4 Popular Open Source and Free Hotel Management Software Solutions

Dan Taylor profile picture
Collin Couey profile picture
Written by:
Dan Taylor

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Collin Couey

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10 min read
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The great thing about hospitality is that it’s often free. Just think about all the times friends and family have invited you over and offered food, encouragement, and advice free of charge.

While the hospitality industry is a little less selfless, a hotel operation runs on a similar concept—excellent service, something that should always accompany a hotel stay, no matter the room cost.

A hotel management software solution aims for this same level of excellence. Some solutions achieve this by providing outstanding support or a user-friendly interface. Most software provides such services for an associated cost or fee. Others—such as your friends—offer it for free.

Free and open source hotel software gives even the smallest of operators the option to find a tool that works for them and their business.

By the end of this article, you’ll know what the pros and cons of free and open source hotel management software are as well as insight into some of the most popular options available for hotel managers.

Free online hotel software

The lowdown: Hotel management software companies who offer free solutions earn their revenue a couple of ways. They either limit the amount of features you receive with the free software, thus increasing the likelihood you upgrade to a paid version, or they take small percentages of each sale of completed booking using their software.

The target customer: Small hotels and vacation rental companies.

Pros: It’s free. Doesn’t get much better than that.

Cons: Free hotel management system versions will usually leave off important features that properties can use to grow. Additionally, many free systems will cap the number of total users who can operate at a time. You might also find limited integration options as well.

Evaluating the available options out there is important once you’ve decided to use free hotel management software.

Don’t worry though. We break down the pros and cons of each of the free online hotel software solutions alphabetically below so you can decide which is right for you and get back to focusing on your customers. Let’s dive in.

1. KWHotel Free

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KWHotel’s scheduling dashboard (Source)

If you’re a small or midsize hospitality business, KWHotel could be the hotel management system for you. The free package is limited in scope because it can only be used by one workstation, but it offers all the basic functionality in order to be considered for this list.

If you’re a super small hotel and can function successfully using one workstation, you’re in luck. And if you love the software after using the free version and need to upgrade a little later to the full version, it includes many advanced features. With the full version, you’ll get multi-module features such as highly visual calendar-based overviews of reservations. You’ll also unlock group reservations, meal management, multi-computer usage, and a customizable calendar.

The free version does come with a color-coded reservation schedule, guest experience management, free software updates, and support via phone and email, so you’re still getting a lot for free.

Using the software, your guests will be able to get checked in or out quickly while having the option to acknowledge any associated billing. With the meal management module, your guests can input specific dietary requirements which allows you to better tailor their experience from the get go by offering customized menu selections.

Want to explore products with similar features? These KWHotel alternatives are a good place to begin.

Features

  • Built-in accounting

  • Online booking

  • Point of sale (POS)

  • Single property

  • Reservations

  • Activities booking

  • Booking notes

  • Group reservations

  • Event management

  • Rate management

  • Room booking management

  • Third-party booking

Interested in what other users think about KWHotel Free? Read reviews here.

2. NOBEDS

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NOBEDS’ dashboard (Source)

With NOBEDS, you’ll get a free hotel and hostel property management system designed for small to midsize hospitality industry businesses. You’ll unlock the ability to synchronize multiple booking systems to handle your customer reservations as well as track staff activity through a series of detailed reports delivered by the software.

Both your staff and potential customers will be able to view the availability or vacancies and create reservations using the calendar feature. Direct booking confirmations are automatically distributed via email or SMS to your customers and can even be customized and personalized to say something specific like sharing a personalized message or giving directions to your property.

You’ll also gain access to a comprehensive dashboard that automatically adds direct bookings to your calendar while simultaneously creating an alert.

With NOBEDS’ task management features, you’ll be able to add specific room tasks for your housekeeping staff meaning you can always stay on top of which rooms need to be cleaned and prepared for new guests. The system allows your staff to check their daily work tasks as they’re doing it, so management has a way to oversee workflow and time spent on each room or task.

You’ll also get some good data insights with NOBEDS. Discover which rooms are most popular, the average length of stay, and the frequency of use of third-party booking sites. All are valuable ways to help grow your hospitality business.

Developer support is available, but it is not 24/7 and only available during business hours.

Interested in software solutions with similar features? These NOBEDS alternatives could be what you are looking for.

Features

  • Activity dashboard

  • Automatic notifications

  • Booking management

  • Booking engine

  • Calendar management

  • Invoice management

  • Reporting and statistics

  • Reservation management

  • Room booking

Compare NOBEDS with other hotel management software solutions here.

Open source hotel management software

The lowdown: An open source hotel management software solution gives you the freedom to build your own solution from the ground up. Once you’ve downloaded the software’s source code, you can customize it to your hospitality business’ exact needs.

You may need to get a licensing agreement from the original creator depending on which solution you go with. Open source code is often free or very low cost, but you may still need to hire software developers or a consultant for the design, implementation, and training.

The target customer: Hotels with access to contractors, consultants, or tech-savvy owners or staff members.

