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 45 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:
ROIBACK shines in ease of use and customer support , with exclusive features like Mobile optimized/responsive and Urgency messaging.
thebuking shines .
Side-by-side ratings based on 45 verified hotelier reviews on HTR.
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| Starting Price | From $500/mo | Contact sales |
| Verified Reviews | 45 | 0 |
After analyzing 45 verified reviews, ROIBACK users most value its support and customer service, direct bookings optimization, technical improvements, while thebuking users highlight . Click any theme to see what reviewers say.
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Support and customer service
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Direct bookings optimization
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Technical improvements
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Reporting and analytics
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Multi-language and user-friendly interface
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Payment gateways
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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
| Segment |
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thebuking |
|---|---|---|
| Small (10-24 rooms) ▾ | #29 8 reviews | — |
| Mid-Size (25-74 rooms) ▾ | #22 18 reviews | — |
| Large (75-199 rooms) ▾ | #14 9 reviews | — |
| X-Large (200+ rooms) ▾ | #10 6 reviews | — |
By Property Type
| Segment |
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thebuking |
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| Boutique ▾ | #24 15 reviews | — |
| Luxury ▾ | #23 15 reviews | — |
| Branded / Chain ▾ | #18 13 reviews | — |
| Extended Stay | #19 4 reviews | — |
By Region
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thebuking |
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| North America | #18 4 reviews | — |
| Europe ▾ | #20 12 reviews | — |
| Asia Pacific ▾ | #10 14 reviews | — |
| Middle East | #14 3 reviews | — |
Choosing the right booking engine for your hotel hinges on multiple factors: functionality, ease of use, support, integrations, and overall value. While both Roiback and thebuking aim to boost direct bookings, Roiback's extensive features, stronger market presence, and more recent reviews position it as the more reliable choice for most hoteliers. Thebuking, despite its AI-driven review insights, offers limited data, making it hard to evaluate its overall effectiveness.
In this comparison, we'll delve into their core differences, strengths, and weaknesses to help you decide which platform aligns best with your hotel’s goals. Ready to find the best fit for your team?
Roiback is a comprehensive booking engine with over 2,000 hotels worldwide, boasting a solid 72 HTR score, 43 reviews, and recent positive feedback. It emphasizes direct sales growth with features like multi-language support, flexible booking options, and integrations with over 27 partners, including major channel managers and PMS systems. Its recent reviews highlight ease of use, excellent support, and measurable ROI.
Thebuking, on the other hand, primarily offers an AI review management platform with no publicly available reviews or ratings, making its market presence and user feedback difficult to assess. It focuses on review aggregation and actionable insights but lacks detailed feature sets or customer success stories. Given its minimal publicly available data, it’s hard to determine its suitability for hotels aiming for growth.
Do you want a proven, feature-rich booking engine with active support, or are you exploring AI review analysis with limited market validation?
If your hotel needs a full-featured booking engine designed to maximize direct bookings, streamline operations, and integrate with existing hotel tech, Roiback is the clear choice. It’s suited for hotels of all sizes looking for reliable performance, extensive features, and strong support — especially those in Europe, Asia Pacific, or North America.
If your primary focus is review aggregation, reputation management, or incorporating AI-driven customer feedback insights, thebuking could be relevant. However, without detailed feature info or proven hotel use cases, Roiback’s more comprehensive offering makes it the safer, more strategic investment for most hotels.
Are you looking to increase direct bookings and revenue or to analyze customer reviews more effectively? The answer will guide your choice.
Roiback’s user interface scores 4.49 out of 5, with many reviews praising its intuitive design and straightforward onboarding process. Support from the Roiback team is highly rated at 4.72 out of 5, and recent feedback confirms hoteliers find it easy to implement and adopt, with clear rate grids and flexible rate setup options.
Thebuking, lacking publicly available user reviews, offers no specific ratings or qualitative feedback. Without concrete usability data, it’s impossible to confidently assess its user-friendliness or onboarding process.
Edge: Roiback.
Roiback offers 36 unique features, including mobile responsiveness, urgency messaging, multi-lingual support, booking abandonment recapture, multi-room bookings, rate comparison widgets, and integrations with Google Hotel Ads and TripAdvisor. It also supports multiple payment gateways like Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Stripe, with detailed conversion rate reports.
thebuking provides no specific features or detailed descriptions. Its core offering appears to be review analysis, not a full booking engine, and thus it lacks the extensive functionalities available in Roiback.
Edge: Roiback.
Roiback’s support scores 4.72 out of 5, with users citing quick responses, dedicated account managers, and personalized consulting as key strengths. Recent reviews highlight their proactive approach in helping hotels optimize their direct sales and resolve technical issues efficiently.
thebuking offers no publicly available reviews or customer support ratings, making it impossible to evaluate its support quality or responsiveness.
Edge: Roiback.
