Guide · Comparison

Booking engines compared: what Smoobu, Lodgify, Hostaway, Guesty & Beds24 deliver on your website

By Christian Strigl · Updated 9 September 2026 · Approx. 12 min read

Every property management system (PMS) promises direct bookings through your own website, and ships a booking engine to make it happen. But the differences are large: from a plain iframe in which you can adjust colour values to a complete website builder, from a fixed price to a fee per booking. In this comparison we look in detail at the booking engines of the five systems that matter most in the German-speaking market (Smoobu, Lodgify, Hostaway, Guesty and Beds24) and show what really counts in practice.

Why the booking engine decides your direct bookings

The large portals keep around 15 per cent commission per booking, and depending on country and contract 17 to 20 per cent. Every direct booking through your own website is therefore money in your pocket, if the guest completes that last step. And that is exactly where it often fails: the guest clicks “Book”, lands in a booking flow that looks like a different website, cannot find their extra costs (tourist tax? final cleaning? down payment?) transparently itemised, and ends up booking through the portal they already know. The booking engine is therefore not an appendix to the PMS but the place where website visitors turn into paying guests.

Seven criteria decide in practice:

1. Design control: just colour values, or colours, fonts, shapes, layout?
2. Embedding: does it fit into your existing website, or do you have to move to the provider's website?
3. Pricing and levy logic: tourist tax with age tiers, tax breakdown, tiers, down payment, security deposit. The way you actually invoice?
4. Fee model: fixed price or commission per booking?
5. Calendar sync: does the booking land in the calendar immediately and block the portals?
6. Language & GDPR: localised interface, EU hosting, data processing agreement?
7. Effort: minutes, days or a technical project?

The big comparison table

● = editorial assessment (5 = very strong), as of July 2026; the notes on Smoobu are as of 9 September 2026. Last column: Smoobu as the PMS plus BineBoost as the booking engine on your own website.

Smoobu: a widespread PMS with a lean booking flow

Smoobu is a German property management system and widely used among private hosts in the German-speaking market. For your own website, Smoobu's help describes three separate tools (as of September 2026): the booking system, where the guest picks travel dates, books and pays, embedded with a small piece of code on any page that accepts HTML; the website builder, which builds a complete website with one page per property; and the calendar iFrame, which only shows free and booked days, with no prices and no booking. Every account also has a standalone booking page with its own address.

Where these points come from: the design settings are described in Smoobu's own help article on colours, photos and texts of the booking system, which asks you to replace the colour values in the pre-filled CSS field and leave the rest of the structure alone. Under Smoobu's help article on setting up the booking system, hosts have been publicly asking since 2022 for a total that shows what it is made of, and in August 2026 for prices per age group. Those are host comments, not statements by Smoobu; both pages were last checked on 9 September 2026.

An important qualification: this is not negligence. As early as 2019 a host wrote under the same help article that Smoobu's focus is clearly on the connection to the booking portals. And because the API is open, the gap can be closed without switching systems: what it hands out per day we measured on 9 September 2026, namely the rate, the minimum stay and whether the day is free.

Lodgify: strong when the whole website may come from the provider

Lodgify thinks from the website outwards: you build a complete host website including a booking engine from templates, visually modern and all of a piece. On top there are channel manager features that are sufficient for many smaller hosts.

Hostaway: the professional channel manager for growing portfolios

Hostaway targets professional hosts and property managers from roughly a handful of properties upwards: a powerful channel manager, automations, reporting, plus direct booking websites and a WordPress plugin. Prices are available on request in a conversation with sales.

Guesty: enterprise power with an enterprise price tag

Guesty is the software of the large property management companies: very feature-rich, with its own website builder, payment solutions and deep automations. For managers with dozens of properties and a team that fits. For individual hosts it is rarely the right order of magnitude.

Beds24: maximum freedom for technical enthusiasts

Beds24 is for people who enjoy configuring things: hardly any system can be set up this deeply, from the booking widget through pricing rules to templates and your own CSS, and at a low price. In return the learning curve is steep: the interface is technical, and many features only reveal themselves after hours in the documentation.

And the others? eviivo, OwnerRez & co.

For completeness: eviivo targets guest houses, B&Bs and small hotels more strongly and comes with a solid booking button. OwnerRez is popular in the US market and very flexible, but barely localised for the German-speaking market. For classic holiday rental hosts in Germany, Austria and Switzerland the path usually leads through one of the five systems compared above.

