Both formats put you on a team, under a deadline, in front of judges - but the actual work looks almost nothing alike, and picking based on which one "sounds more impressive" rather than which one fits how you actually work is a common mistake.
What you're actually building
In a hackathon, the deliverable is something that runs - code, a prototype, a demo a judge can click through. Judging weighs whether it works, whether the idea is worth building, and how well you can defend technical choices. Adobe's University Hackathon is a clear example of this: teams move from an online assessment straight into a development round that ends in a working, interactive prototype submitted with a GitHub repository.
In a case competition, the deliverable is a recommendation - usually a slide deck or written memo answering "what should this company do?" Judging weighs whether your analysis is sound, whether your recommendation is actually implementable, and how well you defend it under a jury's questions. HUL's L.I.M.E. follows this pattern closely: teams submit a short slide-format solution to a marketing brief, then refine it under mentorship before a final jury presentation - no code involved at any stage.
Time commitment looks different too
Hackathons are usually a single continuous block: 24, 36, or 72 hours where you're heads-down building. Case competitions more often spread across weeks - an opening submission, a semi-final round, sometimes a mentored development phase in between (HUL's FinAce gives its top teams a full week of mentorship before the grand finale), then a final live presentation. If a single intense weekend fits your schedule better than a multi-week commitment with occasional deadlines, that alone might decide which format suits you.
The skills each one actually tests
A hackathon tests: scoping something buildable in a fixed window, debugging under pressure, and presenting a working thing convincingly even when it's rough around the edges. A case competition tests: structuring an ambiguous, under-specified problem into a clear decision, defending assumptions with limited data, and communicating a recommendation persuasively to people who will push back on it. Neither is "harder" - they're testing genuinely different muscles, and being strong at one doesn't predict being strong at the other.
If you're not sure which to try first
Engineering and CS students often default to hackathons because the format feels more familiar, but case competitions built around finance or strategy briefs - like EY CAFTA - don't require a business-school background, and structured analytical thinking transfers well from a technical education. Similarly, non-technical students shouldn't assume hackathons are closed to them: most teams need someone handling product framing, user research, or the pitch itself, not only people who write code.
If you're specifically new to case competitions, how to prepare for your first one walks through what to expect before you commit to a specific brief.
Where to find either
Brabble tracks both formats on one live opportunities feed - hackathons and case competitions are filtered separately so you're not scrolling past one to find the other.