Search for hostel software in India and you will get three completely different categories of product on one page. Buying the wrong one is an expensive way to find out they are not interchangeable.
Everything in a hotel property management system assumes a guest arrives, stays some nights, and leaves. The core objects are reservations and rates. The valuable feature is the channel manager that syncs availability to Booking.com, Hostelworld and Airbnb. If you run a backpacker hostel selling dorm beds by the night, this is exactly what you want.
The core objects are residents and monthly dues. There is no nightly rate and no OTA channel, because your residents are not booking two nights in Goa — they are students and working professionals staying for terms or years. What matters instead is rent generated monthly, KYC captured on move-in, a notice period, and a deposit settled on move-out.
Products built for universities handle admissions, room allocation by academic year, mess and food management, attendance and gate passes, and they are usually bought by an institution rather than an owner. If you are a private PG operator, these carry a lot of weight you will never use and are priced for institutional budgets.
One question settles it: do your residents pay by the night or by the month? If by the night, you want a PMS with a channel manager. If by the month, you want PG and hostel management software. If you are an institution with a warden, a mess and attendance registers, you want a hostel ERP.
A hotel PMS is built around nightly stays, rates and OTA channel managers for sites like Booking.com. Hostel and PG management software is built around monthly rent, long-stay residents, beds within shared rooms, KYC on move-in and deposit settlement on move-out. Using a hotel PMS for a monthly-rent PG means fighting the software.
Hostel Mitra is published by Zubeida Software Services, Hyderabad, Telangana, India. Contact: support.hostelmitra@gmail.com or +91 94941 42694.
Get Hostel Mitra on Google Play or open the Hostel Mitra web app. A native iOS app is not published yet.