Two decades of Windows depth vs a platform on every screen.
The Tournament Director is the most established tournament program in the hobby. Poker Hawk is the modern cross-platform challenger. Here is the honest comparison — including the cases where TTD is still the right buy.
Buy TTD for one offline PC. Buy Poker Hawk for the room.
The Tournament Director (v3.x) is a Windows desktop program with a one-time $39.99 personal license. Its strength is depth: twenty years of settings for structures, formulas, layouts, and league stats, all running locally with no internet required. If your setup is one dedicated Windows PC and a monitor, and you enjoy tinkering with configuration screens, TTD remains a solid, proven tool.
Poker Hawk is a live platform: host from Mac, Windows, or your phone; every player follows the clock, their seat, and the payouts on their own free app; Fire TV / Google TV apps put the display over the table; and your club's roster, leaderboards, and history persist across seasons in the cloud. It costs a subscription instead of a one-time fee, because it is a running service rather than an installed executable.
The real question is not "which has more features" — both cover the tournament core — but "does your game live on one screen or on many?" Below is the feature-by-feature detail, and an FAQ that answers the pricing question directly.
What a cross-platform platform buys you.
These are the capabilities that a single-PC program cannot offer, no matter how configurable it is.
Free app for every player
Live blinds, seat, stack, and projected payout on each player's own phone. The single biggest experience gap vs TTD.
TV without cables
Native Fire TV and Google TV apps stay in sync over Wi-Fi. TTD requires a physical display connection to the PC.
One clock, every screen
Pause on the desktop and every phone and TV pauses in the same second. Rebuys and eliminations update everywhere live.
RSVPs & self check-in
Players RSVP from the club link and check themselves in at the door. In TTD, the host types every entrant.
Clubs that persist
Rosters, announcements, a social feed, and auto-posted results — a season is a living thing, not a stats file.
Leaderboards & lifetime stats
POY races, ITM, ROI, and per-player history tracked automatically across every event your club runs.
Mac + Windows hosts
Native on both. TTD requires Windows, full stop.
Built this decade
Modern UI your players do not need a tutorial for. Setup checklist and an in-app Academy replace the manual.
The head-to-head table.
Based on publicly documented features of The Tournament Director 3.x as of 2026. Trademarks belong to their owners; tell us via Support & Feedback if anything here is out of date.
| Feature | Poker Hawk | Tournament Director Windows · $39.99 one-time |
|---|---|---|
| Windows host app | ||
| Mac host app | ||
| iOS + Android player apps | ||
| Native Fire TV / Google TV apps | ||
| Real-time multi-device sync | ||
| Blind structures, antes, breaks | ||
| Payout schemes & chops | ||
| Auto table balancing | ||
| RSVP + self-serve check-in | ||
| League leaderboards | ||
| Club feed with auto-posted results | ||
| Works fully offline forever | ||
| One-time license option |
Poker Hawk vs TTD — the honest answers
Including the ones where the answer favors Tournament Director.
Which is cheaper?
When is TTD genuinely the better choice?
When is Poker Hawk clearly better?
Can I run both while I evaluate?
Does Poker Hawk match TTD's configurability?
Is my data portable?
Related
Ready to switch? Start here.
Step-by-step migration in the Academy.
The browser-based competitor.
The whole field, ranked honestly.
The clock in detail.
Host plans and Founder pricing.
See it live
The comparison that matters is your own game night.
Spin up a free trial, rebuild your structure, and run one event with every phone and the TV in sync. Then decide.