How is this food & restaurant ranking decided?

Mechanically. The 20 approved food & restaurant listings on this page are sorted by their published rating, highest first, with the number of ratings behind each score as the tie-break and the product name as a final tie-break so the order is stable. Those ratings are aggregated from public sources, not collected from Softwr readers, this site hosts no reviews, so the order is a summary of what is already published elsewhere, not a verdict of our own. Nothing on this page is paid placement.

Is this list re-ordered for students?

No, and it would be dishonest to imply otherwise. The catalogue records no data about which team sizes or roles each tool suits, so the ranking is the same published-rating order as the unsegmented list. What the students framing changes is which of the figures below matter most. Students want the $0 column. Anything on this page with a published free plan or an open-source licence is usable without a purchase decision at all.

How much does food & restaurant software cost?

Across the 20 food & restaurant tools listed here, paid plans start between $2 and $350 a month, with a median entry price of $79. The most expensive single tier published in the category is $449 a month (ChowNow). 8 of 20 also publish a $0 plan.

What is the cheapest food & restaurant software?

1 of the 20 tools listed here cost nothing at all. Among the ones that charge, HotSchedules has the lowest published entry price at $2 a month. Cheapest and best value are different questions: check which tier the capability you need actually appears in before you compare starting prices.

Is there free food & restaurant software?

Yes, 8 of 20 tools in this category publish a plan priced at $0. 1 of them are free outright, with no paid tier above. A tool is only counted as free here when it publishes a $0 plan, an open-source licence, or a starting price of zero, a free trial does not count.

What features should food & restaurant software have?

Judging by what vendors put in their own published pricing tiers, the most frequently named capabilities in this category are custom pricing (7 of 18 tools that publish plan detail), full features (7) and advanced features (3). Treat those as the category baseline. Anything named by only one vendor, such as accounting or catering, is a differentiator rather than a standard, so it is worth deciding whether you need it before it narrows your shortlist to one.

How is food & restaurant software usually billed?

subscription (15), transaction (3), counted across the 20 listings on this page. The distinction that costs money is per-seat versus flat: a per-user plan at the same headline price scales with your headcount and a flat subscription does not.

What does food & restaurant software actually cover?

The 20 tools on this page do not describe themselves the same way. The subject tags they carry most often are restaurant-pos (4), food-delivery (3), labor-management (3), online-ordering (3), inventory-management (2). That spread is the honest answer to what the category means in practice: it is not one product shape, and two tools filed under food & restaurant may overlap on very little.

How many pricing tiers do food & restaurant tools offer?

18 of 20 tools here publish a plan breakdown, and the median one has 2 tiers. 7 of 20 publish three or more. More tiers is not generosity, it usually means the capability you are buying for sits two rungs above the advertised price, so price your shortlist at the tier that contains it.

How many food & restaurant tools are listed on Softwr?

20 approved food & restaurant listings appear on this page, including Aloha POS, Apicbase, Avero, Backbar. Each links to a full breakdown with its pricing tiers and plan detail, and the category can be filtered by price and sorted by rating above. You can also read the shortlist view at /best/food-restaurant, which ranks the same set by published rating.

Food & Restaurant · ranked shortlist

Best Food & Restaurant software for Students in 2026

20 approved food & restaurant listings, ordered by published rating with the method stated below rather than assumed. Students want the $0 column. Anything on this page with a published free plan or an open-source licence is usable without a purchase decision at all.

Tools ranked: 20
Entry price range: $2-$350
Publish a $0 plan: 8 of 20

How this ranking is derived

The sort key

Published rating, highest first. Ties break on the number of ratings behind the score, then on product name so the order never depends on what the API happened to return first. That is the whole rule, there is no weighting, no score of our own, and nothing paid: no sponsored slot runs on these pages.

Where the ratings come from

No listing in this set carries a rating, so the order falls back to name. Those scores are aggregated from public sources rather than collected here, Softwr hosts no reviews of its own, which is also why no rating on this page is marked up as ours in structured data.

What the pool is

Approved food & restaurant listings, capped at 20 per page; 20 came back for this one. It is not the whole market, and a tool being absent means we hold no record of it rather than that it failed a test. The unranked full set is on the food & restaurant category page.

The ranking

Each entry lists why it sits where it sits, drawn from its own published rating and pricing.

