The Top 7 Free and Open Source Reservation Software

Updated on :October 19, 2023
By :Jemimah Rodriguez

Reservation software today, also termed as online booking software comes of great help to the businesses categorized under the travel & hospitality sector. Whether it is about booking a room in a hotel, or a flight ticket, the online reservation has become quite prevalent these days. Previously, people used to book their tickets personally from travel agencies, ticket counters, or phone calls. In this era, digitalization is making every process easy and effortless. Online reservation is one of them. A powerful Reservation Software offers extreme convenience to the users and drives the growth of the travel & hospitality industry further.

As per Statista, revenue generated in the online travel booking segment amounts to US$434,030 in 2019 and is expected to grow up to US$551,762 in 2023.

Reservation Software Statistics
(statista.com)

This report depicts that, the future is bright for the company providing online reservation facility.

A reservation software not only makes things easier for the customers, but it helps travel & hospitality companies to streamline the reservation process of booking, to accept payments, to improve efficiency, and productivity within the organization.

Who Can Use Reservation Software?

Any business accepting bookings for a hotel room, flight, bus, or scheduled events like movies, plays, concerts, seminars, etc. can use the reservation software to improve the accuracy and speed in their booking process. Generally, the reservation software is used by -

Reservation Software Users

What Does a Reservation Software Do?

A reservation software simplifies, automates, and expedites the booking process by leveraging the below functionality.

Reservation Software Functionality

Why Use Reservation Software?

Reservations can be made manually also through phone calls, emails, online, etc. Why do companies use reservation software? The reservation software empowers you to -

Reservation Software Benefits

Manual Booking V/S. Reservation Software

Manual and Reservation Software Comparison

How Does a Reservation Software Work?

Reservation Software Process

Features of an Ideal Reservation Software

The reservation software is the revenue generator for your business, which means that your reservation system should be flawless, trustworthy, and accessible easily by the users. Below are some features of an ideal reservation software -

User-Friendly

The reservation software you use should be easy to use for your customers and employees. The customers should be able to book the reservation of their choice and process the payments seamlessly. Moreover, your employees should have access to the admin panel, allowing them to have a real-time view of the current bookings and generate required reports for making smart decisions for the future.

Integration

The reservation software you choose should integrate with your website, social media pages, travel portals, etc., as you never know, your customer is coming from which platform. Moreover, it should connect with your payment system to provide a seamless buying experience to your customers.

Calendar

This feature would help you in notifying the number of bookings on a particular date, schedules, and changes. The calendar should be shareable with your customers and customizable to suit your business.

Auto Update

As soon as the booking is made, the reservation software should be able to update the non-availability of that seat, or room automatically on all the platforms you have allowed your customers to book.

Multiple-Device Compatibility

The software you choose should be compatible with multiple devices so that you can monitor the status and get reservations done from any device or platform.

Technical Support

The reservation software you select should have a support team that can assist you promptly whenever you get stuck up in glitches or queries.

Here, we have listed the 7 best free and open source reservation software which you can customize as per your business requirements and use it for growing your business. Skedda deserves a special mention in the list of reservation software owing to its smartest application to manage the scheduling and online booking of meeting rooms and desk space. With powerful features and strong integrations, Skedda is a perfect solution for meeting rooms and desk booking. 

Before you go through the details of all 7 best reservation software, let’s go through its comparison chart, which would give you an overview of their features at a glance.

The Top 7 Free and Open Source Reservation Software Comparison Chart

Comparison table reservation software

The Top 7 Free and Open Source Reservation Software

#1 Skedda

Skedda is a free online reservation software specially designed for scheduling your venue which can include classrooms & labs, meeting rooms, sports venues, community facilities, etc. Skedda is an intelligent system to manage up to 5 spaces free of charge.

Skedda

(skedda.com)

Key Features

  • Provides calendar view to get an idea about all the activities running at your venues on a real-time basis
  • Allows users to create and cancel bookings on their own
  • You can have control over which segment of users can book, which users can get an exemption from the charges
  • It allows admin to customize the booking rules and cancellation policies
  • You can access your booking engine from any device, providing you the flexibility managing bookings at any time from anywhere

Have you already used Skedda? Please leave your review here.