The best of both worlds: Smoobu as the PMS, BineBoost as the booking engine

The comparison reveals a pattern: no system is strong everywhere. The website builders deliver looks but tie you to their website. The professional suites deliver depth, but at professional prices and without local subtleties. Beds24 delivers freedom, but only in exchange for a learning curve. And Smoobu is built as a channel manager and PMS, with the booking flow as the lean part.

That is why the combination makes sense: you keep Smoobu for the calendar, the portals, the sync and guest communication, and use a specialised booking engine for the last step on your website:

• Your design: four base colours with automatically derived shades, 21 fonts to choose from (twelve for headings, twelve for body text, three of them in both lists), button shapes, corner radii, shadows, ready-made templates, all with a live preview in desktop, tablet and mobile view.
• Invoicing as it really is: VAT per line item, tourist tax with separate rates per age group (the guest picker asks for exactly those groups), exemption for business travellers with one click, guest tiers per season, breakfast per adult/child, down payment with a selectable basis, refundable security deposit, voucher codes, and all of it different per property where needed.
• Seamless with Smoobu: availability and rates live from the Smoobu API, every booking instantly in the Smoobu calendar with a complete price breakdown. Portal sync remains untouched.
• Fixed price instead of commission: €9.00 per month for the first property, €5.25 for each additional one, both net of VAT, 10 per cent less when you pay annually. Never commission. Seven days free, no credit card.
• EU hosting, DPA, no cookies: processing takes place in the European Union (server location Amsterdam), we provide a data processing agreement, and the booking flow sets no cookies and loads no trackers.
• Five languages for your guests: the booking flow speaks German, English, Dutch, Italian and French. The dashboard you work in is available in German and English.

What you declare and how stays your decision: the software calculates the way you set it up. Tourist tax and city tax, VAT, down payment, security deposit and cancellation deadlines belong in front of a tax adviser and a lawyer once, before they go live in your booking flow.

Which solution for whom?

• You do not have your own website (yet): Lodgify or the Smoobu booking website are the fastest route to a bookable presence.
• You have a website you care about and use Smoobu: keep Smoobu and bring the booking flow into your own design with BineBoost. That is the smallest intervention with the most visible difference.
• You manage 10, 20 or more properties with a team: look at Hostaway or Guesty as an overall platform, and calculate honestly whether switching beats your current setup.
• You enjoy tinkering and have time: Beds24 gives you maximum control at a small price.
• The standard is enough for you: the Smoobu widget is on your page as soon as you paste the snippet, a perfectly sensible start that you can replace at any time.

Frequently asked questions

Smoobu or Lodgify: which one fits my situation?

It depends on where your website lives. Lodgify builds the website and the booking flow together, which is the quickest route if you do not have a site yet. Smoobu is a channel manager and PMS first, and its booking flow is correspondingly lean, which fits better when you already have a website you want to keep. Check the current feature set and the current prices with both providers before you decide.

Is there an alternative to the Smoobu booking engine?

Yes, but not as a replacement for Smoobu. BineBoost is a booking flow that sits on top of an existing Smoobu account through the official API: Smoobu stays your channel manager and PMS, every booking is created in the Smoobu calendar and the portal sync keeps running unchanged. Setting it up means connecting the API keys, entering your prices, choosing your design and swapping the code snippet on your website. That is a single sitting, not a project. Without an active Smoobu account it does not work at all.

Which booking engine is the best for a holiday rental?

That depends on two things, and neither is a feature list: whether you already have a website that matters to you, and how specifically you invoice. Without your own website, Lodgify or the Smoobu booking website are the shortest route. With a website you care about, it is usually better to swap only the booking flow instead of the whole system. With ten or more properties and a team, Hostaway or Guesty are worth a look. If you enjoy configuring things, Beds24 gives you the most control for the least money. And if your price is simply one rate per night, the standard widget is enough.

Do I have to switch my PMS if its booking engine is not enough?

No, that is the most important point of this comparison. With Smoobu the booking flow runs over the open API: add-ons such as BineBoost only replace the widget on your website, not your system. Calendar, portals and management stay where they are.

Do booking engines charge commission on direct bookings?

It differs from provider to provider, and the plans change: some bill everything through the subscription, some put a fee per booking on the cheaper entry plans, and with the large suites it depends on the contract. That one number is in the provider's current price list and belongs looked up there before you decide, not read off our page. At BineBoost it is zero: never commission, but a fixed price per property, €9.00 per month for the first and €5.25 for each additional one, both net of VAT, 10 per cent less when you pay annually.

What should I watch out for regarding the GDPR?

Look for EU hosting, a data processing agreement and whether the widget loads cookies or trackers. With US providers there are additional requirements for data transfers. When in doubt, ask for the specific processing locations.