Small and independent hotels
Reviews aimed at small independent hotels, B&Bs, and boutique properties.
24 reviews
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8/10
askng.it review: proactive WhatsApp guest messaging, tested
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.
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8/10
Apaleo review: the API-first PMS that expects you to build your own hotel
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.
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8/10
Mews review: the privacy audit of Europe's biggest cloud PMS
Mews processes over $10 billion in payments for its hotels. I wanted to know what that means for where your guest data ends up.
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8/10
Hotelkit review: an Austrian sovereignty pick that earns the rating on merit
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.
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7/10
Clock PMS+ review: thirty years of European independence in a market full of venture capital
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.
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7/10
Duve review: WhatsApp changed the game for my seasonal staff
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.
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7/10
Flexkeeping review: the best housekeeping tool you might lose access to
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.
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7/10
Cloudbeds review: what a quarter-billion in funding buys you
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.
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7/10
HiJiffy review: WhatsApp automation that actually works
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.
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7/10
LIKE MAGIC review: the simpler guest journey I've been looking for
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.
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7/10
Hoxell review: Swiss housekeeping software with the right passport and a thin dossier
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.
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7/10
Guestline review: what happens when private equity buys your PMS
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.
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7/10
Optii Solutions review: the housekeeping AI that wants you to trust its maths
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.
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7/10
RoomRaccoon review: the all-in-one PMS my newest hire could actually use
I gave Nikos the login on his second day. By lunch he was making reservations. That's the test, and RoomRaccoon passed it.
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7/10
Sweeply review: the housekeeping app my staff understood without being told what it does
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.
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6/10
Amenitiz review: the numbers behind Southern Europe's fastest-growing PMS
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.
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6/10
Noovy review: €5 per room and a PMS built by people who've done the night shift
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.
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6/10
RoomChecking review: a French housekeeping tool with more ambition than headcount
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.
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6/10
Quicktext review: good chatbot, integration gap persists
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.
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6/10
Runnr.ai review: WhatsApp-first and it shows, in the right ways
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.
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5/10
Actabl review: four acquisitions in a trench coat, sold as a platform
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.
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5/10
Akia review: the AI keeps getting better, and it's still in the wrong country
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.
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5/10
Canary Technologies review: a $175M American solution to European problems we don't have
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.
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5/10
Breezeway review: a vacation rental tool that wandered into my hotel
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.