The project dashboard is a free tool that is only available to verified hoteliers to make adopting new technology easier by streamlining their research and simplifying their communication workflow.
TLDR
We analyzed 172 verified hotelier reviews, compared feature sets, pricing, and real-world case studies to break down where each platform delivers. The right choice depends on your property type and priorities:
Exely shines in ease of use and customer support — especially for brand properties (0.0/5) , with exclusive features like Referral Reporting.
Octorate shines , with exclusive features like Performance Reporting and Revenue management module.
Side-by-side ratings based on 172 verified hotelier reviews on HTR.
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| Starting Price | From $200/mo | From $1,100/mo |
| Verified Reviews | 172 | 0 |
After analyzing 172 verified reviews, Exely users most value its support and responsiveness, booking engine effectiveness, direct booking enhancement, while Octorate users highlight . Click any theme to see what reviewers say.
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Support and Responsiveness
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Booking Engine Effectiveness
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Direct Booking Enhancement
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Channel Manager Synchronization
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Customization and Flexibility
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Integration and Advanced Features
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Guest Experience Concerns
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How each product ranks among Booking Engine vendors for different property sizes, types, and regions — based on verified reviews from hoteliers in each segment.
By Hotel Size
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| Small (10-24 rooms) ▾ | #15 34 reviews | #45 0 reviews |
| Mid-Size (25-74 rooms) ▾ | #11 64 reviews | #48 0 reviews |
| Large (75-199 rooms) ▾ | #22 5 reviews | — |
| X-Large (200+ rooms) ▾ | #8 6 reviews | #33 0 reviews |
By Property Type
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| Boutique ▾ | #15 35 reviews | — |
| Luxury ▾ | #15 28 reviews | #53 0 reviews |
| Branded / Chain ▾ | #16 17 reviews | #48 0 reviews |
| Extended Stay ▾ | #16 9 reviews | — |
By Region
| Segment |
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| North America | #24 2 reviews | #32 0 reviews |
| Europe ▾ | #25 11 reviews | #44 0 reviews |
| Asia Pacific ▾ | #4 79 reviews | — |
| Middle East ▾ | #2 17 reviews | — |
Choosing the right booking engine for your hotel is crucial for increasing direct bookings, reducing reliance on OTAs, and offering a seamless guest experience. Both Exely Booking Engine and Octorate aim to solve these problems, but they diverge significantly in features, user feedback, and market presence. Your decision hinges on understanding which platform aligns best with your hotel's needs and growth ambitions.
Exely boasts a proven track record with over 144 reviews and a recent surge in positive feedback, making it a more reliable choice based on current data. Octorate, while extensive in features, lacks recent reviews and a visible user community. Which of these platforms will truly meet your hotel’s expectations?
Exely and Octorate are both designed to streamline online bookings, but they approach this goal differently. Exely focuses on simplicity, ease of use, and delivering high customer support ratings, with a 4.96/5 support score and over 144 reviews, highlighting its strong reputation and recent positive feedback. Octorate, on the other hand, offers a broader suite of features—63 exclusive ones—and a larger integration network, but it has no recent reviews, which raises questions about its current performance.
Exely excels in user friendliness and onboarding, with ease of use ratings of 4.91/5 and a recent review count of 63, indicating active engagement. Octorate’s extensive functionalities appeal to larger properties or multi-property management but lack current reviews to verify if these features translate into an effective user experience today. Does your hotel prioritize ease of use or feature depth?
If your hotel values a straightforward, reliable booking engine with proven user satisfaction, go with Exely. Its high review count and recent positive ratings suggest that your team will benefit from a platform praised for its simplicity, support, and ability to boost direct bookings, especially for independent hotels or boutique properties.
If your hotel needs a comprehensive system with extensive integrations, advanced analytics, and multi-property management, Octorate might seem appealing. However, without recent reviews or verified recent user feedback, it’s uncertain whether those features are delivering value today. For most hoteliers seeking dependable performance and solid support, Exely remains the safer choice.
Exely scores a 4.91/5 for ease of use, with many reviews praising its intuitive dashboard and smooth booking process. The onboarding process is rated at 4.84/5, and users report that staff adoption is straightforward thanks to its clear layout and streamlined operations. Support responsiveness is highly rated, with a 4.96/5 score and comments highlighting rapid, helpful responses.
Octorate has no recent reviews available, making it impossible to accurately assess its ease of use. Its broad feature set may appeal to technical teams, but without current data, it’s unclear how user-friendly or supportive the platform is for day-to-day hotel operations. Edge: Exely.
