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October 2, 2026
Devpost and Brightidea both sell software and expert support for running corporate hackathons. Devpost, founded in 2009, runs private internal and customer-facing hackathons on Devpost for Teams, a product purpose-built for private hackathons. Brightidea runs hackathons through its Hackathon product, one part of a broader innovation-management suite that also covers idea management, crowdsourcing challenges, and open innovation.
Devpost for Teams is private hackathon software from one of the longest-running companies dedicated to hackathons. Devpost was founded in 2009. Devpost for Teams is built on Devpost's years of experience as hackathon experts. Devpost's hackathon consultants are a team that plans and runs hackathons full-time. Devpost for Teams is purpose-built for private hackathons, including internal employee hackathons and customer-facing hackathons. Companies that have used Devpost for Teams include Salesforce, Crusoe, SAP, Neo4j, Candescent, Grafana Labs, Okta, Toyota, Motorola Solutions, Estee Lauder, JLL, Finastra, and Valenz Health. Devpost for Teams lets organizers invite customers, partners, and outside experts into a private hackathon as guests. Devpost for Teams is certified to ISO 27001 and SOC 2. Devpost also runs public, developer-facing hackathons on its public platform.
Brightidea is innovation management software. Brightidea's suite includes products for idea management, crowdsourcing challenges, experiments, open innovation, and company-wide transformation. Brightidea's Hackathon product runs internal employee hackathons, and Brightidea also markets hackathons as public events. Brightidea pairs its Hackathon product with coaching from its innovation consultants.
Here's how Devpost for Teams and Brightidea compare in more detail.
One of the biggest differences between Devpost for Teams and Brightidea is product focus. Devpost for Teams is internal hackathon software built for running private hackathons. Devpost has focused on hackathons since it was founded in 2009. Devpost for Teams handles registration, team formation, project submissions, judging and voting, reporting, and project showcases for private hackathons. Devpost for Teams serves two main use cases: internal hackathons for employees and customer hackathons for a company's users and partners.
"Over a quarter of our hackathon projects have shipped, and there is another 10-15% that have made their way onto the roadmap." — Global Internal Events Manager, Grafana Labs, on internal hackathons run on Devpost for Teams
Brightidea's Hackathon product is part of a suite built for managing innovation programs. Brightidea's other products cover idea management, crowdsourcing challenges, experiments, startup and partner scouting, company-wide change, brainstorming, and long-form business memos. Brightidea's suite contains more than 26 apps in total.
Devpost for Teams keeps every hackathon private to the organization that runs it. Organizers on Devpost for Teams can invite guests by email or by link. A Devpost for Teams guest can be a participant, a judge, or a guest organizer. Guest participants on Devpost for Teams can register, join teams, submit projects, and vote. Guest judges on Devpost for Teams evaluate and score submissions. Guest organizers on Devpost for Teams can edit the hackathon page, manage registrations and submissions, schedule announcements, manage judging criteria, and view judging and voting results. Guests on Devpost for Teams see only the hackathon they're invited to, and can’t see the organization's settings or any other hackathons they aren’t invited to. Organizers can keep inviting guests to a Devpost for Teams hackathon through the end of the judging period, which makes it possible to add expert judges after submissions close.
Brightidea's Ecosystem product connects companies with startups, universities, and outside partners. Brightidea's public materials don't describe guest roles that limit an outside participant, judge, or co-organizer to a single private hackathon.
Devpost for Teams covers each stage of a private hackathon, from registration to post-hackathon reporting. Brightidea's Hackathon product covers participant, organizer, and judge workflows inside Brightidea's broader suite. Here's how the two compare feature by feature.
Participants can register for a Devpost for Teams hackathon in a few clicks. Devpost for Teams supports single sign-on (SSO), so employees can access their organization's hackathons with their company login. Organizers can add their own registration questions and project submission questions on Devpost for Teams, including linear-scale questions. Each Devpost for Teams hackathon page keeps the description, resources, judging criteria, and key deadlines in one place. Devpost for Teams has built-in team formation. Participants on Devpost for Teams can mark themselves as looking for teammates and note the skills or role they need. Teams on Devpost for Teams can open their project for others to join. Devpost for Teams hackathon pages and projects can embed Loom, YouTube, and Vimeo videos.
Brightidea's Hackathon product includes a participant onboarding wizard and team building that matches people by skills, interests, and availability. Brightidea auto-generates bio pages for participants and offers a Project Room for teams to collaborate and track tasks, with GitHub and Jira integrations. Participants submit projects to Brightidea through submission forms with fields set by the organizer.
