Comparison · TournamentSoftware vs Taekwondo Competition Manager

TournamentSoftware was built for badminton. You're running taekwondo. Here's the tool actually built for that.

TournamentSoftware (tournamentsoftware.com) is the de facto standard for racket sports — and a perfectly fine tool for the events it was designed for. It was not designed for martial arts. If you've ever tried to force a sparring-and-patterns interclub into it, you already know the pain. This page lays out the differences honestly, plus the realistic alternatives in the UK martial-arts space.

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The honest summary

Two tools, two different sports.

TournamentSoftware exists to solve a specific problem extremely well: managing draws, fixtures and online entry for racket sports — badminton, squash, tennis, table tennis. One match format. Two players per match. One ring (court) at a time. Predictable bracket logic. Federation-style ranking integration. For those events, it's the right tool.

Taekwondo events have none of those constraints. A typical Saturday club open might run sparring, patterns, padwork and breaking simultaneously across three rings. The same competitor enters two or three of those formats. Categories overlap on weight, grade and age in ways that single-format tools don't model. And — the part TournamentSoftware genuinely doesn't do — judges and coaches need to score live at the mat from devices that sync in real time.

Taekwondo Competition Manager exists because nobody had built a martial-arts-native equivalent. It's opinionated for taekwondo and the disciplines closest to it — sparring plus patterns plus padwork plus breaking, in one workflow, with live scoring on phones and tablets you already own. The scoring engine is style-agnostic, so clubs running ITF, TAGB, FEKO, karate or kickboxing rules can all use it.

About this page. Web Matter is independent. We're not affiliated with TournamentSoftware (Visual Reality / Tournament Software BV). The comparison below reflects publicly available product information and the experience of UK organisers who've tried to fit martial-arts events into a racket-sports tool. If anything is inaccurate, get in touch — we'd rather correct than overclaim.

Side-by-side

Where the differences actually live.

Capability	TournamentSoftware	Taekwondo Competition Manager
Designed for	Racket sports — badminton, squash, tennis, table tennis	Taekwondo and martial arts — style-agnostic engine fits ITF, WT, TAGB, FEKO, karate, kickboxing
Sparring brackets	✓ Single-format model	✓ Single & double elim, round robin, repechage
Patterns (poomsae / tul) competitions	— Not a supported format	✓
Padwork & breaking competitions	—	✓
Multiple competition types per category	— One match format per event	✓ A fighter can enter sparring + patterns + breaking, scored independently
Real-time mat-side scoring	— Draws and fixtures only — score entry is post-match	✓ Judges tap live, every device syncs instantly
Multi-ring coordination with shared judges	—	✓ Operators see the full running order, judges paged across rings
Real-time Scoreboard on any TV	—	✓ HDMI / Chromecast / AirPlay to any venue TV
Real-time Matches Running Order	—	✓ Fighters know exactly when they're up
Bye handling that respects seeding	Slot-order byes	✓ Seeded byes that protect higher grades from each other in round one
Online registration forms	✓	✓ Free Registration as standard, Paid via Stripe in Standard+
CSV contestant import	✓	✓
Operator console + judge / coach devices	—	✓ Any phone or tablet, paired by QR / 4-digit PIN
Medal management & podium tables	Limited	✓
OBS streaming overlays	—	✓ Professional & Federation tiers
Pricing model	Per-event & subscription tiers, federation pricing	£39–£799 flat per event, £7,999/yr unlimited Federation No per-competitor charges
Best for	Badminton, squash and racket-sport federations	Taekwondo & martial arts clubs, associations and federations

The honest call

When each is the right tool.

Pick TournamentSoftware

Use TournamentSoftware if…

You're running a badminton, squash, tennis or table-tennis event — that's the sport it was built for.
Your federation already mandates it for ranking integration in a racket sport.
You only need draws, fixtures and online entry — score entry happens post-match on paper, not live at the mat.
Your event has one match format, two players per match, one court at a time, no overlap categories.

Pick Taekwondo Competition Manager

Use ours if…

Your event involves taekwondo, karate, kickboxing or any martial art with weight-and-grade categories and multiple competition types per fighter.
You run sparring + patterns + padwork + breaking — or any combination that needs bracket and scoring engines per format.
You need real-time mat-side scoring, not post-match score entry — live judges tapping, parents watching, scoreboard updating.
You want the running order on a TV in the warm-up area so fighters know exactly when they're up.
You want one flat per-event fee, not per-competitor pricing or annual subscription lock-in.