#2 freetobook

freetobook is a free and open source reservation software which is used by around 7000 accommodation businesses located in 130 countries globally. It is one of the best all-in-one reservation solution for hotels, guest houses, cottages, bed & breakfasts, hostels, etc. Using this software, you can increase your direct bookings for free.

freetobook
(en.freetobook.com)

Key Features

  • Provides optimized search results to the users
  • Allows you to set and change your rates on the website on a real-time basis
  • Helps you in changing the availability of the rooms with a single click
  • Allows customers to book multiple rooms and their types in a one-step process
  • Facilitates you to manage and edit the bookings already done
  • Updates the availability on your website and other integrated reservation sources
  • Helps you in managing multiple properties using a single account
  • Enables you to export guest database to email campaign database for effective marketing
  • Allows you to create a Facebook page for your business and link it to your booking engine
  • Automatically collects reviews from your clients
  • Allows you to customize the stay and meals package to attract the customers

Have you already used freetobook? Please leave your review here.

#3 Qloapps

QloApps is a free and open source software that has the ability to launch a hotel booking website within few minutes without any investment. It allows you to manage on-desk and online hotel reservations. It has all the features required to attract online bookings, retain present customers, and grow your hospitality business.

Qloapps(qloapps.com)

Key Features

  • Allows you to launch an attractive hotel booking website within a few minutes
  • Can manage offline booking from the reception desk for walk-in customers
  • Allows you to add multiple hotels located in multiple locations
  • Allows customers to book a hotel room by paying a partial amount set by the admin
  • It supports all the payment gateways ensuring facilitating customers to pay through the mode of their choice in a secure manner
  • Customers can book multiple rooms in a single order
  • Allows customers to cancel their order and request for refund
  • Helps customers to search hotel based on the location of their choice
  • Enables you to display the reviews and testimonials of the customers on the hotel website
  • Allows admin to relocate the room for the customer as per their choice
  • Allows you to add taxes to your room rates
  • Automatically sends an email to the customer as soon as the booking is made
  • Supports multiple languages and currencies
  • Can send newsletters regularly to the subscribers
  • Allows you to quickly block the availability as soon as all the rooms of the hotel are sold out
  • Facilitates you to set up different prices for hotel rooms based on season, festival, demand, etc.
  • Helps you in setting up a responsive themed website, so that it is best viewable on all the devices and platforms used these days
  • Integrates Google Maps to your website, so that your visitors can find the complete information of your hotel on Google easily

Have you already used Qloapps? Please leave your review here.

#4 KWHotel

KWHotel is a free reservation software specially designed for various accommodation facilities like hotels, B&Bs, apartments, resorts, hostels, boutiques, etc. The system can integrate with online booking engines, point of sale systems, channel managers, and more, to provide excellent functionality to the admin and users both.

Kwhotel(kwhotel.com)

Key Features

  • Helps in booking rooms online, accepting payments, and issuing invoices to the customers
  • You can gain access to the reservation system anywhere and stay updated with real-time changes in the booking, payments, etc.
  • You can centralize availabilities with all the reservation sources, and online booking portals like YieldPlanet, WuBook, booking.com, etc.
  • Helps you in managing multiple properties from a centralized location
  • Includes built-in accounting, so no more installing different software for maintaining accounts for your properties

Have you already used KWHotel? Please leave your review here.

#5 Solidres

Solidres is a free and open source online booking & reservation software specially designed for hotels, restaurants, and the entire hospitality sector. You don’t need to be tech-savvy to use this software, as it's easy to install, configure, and use. Moreover, Solidres team is always there to help businesses in setting up their reservation system. Working with Solidres means no boundaries. The software helps you in customizing your reservation system per your business requirements, and ensure flexibility at the same time.

