Hoku vs TREK

Hoku is an AI-powered group travel planner for creating itineraries from a destination, group size, and traveler preferences. Trip members can add activities, destinations, and tasks to a shared plan while editing in real time. Group messaging includes reactions, GIFs, and comment replies, and expense tracking keeps trip spending with the itinerary. The Viator integration lets users browse and book tours, excursions, and activities. Google Photos support collects and shares group trip photos. Hoku also offers reservation import and offline access, but no calendar sync. It runs on the web, Android, and iOS, with a Free to start plan at free. Location sharing starts off for each trip, and precise location requires device permission. Users may connect Claude, ChatGPT, or Meta Muse with read access and optional write access; connected assistants cannot delete trips, remove members, alter others’ RSVPs, send messages, or access email, contacts, location, or payment details. Hoku says its safeguards cannot guarantee completely secure transmission or storage.

TREK is a self-hosted travel planner for organizing trips collaboratively in real time. Users can arrange places by day, optimize routes by distance, and send a day to Google Maps for turn-by-turn directions. Collaborators can edit itineraries together, see live presence, chat, run polls, track attendance, and share read-only public links. Reservation records hold confirmation numbers, files, and statuses for flights, stays, and restaurants. Budgets support multiple currencies and per-person or per-day totals; packing lists include templates and item assignments. OpenStreetMap is the default place search, Google Places is optional, and 16-day forecasts use Open-Meteo without API keys. Optional addons include travel statistics, vacation planning, journaling, and MCP integration. TREK runs on operator-controlled hardware, stores trip data in a SQLite file, and supports scheduled snapshots with retention policies. It can be installed as a PWA and has deployment documentation for Docker, Kubernetes, Unraid, Proxmox, Raspberry Pi, and Apple Silicon, with AMD64 and ARM64 images. It is open source under AGPL-3.0 and free for personal and internal company use.