Exely offers 23 shared features plus 6 unique ones like conversion rate reports, meal plans, Facebook conversion tracking, form autofill, PayU, and referral reporting. These focus on marketing and direct booking enhancements but may lack the depth of automation and advanced tools found in Octorate.
Octorate boasts a significantly larger feature set with 63 exclusive features, including an open API, advanced analytics dashboards, metasearch connectivity, multi-property management, rate intelligence, PMS connectivity, guest CRM, multi-lingual support, and payment processing. These features are geared toward larger, multi-property management or enterprise-level hotels.
The choice depends on your hotel’s needs: for targeted marketing and simplicity, Exely’s core features suffice. For comprehensive management and automation, Octorate’s expansive feature list is impressive, but recent user feedback is lacking to confirm its efficiency. Edge: Octorate.
Exely’s customer support is highly praised, with a 4.96/5 rating and reviews emphasizing quick responses and helpful, friendly assistance. Hoteliers report that support staff often resolve issues promptly, making onboarding and daily operations smoother.
Octorate has no recent reviews or detailed feedback about its support experience, making it difficult to gauge whether its support quality matches Exely’s. Given the importance of reliable support in booking engine success, this uncertainty favors Exely. Edge: Exely.
Exely connects with 8 verified partners, including Hotellab, Oracle Hospitality, IDeaS, and Booking.com, but has a narrower integration network. Its integrations cover essential hotel management and booking channels but lack the extensive third-party options Octorate offers.
Octorate supports 28 verified partners and boasts integrations with major OTAs, PMS, channel managers, payment gateways, and additional tools like MetaSearch and guest CRM. Its extensive ecosystem simplifies multi-channel management and automation.
For hotels prioritizing broad integrations and advanced management tools, Octorate leads. For those seeking core features with proven reliability, Exely’s integrations are sufficient. Edge: Octorate.
Exely’s recent reviews indicate high satisfaction, with a 98% likelihood to recommend, and a 4.96/5 customer support score. Hotel segments such as boutique hotels, city center properties, and resorts rate it highly, praising its ease of use, support, and booking effectiveness.
Octorate lacks recent reviews, which diminishes confidence in current user satisfaction levels. Without recent feedback, it’s impossible to determine if it meets hoteliers’ expectations today. Given the data, Exely is clearly the preferred choice. Edge: Exely.
Exely’s booking engine is priced at a flat $200 per month, with no free trial or implementation fees. Its transparent pricing makes budgeting straightforward and accessible for small to medium-sized hotels.
Octorate charges a base price of $1,100 monthly, with a 30-day trial available. Its higher cost reflects its extensive feature set and integrations but may be less attractive for smaller hotels or those on tight budgets.
Your decision should consider your hotel’s scale and budget: for cost-effective, straightforward solutions, Exely is advantageous. For more advanced needs and larger properties, Octorate's price might be justified.
Hotels that should consider Exely include:
Not ideal if:
Edge: Exely.
Octorate is best suited for:
Not ideal if:
Edge: Octorate.
Exely’s strength lies in its proven reliability, ease of use, and strong support, backed by over 144 recent reviews. It excels in boosting direct bookings for boutique and independent hotels, with a straightforward pricing model.
Octorate offers a broad array of features, integrations, and management tools tailored for larger, multi-property hotels or those seeking automation. However, without recent reviews, its current performance remains uncertain.
If your hotel values a dependable, well-supported booking engine that simplifies operations, go with Exely. For extensive management capabilities and advanced tools, Octorate could be appealing—provided your team is equipped to handle its complexity.
In conclusion, based on the latest and most comprehensive review data, Exely is the stronger choice for most hoteliers right now, especially those prioritizing simplicity, support, and proven effectiveness.
According to HTR's product database, Exely Booking Engine and Octorate (Booking Engine) share 23 features. Here are the key differences — features one has that the other lacks.
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| Analytics dashboard | ||
| Conversion rate reports | ||
| Custom dashboards | ||
| Facebook conversion tracking | ||
| Form autofill | ||
| Meal plans | ||
| Metasearch connectivity | ||
| Multi-property Management | ||
| Open API | ||
| PayU | ||
| Referral Reporting | ||
| Vacation Rental Rate Intelligence |
Showing top differences. 57 more features differ between these products.
We analyzed 2 verified case studies to compare what hotels actually achieve with each platform across four key business objectives.