Devpost for Teams showcases projects long after the hackathon ends. Devpost for Teams includes built-in reporting on participation, submissions, and outcomes. Every new Devpost for Teams hackathon includes a post-hackathon survey by default. The Devpost for Teams survey can use Devpost's default questions or the organizer's own questions. The Devpost for Teams survey is customizable to measure outcomes such as how many participants learned a new skill, how many teams tackled an important business problem, and how many projects were production-ready. Devpost for Teams sends the survey automatically after winners are announced, or on a schedule the organizer sets. Organizers can download Devpost for Teams survey responses as a CSV file. Devpost for Teams survey data helps organizers measure hackathon ROI beyond participant and submission counts.
"Over 50% of the submitted projects had immediate production capacity after switching to Devpost for Teams." — David Green, VP of Innovation, Valenz Health
Brightidea's Hackathon product includes a project gallery where participants can browse, sort, and vote on submissions, plus a winners page and customizable certificates. Brightidea's analytics dashboard tracks engagement and participation, and Brightidea offers retrospective templates for closing out an event.
Organizers on Devpost for Teams can set up to six judging criteria. Judges on Devpost for Teams score each project from 1 to 5 on every criterion. Devpost for Teams averages the judges' scores automatically. Devpost for Teams supports one or more judging rounds before winners are selected. Organizers can track each judge's progress on Devpost for Teams and see which judges need a reminder. After each Devpost for Teams judging round, organizers can share round scores, individual judge feedback, or anonymous feedback with teams. Organizers can add judging support through Devpost's managed services.
Devpost for Teams has built-in voting, so participants can vote for projects. Voting on Devpost for Teams can also be opened to anyone with the voting link, limited to voters who give an email address, or limited to signed-in users. Each Devpost for Teams hackathon can use judging and voting together, judging only, voting only, or no evaluation.
Brightidea's Hackathon product includes judge assignments, judge progress tracking, and automated evaluation workflows. Brightidea judges can score projects on tablets and record audio comments. Brightidea's Top Proposals dashboard ranks the most promising projects for judges, and participants can vote on projects. Brightidea organizers can lock selected submission fields after submission.
Devpost for Teams is certified to both ISO 27001 and SOC 2. Devpost for Teams includes SSO and access controls.
Brightidea completed a SOC 2 Type II audit as of December 31, 2025, and supports SSO. Brightidea doesn't publish an ISO 27001 certification of its own.
Every Devpost for Teams subscription includes platform onboarding, a best-practices toolkit, and platform support. Organizers who need more hands-on help can add managed services to Devpost for Teams. Devpost for Teams managed services include judging support and a dedicated Customer Success Manager.
Brightidea pairs its Hackathon product with coaching from Brightidea's innovation consultants. Brightidea's broader services cover innovation-program consulting, software training and configuration, and email and phone support.
Devpost for Teams is sold as an annual subscription based on the number of seats. A Devpost for Teams subscription covers unlimited hackathons throughout the year. Voters don't count toward a Devpost for Teams seat total. Managed services are optional add-ons to a Devpost for Teams subscription.
Brightidea doesn't publish pricing for its Hackathon product or its suite. Organizers start with Brightidea by requesting a demo.
Devpost for Teams is best for companies that need hackathon management software for enterprise built specifically for private hackathons, by a team of hackathon experts, for internal employee hackathons and customer-facing hackathons with external guests, on an ISO 27001 and SOC 2 certified platform with unlimited hackathons per subscription.
Brightidea is best for enterprises that need hackathons managed in the same system as their idea management, crowdsourcing challenges, and open-innovation programs, including companies already running an innovation program on Brightidea.
Devpost runs public, developer-facing hackathons on its public platform, separate from Devpost for Teams. Public hackathons on Devpost can be virtual, in-person, or hybrid. Organizers can run a public Devpost hackathon fully self-serve, or add project management and marketing services from Devpost's hackathon consultants. Every public Devpost hackathon has a public project gallery that stays online after the hackathon ends. Brightidea markets public hackathon events through its Ecosystem product. For a wider look at public hackathon platforms, see our roundup of the best hackathon software for organizing events and competitions.
Ready to run your next private hackathon on Devpost for Teams? Book a demo to see how Devpost for Teams works for internal and customer hackathons.