Honest market scan

What about the other tools in this space?

A quick honest look at the other options UK martial-arts organisers actually consider, and where each one fits.

Free, generic

Challonge

Great for one-off matches and casual brackets. No martial-arts specifics — no weight/grade overlaps, no patterns/breaking, no live scoring. Fine for a single-bracket trial bout, not for a proper event.

Paid, BJJ-first

Smoothcomp

Strong if you only run sparring-style events. Per-athlete pricing scales painfully fast at 100+ entries. Built around BJJ rules, not taekwondo formats.

Federation-grade

Sport80

Used by some national governing bodies for membership and ranking. Overkill and overpriced for a club event — and not focused on real-time scoring at the mat.

Open source

Open Martial Arts Tools

Free and customisable, but you need server-admin skills, your own hosting and the appetite to maintain it. Not a turn-key option for a Saturday volunteer team.

The default

Spreadsheets + Google Forms

What most UK clubs default to. Works for entries. Falls apart at live scoring, multi-ring coordination and anything dynamic on the day.

Martial-arts-native

Taekwondo Competition Manager

Purpose-built for our sport. Sparring + patterns + padwork + breaking in one engine. Real-time scoring on any phone, scoreboard on any TV. From £39 per event, flat fee, no subscription.

Switching

"We're already on TournamentSoftware. Is moving worth it?"

If TournamentSoftware is doing what you need — and you only need draws and entries, and live scoring isn't part of your event — staying put is fine. Don't switch for the sake of it.

If you're spending hours per event making it fit a sport it wasn't built for, that's the time tax that adds up across a season. Most UK clubs we've moved across were doing two-to-four hours of pre-event spreadsheet wrangling per competition just to make TournamentSoftware match how their event actually runs. That time goes to zero on a martial-arts-native tool.

CSV export from TournamentSoftware imports cleanly into our contestant database. The standard pattern is: pick one upcoming event, run it on us as a side-by-side test, then move the rest of your season once your team is comfortable. Per-event pricing means there's no annual contract to break.

Common questions

Honest answers about both platforms.

Why doesn't TournamentSoftware work well for martial arts? +

TournamentSoftware was designed for racket sports — badminton, squash, table tennis. Those events run a single match format, one ring with two players, fixed bracket logic. Martial arts events run multiple competition types simultaneously (sparring, patterns, padwork, breaking), have weight/grade category overlaps, need bye handling that respects seeding rather than just slot order, and require multi-ring coordination with judges who often serve more than one ring. Forcing a taekwondo event into TournamentSoftware works, but only with hours of manual workarounds per event.

Is TournamentSoftware free? +

TournamentSoftware has free tiers for small organisers and paid tiers for federations. Pricing is per-event or subscription depending on usage. The bigger cost in practice is the time spent fighting it to fit a martial arts event into a racket-sports model.

What do you do that TournamentSoftware doesn't? +

Three things matter most. First, real-time scoring at the mat — TournamentSoftware is a draws-and-fixtures tool, not a live-scoring tool. Second, native handling of taekwondo's four competition types (sparring, patterns, padwork, breaking) within a single category, with their own bracket and scoring engines. Third, real-time device sync across operator, judges, coaches, scoreboard and audience, all running on phones and tablets you already own.

Can I switch mid-season if I'm already using TournamentSoftware? +

Yes. CSV export from TournamentSoftware imports straight into our contestant database. You'd typically run a single event on our platform first as a side-by-side test, then move the rest of your season once your team is comfortable. There's no contract or annual lock-in on our side — you pay per event.

What about Smoothcomp, Challonge or Sport80? +

Smoothcomp is BJJ-first with per-athlete pricing — strong if you only run sparring-style events but expensive at scale. Challonge is a generic free bracket tool — works for one-off matches, no martial arts specifics. Sport80 is federation-grade infrastructure — overkill and overpriced for a club. Our pitch is the middle: martial-arts-native, real-time scoring, flat per-event fee.

Can our federation use this for our national rankings? +

For non-WT-sanctioned national events the Federation tier covers unlimited competitions across the year and exports CSV result files that any ranking system can ingest. For WT-sanctioned ranking events you also need Daedo or KP&P hardware — see our Daedo PSS comparison page.

Dig deeper.

Stop fighting your spreadsheet. Or your racket-sport tool.

Live scoring, brackets, registration, scoreboard and running order — all in one martial-arts-native platform. Try the live demo.

🥋 Try the Live Scoring Demo

From £39 per event · No subscription · No per-competitor fees · UK-based support