Roiback boasts 27 verified integrations with prominent channel managers, PMS, and hotel tech providers, including RoomRaccoon, GuestCentric, and Sojern. These partnerships enable seamless updates, synchronization, and enhanced operational efficiency. Many users praise the smooth connection with these systems, though some recommend ongoing improvements.
thebuking does not disclose any integration partnerships or compatibility with other hotel tech solutions, limiting its appeal for hotels seeking a fully integrated tech stack.
Edge: Roiback.
Roiback’s overall score of 72.06 and 43 reviews in the last six months show consistent positive feedback, especially on ease of use and support. Hoteliers from boutique, city center, and resort segments have expressed satisfaction, with a 90% likelihood to recommend.
thebuking lacks any public reviews or ratings, so hotelier satisfaction levels cannot be gauged. Its limited visibility makes it impossible to determine whether it’s trusted or preferred.
Edge: Roiback.
Roiback’s pricing starts at $500 a month, with no trial or implementation fees. Its pricing model is straightforward, and many users consider the value justified given its extensive features and support.
thebuking’s pricing details are unavailable publicly, suggesting a custom or undisclosed model. Without transparent pricing, budget evaluation and comparison are not feasible.
Given Roiback’s clear pricing and proven value, it remains the more attractive option financially.
Not ideal if you’re a small, independent hotel seeking only basic booking functionality without advanced features.
Not ideal if your goal is increasing direct bookings or integrating with a sophisticated hotel tech stack.
Roiback offers a full-featured, highly-rated booking engine with proven performance, extensive integrations, and dedicated support. It’s designed to help hotels increase direct bookings, optimize revenue, and operate efficiently across multiple regions.
If your hotel’s priority is conversion, ease of use, and reliable support, Roiback is the clear winner. Its recent reviews and high NPS indicate strong user confidence and satisfaction.
Thebuking, while potentially valuable for review analysis, lacks the market presence, detailed features, and user feedback necessary to recommend as a primary booking solution. Its focus on review insights could complement a booking engine but isn’t a substitute for a comprehensive platform.
In conclusion, unless your hotel specifically seeks review management without the need for a full booking engine, Roiback remains the more dependable and impactful choice for your team.
According to HTR's product database, Roiback | Booking Engine and thebuking share 0 features. Here are the key differences — features one has that the other lacks.
| Feature |
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thebuking |
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| Booking abandonment recapture | ||
| Mobile optimized/responsive | ||
| Multi-room bookings | ||
| Room substitutions | ||
| Special offers & discounts | ||
| Urgency messaging |
Showing top differences. 24 more features differ between these products.
We analyzed 1 verified case studies to compare what hotels actually achieve with each platform across four key business objectives.
"Partnering with Roiback has been a game-changer, as their innovative solutions and close support by our Direct Channel Specialist have empowered Jasmine City Group to reach new h..."
No published case study for this goal yet.
What hoteliers love
Roiback's dedicated support team, including account managers and direct channel specialists, receives high praise. Users commend their responsiveness,... Roiback's dedicated support team, including account managers and direct channel specialists, receives high praise. Users commend their responsiveness, expertise, and personalized consulting which have been instrumental in achieving business goals.
Roiback enhances direct bookings through a user-friendly booking engine, innovative direct sales strategies, and tools like loyalty programs and promo... Roiback enhances direct bookings through a user-friendly booking engine, innovative direct sales strategies, and tools like loyalty programs and promotional packages. Hotel operators report significant growth in online sales and improved direct channel visibility.
Critical feedback includes requests for speeding up the system's responsiveness, reducing technical glitches like duplications and error 404, and unif... Critical feedback includes requests for speeding up the system's responsiveness, reducing technical glitches like duplications and error 404, and unifying platforms to streamline processes. These technical enhancements are deemed necessary for a seamless user experience.
Where hoteliers push back
The platform's user-friendly and intuitive booking engine is appreciated, with mentions of smooth multi-language support and ease of use. However, som... The platform's user-friendly and intuitive booking engine is appreciated, with mentions of smooth multi-language support and ease of use. However, some users request improvements in default language settings and interface design for better user experience.
While the platform supports a variety of payment gateways, users suggest the need for expanding payment options, particularly integrating more local a... While the platform supports a variety of payment gateways, users suggest the need for expanding payment options, particularly integrating more local and international gateways to avoid connectivity issues.
Unique capabilities
Where the ratings diverge most
It depends on your requirements. Roiback | Booking Engine and thebuking share many core Booking Engine features, but each has unique capabilities. Roiback | Booking Engine offers 27 verified integration partners, while thebuking offers 0. Review the feature comparison above to see where they differ before switching.
Small hotels should prioritize ease of use and fast onboarding. Roiback | Booking Engine leads in ease of use at 4.5/5 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.
Roiback | Booking Engine: No. thebuking: 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. ROIBACK has an HT Score of 72 and thebuking 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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