Solidres(solidres.com)

Key Features

  • Includes plugins and add ons to provide unique functionality
  • It can support multiple business types having a reservation as their basic requirement
  • Includes responsive design capabilities, helping you to display online booking system best viewable in all the latest platforms and devices
  • Supports multiple languages, eliminating all the geographical boundaries for your business
  • Compatible with multiple browsers providing excellent browsing experience to different types of users
  • Integrated Joomla and WordPress themes, so that you can choose the look and feel of your online reservation website as per your business

Have you already used Solidres? Please leave your review here.

#6 HotelDruid

HotelDruid is an open source hotel booking software having a flexible web interface that can be used for bed & breakfasts, hostels, vacation houses, rental apartments, and even hotels having hundreds of rooms. Multiple properties can be managed from a centralized location, which saves time, and provides extreme convenience to the property owners.

Hoteldruid
(hoteldruid.com)

Key Features

  • It can be accessed from multiple devices like computers, tablets, and smartphones.
  • You can configure the number and characteristics of different rooms in the property
  • The admin can define rules for automatic assignment of the rooms
  • Special offers, discounts, extra costs, etc. parameters can be added to the rates
  • Includes a point of sale system for bars and restaurants requiring inventory management functionality
  • Provides comparative statistics relating to occupancy and revenue generated
  • Multiple user management with access permissions
  • Web pages can be created to check the availability
  • Supports Italian, Spanish, and English with modules for other languages
  • Facilitates group booking, month table, etc., with drag and drop features

Have you already used HotelDruid? Please leave your review here.

#7 Upbooking

Upbooking is a free booking engine that can be integrated to your property website. It is the most popular among the reservation and booking software as due to its zero cost and zero commission policy. Using this software, you can customize the template and put your logo all over it to retain your brand identity. You can configure this software for up to three different hotel properties and up to three different types of rooms.

Upbooking(upbooking.com)

  • Allows you to set a number of rooms available for booking
  • Enables you to provide detailed description and characteristics of the rooms
  • Helps customers to book multiple board & room types in one go
  • You can specify the minimum days of stay
  • It provides a multilingual customer interface
  • It displays statistics about visitors, bookings done, and conversion rates
  • You can define your terms and conditions relating to cancellation and refunds

Have you already used Upbooking? Please leave your review here.

Besides these top 7 free and open source reservation software, we would also like to recommend you one of the most popular reservation software - SuperSaaS. Although it is not free, it has high-end functionality to spruce up your business and help you achieve your sales goals. Let’s have brief information about it -

SuperSaas

SuperSaas is trusted by more than 120,000 businesses worldwide because it works for any business and any schedule. It is a user-friendly, flexible and affordable software that can work on any computer or phone. It allows one on one schedule, group scheduling, reservations & rentals, and service appointment bookings. It can also integrate with your favorite apps & software like Facebook, WordPress, Google Calendar, PayPal, and many more.

SuperSaaS
(supersaas.com)

Key Features

  • Allows creating unlimited schedules, and manage unlimited users
  • Enables you to send automated reminders, confirmations, and followups
  • Allows you to accept payment online
  • Can sync with external calendar tools
  • Allows you to customize the interface as per your brand identity
  • Available in 33 languages with automatic time-zone adjustments

Conclusion

So, these were our recommended reservation software. Still, if you are looking for more options, you can try exploring Bookatonce - an open source reservation software which is free for 30 days, or if you are having a WordPress website for your business, you can integrate Sagenda, which is a free plugin for WordPress, and gain all the benefits of reservation software.

Also, you can check out the features of the paid reservation software like - PlanyoResNexusBookeoCheckfrontRezdy BookingZauiResmarkPeek ProIntaRez.

Have you already used any of the reservation software mentioned above? Please leave your reviews here.

Jemimah Rodriguez
Jemimah Rodriguez

Jemimah Rodriguez is a content marketing specialist having 8+ years of experience in content writing, SEO, and social media optimization. At present, she is working with GoodFirms – a reliable platform helping businesses in selecting right Software Companies & Products. For further information, you can get in touch with her on [email protected]