Online or in-person hackathon: how to choose

Choose an online hackathon if you want flexibility and the chance to build with people from anywhere. Choose an in-person one if you want fast collaboration and the energy of a shared room. Neither format is better in general. The right pick depends on your goals and your time and, for organizers, on your budget and audience.

Starfield Labs runs hackathons both online and in cities, so this is a choice we think about often. Here is how we would weigh it.

What changes for participants?

Here is a side-by-side of the things that can most affect your weekend.

Topic	Online	In person
Getting there	Join from home; no travel	Travel, and sometimes an overnight stay
Forming a team	Through chat and messages; trust can take longer	Face to face; easier to judge fit
Working together	Shared docs, calls and repos; plan deliberate check-ins	Talk across the table
Getting unstuck	You have to ask in writing	You can turn and ask the person next to you
Focus	Easier to fit around life, easier to get distracted	Fewer distractions, but tiring if you stay late
Demo	Often a recorded video plus a write-up	Often a live demo
Meeting people	A wider spread of people	Fewer people, longer conversations
Time zones	Deadlines may land at awkward hours	Everyone shares one clock

If you are new to hackathons, an in-person event can make it easier to find a team and get unstuck. If you have a job, family or tight budget, an online event may be the one you can fully commit to.

What changes for organizers?

Topic	Online	In person
Audience	Can reach people anywhere	Mostly people who can travel to the venue
Main costs	Tools, moderation and staff time	Venue, food, staff and safety
Logistics	Chat channels, submissions, time-zone planning	Space, power, internet, safety, accessibility
Helping teams	Plan set times and a channel for questions	Walk the room; easier to spot stuck teams
Judging	Often from videos and repos	Live demos, often in rounds
Community	Takes more effort to make people feel part of something	Easier to build, harder to scale
Sponsors	Their product can reach builders in many places	Direct conversations with builders

How does judging differ?

Online judging often works from submitted videos, repos and written descriptions. Every judge sees the same material, which helps consistency. It also rewards teams who can make a clear video, and it can be harder to tell whether a demo runs live. As an organizer, consider asking for a working link and sample inputs so judges can try projects themselves. As a team, show the model running on real input in your video, with no cut at the key moment, and list exactly what a judge needs to try it.

In-person judging lets judges ask questions and suggest new input on the spot. That can show quickly whether a project really works. It can also favour confident speakers. In either format, a shared rubric, a short calibration round and more than one judge per project help.

How do you handle time zones?

For online events, time zones take the most planning. Some practical habits for organizers:

• Publish every deadline in UTC and in a few local times.
• Spread live sessions across the day, not just one region's afternoon.
• Record kick-off talks and workshops so no one misses them.
• Give teams a submission window, not a single minute, and say clearly when it closes.

For participants, plan your sleep around the deadline, not around your normal routine. If your team is spread across regions, agree on a hand-over time. Write down who submits, and aim to submit well before the window closes, so a late slip does not cost you the whole weekend.

How should you prepare for each format?

For an online event, test your setup the day before: microphone, screen sharing, the shared repo and the chat channel. Agree on how your team will talk, and when. Block the time in your calendar as if you were travelling.

For an in-person event, pack a charger, an extension lead if you can, and anything you need to stay comfortable for long hours. Have your accounts and keys ready before you arrive, so you are not setting things up on shared venue internet.

In both cases, read the event's rules before you start, including anything about eligibility and submissions.

Which should you pick?

Use this quick check:

• Pick online if you want to meet builders from other regions, cannot travel, or want to fit the event around other commitments.
• Pick in person if you want to find a team easily, get help face to face, or build a local network.
• For organizers, pick online to reach a broad audience, and in person to build a strong local community or give sponsors direct contact with builders. A hybrid format can work, but plan for it to feel like running two events at once.

Where to go next

Look at your calendar and your goals, then pick a format and commit to it. You can browse both online and city-based events at starfieldlabs.ai/events, and the guides at starfieldlabs.ai/tutorials can help you prepare before the event starts.