"We took a proactive approach and collaborated with Exely, implementing various strategies, such as a loyalty program. The outcome has been outstanding — not only have we been able..."
No published case study for this goal yet.
"Once we switched to Exely, we immediately noticed a significant increase in reservations from online travel agencies. We discovered that our previous system had blocked some availa..."
No published case study for this goal yet.
What hoteliers love
Exely's support is lauded for its rapid response times and solution-oriented approach, contributing to an improved user experience. This is seen as a... Exely's support is lauded for its rapid response times and solution-oriented approach, contributing to an improved user experience. This is seen as a considerable strength of the product.
Exely's booking engine is frequently praised for its user-friendliness, fast operation, and ability to enhance direct bookings significantly, thus con... Exely's booking engine is frequently praised for its user-friendliness, fast operation, and ability to enhance direct bookings significantly, thus contributing to revenue growth. It is deemed to have a powerful positive impact on the guest experience and conversion rates.
The software is commended for increasing direct bookings and lowering reliance on OTAs. This positively impacts hotel revenue by lowering third-party... The software is commended for increasing direct bookings and lowering reliance on OTAs. This positively impacts hotel revenue by lowering third-party fees and providing a return on investment through efficient booking management.
Where hoteliers push back
A recurring critical point among users is the limited customization options available, particularly in reporting and website design. Users seek more f... A recurring critical point among users is the limited customization options available, particularly in reporting and website design. Users seek more flexibility to adapt templates and reports to their needs.
Users would like to see improvements in integration capabilities with other hotel management systems. Current integration limitations are seen as a do... Users would like to see improvements in integration capabilities with other hotel management systems. Current integration limitations are seen as a downside restricting the platform's full potential.
Ranks higher for
Unique capabilities
Unique capabilities
Where the ratings diverge most
It depends on your requirements. Exely Booking Engine and Octorate (Booking Engine) share many core Booking Engine features, but each has unique capabilities. Exely Booking Engine offers 8 verified integration partners, while Octorate (Booking Engine) offers 28. Review the feature comparison above to see where they differ before switching.
Small hotels should prioritize ease of use and fast onboarding. Exely Booking Engine leads in ease of use at 4.9/5 vs 0.0/5. Look for transparent pricing and a trial or demo option. Filter reviews on each product page by property size to hear from hotels like yours.
Exely Booking Engine: No. Octorate (Booking Engine): No. Neither product currently offers a free tier. Most Booking Engine vendors offer demos or trials — request one from each to evaluate before committing.
The HT Score is a composite ranking that considers 4 criteria groups and over a dozen variables to help hoteliers objectively compare hotel technology products. Exely has an HT Score of 93 and Octorate has 0. Here is how the score is calculated.
| Criteria Group | Weight | What It Measures |
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| Customer Ratings & Reviews |
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How highly do users recommend this product? Ratings Score, Review Volume, Share of Voice, Review Depth, Review Recency, Success Stories ▾ The most heavily weighted factor. Analyzes average satisfaction ratings (likelihood to recommend, ease of use, support, ROI), total review count relative to category peers, review recency (at least 20 reviews in the trailing 6 months), and share of voice across unique hotel clients to detect selection bias. |
| Partner Ecosystem |
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How highly do tech partners recommend this company? Partner Recommendations, Integration Quantity, Integration Quality ▾ Evaluates partner recommendations as expert votes of confidence, the number of verified integrations, and ecosystem quality — the average HT Scores of integration partners. Products with higher-quality integration ecosystems are more likely to deliver a connected tech stack. |
| Customer Centricity |
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How customer-centric is this organization? Certified Support, Review Consistency, Profile Completeness ▾ Assesses whether the company has earned HTR Customer Support Certification, maintains consistent review collection over time (an indicator of feedback-driven culture), and keeps product profiles complete with capabilities, screenshots, pricing, and features. |
| Reach, Staying Power & Resources |
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How extensive is this company's reach and resourcing? Geographic Reach, Staying Power, Company Resources, Trending Score ▾ Measures global presence (countries and regions served), years in business as a stability proxy, team headcount as a resource proxy, and a trending score based on trailing-twelve-month buyer inquiries, reviews, partner recommendations, and press activity. |
Customer ratings and reviews are by far the most important factor in the HT Score algorithm. HTR does not accept payment for higher rankings. All reviews are verified — only hotel industry practitioners with confirmed affiliations can submit ratings. View full HT Score methodology →
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