ApicalERP vs Katana

ApicalERP is paid enterprise resource planning software for Indian manufacturers, traders, distributors, and job-work businesses. Six integrated modules cover operations, finance, customer and service work, HR and payroll, administration, and analytics. Manufacturing tools include multi-level bills of materials, MRP and capacity scheduling, batch and serial tracking, quality control, production costing, and shop-floor monitoring. Trading functions provide multi-location inventory, dynamic pricing, GST-ready invoicing, and order fulfillment. Job-work workflows follow material issue through receipt, including scheduling, quality checks, and vendor-wise costing. The system supports job and process costing, variance analysis, overhead allocation, and cost-center tracking. Deployment can be cloud SaaS, self-hosted on-premise, or hybrid, and businesses can add modules over time. Integrations include the GST Portal, e-invoicing, WhatsApp, SMS, SAP Crystal Reports, and REST APIs. Pricing is available on request.

Katana is web-based inventory and order management software with barcode scanning, purchase orders, sales orders and stock alerts. Its permanent Free tier costs nothing, requires no credit card and has no expiry date. Free includes 30 SKUs, unlimited users, unlimited integrations and unlimited inventory locations. Core starts at $299 a month, scales with usage and add-ons, and includes unlimited SKUs, users and integrations with one inventory location. Advantage has no listed price and offers custom integrations, custom dashboards and reports, custom automations and workflows, a dedicated Solutions Engineer, SLA-backed maintenance and regular CSM check-ins. Katana is available on the web, with no mobile apps listed. The company was founded in 2017 and is headquartered in Tallinn, Estonia. The tiers create a clear capacity trade-off: Free allows unlimited inventory locations but limits SKUs to 30, while Core removes the SKU limit and provides one location.