Padel Fast Alternative for Club Tournaments

Padel Fast is padel and nothing else. Every format, every screen and the whole club directory is built for one sport, which shows in the depth of what they offer socially.

Their format list runs past a dozen names: americano, mexicano, mix americano, mix mexicano, king of the court, beat the box, round robin, ladder, club clash, league, world cup, knockout, plus team variants. In July 2026 they added a Tournament Builder where an organiser designs a custom format of up to three phases for four to two hundred entrants and publishes it for other people to use. Scoring runs to 16, 21, 24 or 32 points, custom points, a countdown timer so every court finishes together, a plain result entry, or classic tennis scoring.

The money layer is complete in a way ours is not. Entry fees run through Stripe, there is a wallet with payouts, automatic refunds, VAT configuration with gross and net on the receipt, and a purchase history. Court booking is a real module, not a label: courts with pricing, a bookings calendar, booking statuses from held through refunded, cancellation with a full refund, and Stripe onboarding to take the money. It is gated on one thing — booking is tied to a club you actually manage, which you claim from their global directory.

The player side is where the network lives. Every player carries an ELO starting at 500 that updates after every match, with global leaderboards, profiles, a follow graph you pick partners from, and private and group chat. Their site claims tens of thousands of players and over a hundred thousand tournaments; those are their own marketing counters with no methodology behind them, so read them as a claim rather than a measurement.

For how the formats themselves work, see the padel tournament formats guide and the americano format explained.

Both tools draw rounds automatically, take self-registration, update standings live and put results on a screen. The real decisions are the app, the money and the referee. For the wider field, see the padel tournament software comparison.

Capability	Padel Fast	JudgeMate
Sport coverage	Padel only	41 sports; padel drives the match-play tournament module
Platform	Native iOS, iPadOS, macOS on Apple silicon, visionOS and Android, plus web	Web only, any browser, no install
Formats	A dozen named social formats plus team variants, and a custom builder of up to three phases	Six: americano, mexicano, team americano, round robin, knockout, groups plus knockout
Mexicano	Yes, including mix mexicano	Yes. Quartets by current standing, court 1 plays 1+4 against 2+3
Sign-up	QR, tournament key, shared link or invitation; solo entry, or pick a partner from people you follow	Public event page: create a team, join one, or join the looking-for-a-partner list; americano and mexicano register individuals
Who enters the score	The organiser or the players in that match	Whoever holds the match QR — the referee panel opens for that match only
Timers	Countdown per match when time scoring is used	Slot length in the scheduler; the speaker console carries the timer
Court assignment	Courts are an input to the generator; assigning matches to numbered courts in time slots is not described in their guides	Courts as resources with an auto-schedule: start time, slot length, conflict detection
Court booking	Yes — courts with pricing, bookings calendar, Stripe, refunds; requires claiming your club	No
Entry fees	Yes, Stripe, wallet, refunds, VAT	No
Cross-event rating	Own ELO from 500, global leaderboards	No. Standings live inside one event
Big screen	TV view with court cards, live scores and timers	/display/[event-slug] with scale, rotation and row-count in the URL
Judging	None — results are entered, not judged	Judge panels exist across the platform; padel uses match results
Organiser price	Subscription required; Day Pass $3.99 for 6 hours	€0

Pick JudgeMate when the event is the product and nobody should have to pay to organise it.

• Free, at any size, forever. No subscription, no day pass, no player cap, no commission. A twenty-eight player americano costs the same as a four player one.
• Nothing to install, for anyone. Organiser, players and the screen in the corner all use a browser. No app store, no updates, no device that is suddenly too old.
• A referee QR at every net. Scanning opens the score panel for that single match, and there is a printable sheet for the noticeboard. Nobody needs an account, and nobody can accidentally edit the wrong court.
• Courts on a real auto-schedule. Set start time and slot length; matches are assigned to courts and conflicts are flagged. Padel Fast takes the number of courts as an input to the draw, but their guides do not describe assigning matches to numbered courts in time slots.
• Sign-ups without a partner, in every direction. Americano and mexicano register individual players. Pair formats offer create, join, or looking-for-a-partner.
• An LED view built for a hall. /display/[event-slug] with scale, auto-rotation and row count set in the URL, on any browser and any TV.
• Results you can withhold. Set a draw's results visibility to hidden and the table stays dark until you release it — useful for a final where the room should not know before the presentation.
• Forty other sports on the same account. The club that runs padel on Saturday and a bouldering session on Sunday does not need a second platform, or a second login.
• You can play in your own event. Roles accumulate; the organiser enters through "play in this category" without handing anyone the laptop.

Start with the organiser guide, or draw the rounds with no account at all in the americano generator.

These two overlap far more than they complement each other, so running both usually means running the same event twice. A cleaner way to decide:

1. Does the club take money for this event? Entry fees, court hire, a bar tab tied to a booking — if yes, Padel Fast keeps it in one system and we push you into a bank transfer plus a spreadsheet.
2. Does anyone need a rating that lasts? If your players care about a number that moves week to week, their ELO does that and we do not.
3. Is the organiser paying out of pocket? A club treasurer funding a Tuesday social from petty cash is exactly who our free tier is for.
4. Who is entering scores? If it is the players in the match, both work. If it is a volunteer walking between courts with a printed sheet, our per-match QR is the better ergonomics.
5. Is padel the only sport in the building? If it is, their focus is an advantage. If the same committee also runs a climbing session or a school sports day, one account here covers all of it.

If you do use both, keep the boundary at the event, not inside it — their app for the paid league, this for the free social night. Nothing syncs between the two: no importer, no shared player database, no route from an ELO to our standings, so a start list used in both is entered twice.