Pros: When choosing an open source solution, you’ll gain access to a collaborative group of like-minded users who are constantly working to improve the software and share their improvements with the group. It’s constantly evolving, and you will often benefit from those evolutions for free.

Cons: It can be intimidating to set up and maintain an open source system for the average hospitality business.

3. HotelDruid

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HotelDruid’s scheduling dashboard (Source)

HotelDruid is an open source, web-based hotel reservations management platform that provides tools for managing bookings, availability, inventory, rates, and more. It’s a property management solution developed for small or midsize hotel properties. The platform can be used by hotels and accommodation of any type, including private vacation homes and large, multi-location hotels.

HotelDruid is completely web-based, but backups can be downloaded for on-premise use for Windows and Linux. Users can access the platform via any internet-enabled device, including desktops, mobiles, or tablets, through online hosting.

With HotelDruid, accommodation managers and staff can manage online reservations, automatically assign rooms based on predefined rules, and calculate room rates based on costs including number of days, number of people, seasonality, room cleaning services, special discounts, taxes, and more.

The platform also facilitates the management of documents, including invoices and receipts, POS management for hotels with bars or restaurants, occupancy tracking, group bookings management, and the creation of a booking website to allow guests to view availability online and make reservations.

One thing to consider when choosing this solution is the overwhelming amount of options that you have available to you. You might also run into problems configuring the user interface, and the software, like all open source solutions, requires either you or a member of your team to be tech savvy enough to use and install.

Interested in software solutions with similar features? These Hoteldruid alternatives could be what you are looking for.

Features

  • Maintenance management

  • Marketing automation

  • Multi-property

  • Online booking

  • Point of sale (POS)

  • Commission management

  • Contact management

  • Guest communications

  • Guest experience management

  • Housekeeping management

Read reviews from other hotel business owners who have used Hoteldruid here.

4. QloApps

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QloApps installation assistant (Source)

QloApps is a free open source reservation management system and hotel booking engine for hotels. The cloud-based platform provides a range of features to help hotel businesses manage bookings, availability, payments, channels, refunds, discounts, and more from one centralized platform.

The QloApps Channel Manager allows users to synchronize and manage all hotel listing data, including rates, inventory, and availability, across various online channels.

With QloApps, businesses can build and launch a branded website and allow clients to book online through the integrated booking system.

Offline booking can also be managed within the system. This generally means that staff is able to manage walk-in bookings manually through the hotel reservation system. The QloApps booking system provides information on room availability, hotel capacity, upcoming bookings, rates, and more.

QloApps also facilitates payment processing through integration with PayPal, and customers can opt in to partial payments in order to reserve rooms in advance.

Other features of the platform include refund rules management, order cancellations, guest testimonials and reviews management, tax management, room reallocation, email notifications, discount management, pricing rules management, and more.

Potential downsides of QloApps include the lack of password encryption and that it is only deployable on the web, so you lose some mobile support.

If you are looking for products with similar features, these QloApps alternatives are a great place to start.

Features

  • Activities booking

  • Booking notes

  • Customer relationship management (CRM)

  • Customer support

  • Group reservations

  • Promotions management

  • Rate management

  • Room booking management

Read reviews from other business owners who have used QloApps here.

Other things to consider when searching for online hotel management software

Price isn’t the only thing you need to consider when selecting hotel management software.

Considering ease of use, training, implementation, specialized features your business might need, available support options, and integrations with other key software you use are all important to consider when searching for hospitality management software. And you probably don’t need to be reminded that the hospitality industry depends on customer service, so if a solution isn’t the right choice for your business, it probably won’t be the right choice for your customers either.

Many hospitality businesses will find free and open source hotel management software platforms able to satisfy their needs, but if you’re finding that these options are missing key features you feel your business needs to succeed, don’t hesitate to consider a more robust paid option.

If you’re still on the fence about whether you should go with free, open source, or paid hotel management software, you should take a look at our Top 20 Report where we collect the 20 best hotel management software solutions. Look through comparisons and read real user reviews to help determine whether or not the platform is right for you.

If you're wanting more information about these features, check out our list defining seven essential hotel software features.

If you still want some more information about what hotel management software can do for your business, read our buyers guide.


Looking for Hospitality Property Management software? Check out Capterra's list of the best Hospitality Property Management software solutions.

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About the Authors

Dan Taylor profile picture

Dan is a content writer at Capterra, specializing in hotel management, construction and real estate. Outside the office, he enjoys spending time with his family and friends, catching up with the latest offering from HBO or paying a visit to a new place.

Collin Couey profile picture

Collin Couey is a senior content writer at Capterra, covering medical and construction technologies, with a focus on emerging medical and construction industry trends. Collin has presented at the Conference on College Composition and Communication, as well as the Pop Culture Association Annual Conference. 

When he isn’t helping small and midsize businesses get the most out of their medical and construction technology, Collin loves playing disc golf and Dungeons and Dragons.

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