# Six Hoteliers

> Honest hotel software reviews from six working European hoteliers. No ads, no affiliates, no sponsored coverage. Each review is grounded in months of real-world use at the reviewer's own property.

Six Hoteliers is an independent editorial site. The team consists of six hoteliers based in England, Sweden, Austria, Greece, France, and the Netherlands. Each reviewer pays for the software they review and tests it with real guests at their own hotel before forming an opinion.

Editorial methodology: https://6hoteliers.com/how-we-review/
About the team: https://6hoteliers.com/about/

## Reviews

### Guest communication

- [askng.it review](https://6hoteliers.com/guest-communication/askng-review/): askng.it is, for all practical purposes, a new product: the February 2026 rebuild of Lacoly, which I ran for a year and rated a 4. I tested the new one in March at my 80-room Amsterdam hotel. It is a different animal, and it earns an 8. (rating 8/10, by sophie)
- [Canary Technologies review](https://6hoteliers.com/guest-communication/canary-review/): Canary Technologies has raised $175 million, built a strong guest management platform, and is now eyeing Europe. The product is good. The question is whether European hotels should care. (rating 5/10, by marc)
- [LIKE MAGIC review](https://6hoteliers.com/guest-communication/likemagic-review/): After Duve made me say 'oh no' out loud, I went looking for something my seasonal staff could learn before the first guest arrived. LIKE MAGIC came close. Not all the way, but close. (rating 7/10, by elena)
- [Runnr.ai review](https://6hoteliers.com/guest-communication/runnr-review/): Runnr.ai built their product around WhatsApp from day one instead of adding it later. The difference is visible in the API design, the message flow, and the integration quality. It's what I wished Quicktext had done. (rating 6/10, by thomas)
- [chatlyn review](https://6hoteliers.com/guest-communication/chatlyn-review/): chatlyn is Austrian, EU-hosted, and does omnichannel messaging with a privacy posture that holds up under scrutiny. The product is young, and it shows in places. But the foundations are right. (rating 7/10, by anna)
- [HiJiffy review](https://6hoteliers.com/guest-communication/hijiffy-review/): I didn't think my smallest property, a 45-room boutique in the Cotswolds, was the right place to trial an AI chatbot on WhatsApp. Three months later, my front desk staff disagree with me less often than they used to, which is how I know it's working. (rating 7/10, by james)
- [Akia review](https://6hoteliers.com/guest-communication/akia-review/): Akia's AI chatbot is the best I've tested in hotel messaging. It also means your guest passport data lives on American servers under American law. The technology has improved since my last review. My position hasn't. (rating 5/10, by marc)
- [Bookboost review](https://6hoteliers.com/guest-communication/bookboost-review/): I reviewed Bookboost previously and liked the data handling. Coming back to it, the privacy fundamentals haven't slipped, and the WhatsApp integration has turned it into a proper messaging platform. (rating 8/10, by anna)
- [Quicktext review](https://6hoteliers.com/guest-communication/quicktext-review/): Quicktext's chatbot still converts direct bookings and still handles multilingual queries well. They've added WhatsApp and a new brand name. Neither fixes the integration problems I flagged previously. (rating 6/10, by thomas)
- [Duve review](https://6hoteliers.com/guest-communication/duve-review/): A second season with Duve and the rating goes up. WhatsApp changed everything for how we talk to guests, and Katerina can now train new hires on it herself. Still not simple, but no longer unmanageable. (rating 7/10, by elena)

### Housekeeping

- [Actabl review](https://6hoteliers.com/housekeeping/actabl-review/): Actabl is a private equity roll-up of four separate hotel tech companies, headquartered in Florida, backed by a PE firm managing $18.8 billion. The labour management tools are strong. Everything else is a sovereignty and integration problem dressed up in enterprise marketing. (rating 5/10, by marc)
- [Breezeway review](https://6hoteliers.com/housekeeping/breezeway-review/): A colleague recommended Breezeway for housekeeping. The scheduling works, the mobile app is decent, but the whole product thinks in vacation rentals, not hotel rooms. My staff could use it, but they shouldn't have to. (rating 5/10, by elena)
- [Flexkeeping review](https://6hoteliers.com/housekeeping/flexkeeping-review/): Flexkeeping does housekeeping operations well and the ROI numbers from large groups are hard to argue with. But the Mews acquisition changes the calculus for anyone not on Mews, and the absence of public API documentation tells me something about where this product is heading. (rating 7/10, by thomas)
- [Hoxell review](https://6hoteliers.com/housekeeping/hoxell-review/): Hoxell is Swiss, built by a real hotelier, and keeps your data under European law. I read the DPA before I looked at the room status dashboard. Here's what I found. (rating 7/10, by anna)
- [Hotelkit review](https://6hoteliers.com/housekeeping/hotelkit-review/): Hotelkit was built in Salzburg by a hotelier who got frustrated running his own 50-room property. Bootstrapped, Austrian-owned, 4,000+ hotels. I tested it across my three Austrian properties. The sovereignty story is real. So are the weak spots. (rating 8/10, by marc)
- [Optii Solutions review](https://6hoteliers.com/housekeeping/optii-review/): Optii claims its AI route optimisation can cut housekeeping labour costs by 18%. I tested it at my 80-room Amsterdam property with a spreadsheet in one hand and a stopwatch in the other. (rating 7/10, by sophie)
- [RoomChecking review](https://6hoteliers.com/housekeeping/roomchecking-review/): I tested RoomChecking across my three English properties because the flexibility promise sounded right for multi-property operations. Some of that promise held up. Some of it didn't survive contact with a Tuesday morning housekeeping briefing. (rating 6/10, by james)
- [Sweeply review](https://6hoteliers.com/housekeeping/sweeply-review/): I handed Sweeply to Nikos and Katerina and watched. The colour-coded boards made sense to both of them inside twenty minutes. But the reporting left me wanting, and I still don't know many small hotels using it. (rating 7/10, by elena)

