple Email Templates – Create different templates for various event types and maintain consistent branding. Register Multiple Guests – Allow attendees to register additional guests during the registration process. List Events Registered For – Help attendees see all their registered events in one place. Manually Email Registrants – Send targeted emails to specific registrants or groups. Advanced Form Fields – File uploads, date pickers, attendee number fields, and hidden admin fields. Multiple Event Registration – Allow attendees to register for multiple events at once. Offline Payment Tracking – Track and manage offline or manual payments with complete control. Upgrade to Event Genius Pro to unlock all these features and more!