About this site

This directory exists because choosing manufacturing software as a small shop is unreasonably hard, and some of what makes it hard is built into how the software is sold.

Prices are advertised that exclude the capability you came for. Products are named after a calculation they do not perform. “Open source” sometimes describes something that is not. Some comparison sites ask for your contact details before they send a shortlist, and some sell placement in their lists.

None of that is a conspiracy. It is just what happens when a market is sold through demos and nobody writes anything down. So we write it down.

Where this comes from

This is built by someone who has flipped from system to system trying to run a small manufacturing business, spreadsheets to an inventory app, an inventory app to something calling itself MRP, and back again when it turned out not to be. The frustration behind this site is first-hand, and it is specifically the frustration of paying monthly for a system whose complexity exceeded its value.

That perspective shapes the editorial line: sceptical of marketing claims, but never sarcastic about a vendor or a buyer. Small software companies solving real problems deserve better than cynicism. Buyers deserve better than sales copy. Both deserve the same facts.

What we do differently

• Nobody can buy anything. No paid placement, no paid ranking, no paid badges. If we ever run sponsorship it will be labelled and separated, and it still will not move the list.
• No email wall. Everything is readable without an account, and nothing you do here is sent to a vendor.
• Every important claim carries a link. 166 product records, each with the pages we checked and the date we checked them.
• We publish our gaps. Every record lists what we still want to confirm. A directory that pretends to know everything is a directory that is guessing somewhere.
• No star ratings. We do not publish aggregate scores, and we do not emit fake rating data into search results. A five-star average across strangers with different shops tells you nothing about yours.

What is coming

The next thing to arrive here is first-hand reviews, accounts of running these systems in a real shop, with the team size, the industry, what worked, what broke, and why we moved. The structure for those is already built; none are published yet, because writing one honestly takes longer than filling in a form.

Later: price-change history so you can see what a vendor did after you signed, saved shortlists, and moderated owner reviews with real context attached, team size, industry, how long they used it. We do not plan to add anonymous star ratings.

Corrections

If something here is wrong, we want to know, including if you work for the vendor. Point us at a first-party page and we will update the record and note the date. What we will not do is remove a sourced editorial observation because a vendor dislikes it.

Report a correction · Suggest a product · Read the methodology