### Property management

- [Amenitiz review](https://6hoteliers.com/property-management/amenitiz-review/): A PMS that publishes its pricing, charges no commission, and starts at €42/month. I checked the maths. Then I checked whether you actually get a PMS for that. (rating 6/10, by sophie)
- [Apaleo review](https://6hoteliers.com/property-management/apaleo-review/): A PMS with a public API, a developer sandbox, and no proprietary UI requirement. I opened the docs before the marketing page. For once, I wasn't disappointed. (rating 8/10, by thomas)
- [Clock PMS+ review](https://6hoteliers.com/property-management/clock-pms-review/): Every subscription is a vote. Clock has been building hotel software since 1994 without taking venture capital. In a market where your PMS vendor might get acquired next quarter, that counts for something. (rating 7/10, by marc)
- [Cloudbeds review](https://6hoteliers.com/property-management/cloudbeds-review/): Cloudbeds has raised $253 million and SoftBank is involved. I wanted to know what that buys an 80-room city hotel that could use the money elsewhere. (rating 7/10, by sophie)
- [Mews review](https://6hoteliers.com/property-management/mews-review/): Mews processes over $10 billion in payments for its hotels. I wanted to know what that means for where your guest data ends up. (rating 8/10, by anna)
- [Noovy review](https://6hoteliers.com/property-management/noovy-review/): A PMS that costs less per room than a coffee. I wanted to know what you give up for that price, and whether my staff would notice. (rating 6/10, by elena)
- [Guestline review](https://6hoteliers.com/property-management/guestline-review/): Guestline has been the default PMS for British independents for years. Then the Access Group bought it. I wanted to know whether the product survived the acquisition. (rating 7/10, by james)
- [RoomRaccoon review](https://6hoteliers.com/property-management/roomraccoon-review/): I gave Nikos the login on his second day. By lunch he was making reservations. That's the test, and RoomRaccoon passed it. (rating 7/10, by elena)

## Category overviews

- [Guest communication tools: what we actually use](https://6hoteliers.com/guest-communication/): Ten tools, six opinions, years of arguing. No comparison tables, just what we found when we ran these tools with real guests.
- [Property management systems: the thing we argue about most](https://6hoteliers.com/property-management/): Eight PMS platforms, six hoteliers, and the kind of disagreements that only happen when everyone has strong opinions about software they use every day.
- [Housekeeping tools: the category that still runs on paper and shouting](https://6hoteliers.com/housekeeping/): Eight housekeeping tools, six hoteliers, and a category that's younger than the rest. We tested every option we could find, from a Salzburg-built operations platform to a vacation rental tool that wandered into my hotel.

## Insights

- [What hotel WhatsApp tools really cost, and why nobody will tell you](https://6hoteliers.com/insights/what-hotel-whatsapp-tools-really-cost/): Every guest messaging tool prices on a different axis, and half hide the number behind a demo. Here is how I work out what they actually cost on my 80-room hotel, including the WhatsApp message bill nobody leads with.
- [How hotel software is priced, and who's honest about it](https://6hoteliers.com/insights/hotel-software-pricing/): After pricing two dozen hotel tools across PMS, housekeeping and guest messaging, the same patterns turn up everywhere. Here are the pricing models you'll meet, the costs that hide off the page, and which vendors will actually show you a number.
- [Premium for humans: how hotel software quietly made support a paid upgrade in 2025](https://6hoteliers.com/insights/premium-for-humans/): Six of the platforms we reviewed in the last twelve months have shifted what 'support' means. AI triage replaced humans by default. Talking to a person now costs extra. This is the contract change nobody mentioned in the renewal notice.
- [Your hotel's AI runs on OpenAI. Do you know what that means?](https://6hoteliers.com/insights/ai-providers-privacy-problem/): We checked the sub-processor lists and privacy policies of all ten guest communication tools we've reviewed. Nearly every one routes guest conversations through OpenAI in San Francisco. Most hoteliers have no idea.
- [Hotel Tech Report has become the problem it was supposed to solve](https://6hoteliers.com/insights/hotel-tech-report-trust-problem/): HTR used to be a useful place to read what other hoteliers thought about software. Then it became a sales platform dressed as a review site. It died somewhere in 2025 and nobody said it out loud.
- [Why we started Six Hoteliers](https://6hoteliers.com/insights/why-we-started/): Hotel software reviews are written by people who've never worked a night shift. They're funded by the vendors being reviewed. We thought we could do better.

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