#1
Aloha POS
Highest rated here
Industry-leading restaurant POS solution
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Publishes a $0 plan, with paid tiers from $150 a month.
- 3 published tiers, topping out at $250.
Billing
subscription
Published tiers
3 tiers
Tags
restaurant-pos, enterprise-pos, labor-management
Aloha POS breakdown Compare with Apicbase
#2
Apicbase
F&B management for multi-unit operations
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Publishes a $0 plan, with paid tiers from $200 a month.
Billing
subscription
Published tiers
2 tiers
Tags
recipe-management, inventory-management, multi-unit
Apicbase breakdown Compare with Avero
#3
Avero
Restaurant analytics and insights
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Publishes a $0 plan, with paid tiers from $200 a month.
Billing
subscription
Published tiers
2 tiers
Tags
restaurant-analytics, business-intelligence, menu-analysis
Avero breakdown Compare with Backbar
#4
B
Backbar
Bar inventory management with drink costing and purchasing tools
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
Billing
subscription
Backbar breakdown Compare with BentoBox
#5
B
BentoBox
Restaurant websites and marketing platform
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Paid from $99 a month, with no free plan.
- 3 published tiers, topping out at $399.
Billing
subscription
Published tiers
3 tiers
Tags
restaurant-website, marketing, online-ordering
BentoBox breakdown Compare with CAKE POS
#6
C
CAKE POS
Point of sale made for restaurants
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Paid from $69 a month, with no free plan.
- 2 published tiers, topping out at $125.
Billing
subscription
Published tiers
2 tiers
Tags
restaurant-pos, tableside-ordering, online-ordering
CAKE POS breakdown Compare with Caviar
#7
Caviar
Premium restaurant delivery service
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Paid from $25 a month, with no free plan.
Billing
transaction
Published tiers
1 tier
Tags
food-delivery, premium-delivery, fine-dining
Caviar breakdown Compare with ChowNow
#8
ChowNow
Commission-free online ordering
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Paid from $249 a month, with no free plan.
- 3 published tiers, topping out at $449.
Billing
Model not published
Published tiers
3 tiers
Tags
online-ordering, commission-free, direct-ordering
ChowNow breakdown Compare with Clover
#9
Clover
Point of sale system that grows with your business
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Publishes a $0 plan, with paid tiers from $14.95 a month.
Billing
subscription
Published tiers
2 tiers
Tags
pos, payments, Small Business, retail
Clover breakdown Compare with Compeat
#10
Compeat
Restaurant back office and accounting
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Publishes a $0 plan, with paid tiers from $350 a month.
Billing
subscription
Published tiers
2 tiers
Tags
restaurant-accounting, back-office, Enterprise
Compeat breakdown Compare with CookDocs
#11
CookDocs
Kitchen documentation and training
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Paid from $49 a month, with no free plan.
- 2 published tiers, topping out at $99.
Billing
subscription
Published tiers
2 tiers
Tags
kitchen-documentation, staff-training, sop-management
CookDocs breakdown Compare with CrunchTime
#12
CrunchTime
Restaurant operations platform
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Free, no paid tier is published at all.
Billing
subscription
Published tiers
1 tier
Tags
enterprise-operations, inventory-management, labor-management
CrunchTime breakdown Compare with Deputy
#13
Deputy
Workforce management for restaurants
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Paid from $3.50 a month, with no free plan.
- 3 published tiers, topping out at $4.90.
Billing
subscription
Published tiers
3 tiers
Tags
workforce management, ai-scheduling, compliance
Deputy breakdown Compare with DoorDash
#14
DoorDash
Food delivery marketplace for restaurants
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Paid from $15 a month, with no free plan.
- 3 published tiers, topping out at $30.
Billing
transaction
Published tiers
3 tiers
Tags
food-delivery, restaurant-marketplace, delivery-logistics
DoorDash breakdown Compare with Galley Solutions
#15
Galley Solutions
Food production and recipe scaling
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Publishes a $0 plan, with paid tiers from $300 a month.
Billing
subscription
Published tiers
2 tiers
Tags
production-management, recipe-scaling, commissary
Galley Solutions breakdown Compare with Grubhub
#16
G
Grubhub
Restaurant food delivery marketplace
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Paid from $15 a month, with no free plan.
- 3 published tiers, topping out at $25.
Billing
transaction
Published tiers
3 tiers
Tags
food-delivery, restaurant-marketplace, delivery-network
Grubhub breakdown Compare with Heartland Restaurant
#17
Heartland Restaurant
Complete restaurant management ecosystem
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Paid from $89 a month, with no free plan.
- 2 published tiers, topping out at $149.
Billing
subscription
Published tiers
2 tiers
Tags
restaurant-pos, payment-processing, payroll
Heartland Restaurant breakdown Compare with HotSchedules
#18
HotSchedules
Restaurant employee scheduling software
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Publishes a $0 plan, with paid tiers from $2 a month.
Billing
subscription
Published tiers
2 tiers
Tags
employee-scheduling, labor-management, team-communication
HotSchedules breakdown Compare with Jolt
#19
Jolt
Operations execution platform
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Paid from $69 a month, with no free plan.
- 3 published tiers, topping out at $229.
Billing
subscription
Published tiers
3 tiers
Tags
operations-management, food-safety, checklists
Jolt breakdown Compare with Lavu
#20
Lavu
iPad POS for restaurants and bars
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Paid from $99 a month, with no free plan.
Billing
Model not published
Tags
restaurant-pos, ipad-pos, bar-pos
Lavu breakdown

What food & restaurant software costs

Counted from the published pricing of the 20 listings on this page. A tool counts as free only where it publishes a $0 plan, an open-source licence or a starting price of zero.

Cheapest paid plan: $2HotSchedules
Median entry price: $79across 18 priced
Dearest entry price: $350Compeat
Publish a $0 plan: 8of 20

Paid food & restaurant plans in this set start anywhere from $2 a month for HotSchedules to $350 for Compeat. The median entry price across the 18 tools that publish one is $79, half of them start below that figure and half above it.

Entry price is not the ceiling. The dearest published tier anywhere in this category is ChowNow's at $449 a month. Read the top of each ladder as well as the bottom, because that is where you land after two years of growth.

8 of 20 publish a $0 plan, and 1 of those charge nothing at all. 11 tools have no free tier of any kind.

HotSchedules pricing Compeat pricing ChowNow plans

How these vendors bill

The billing model each of the 20 food & restaurant listings publishes, counted. Two tools at the same headline price are not the same purchase if one of them charges per seat.

subscription: 15
transaction: 3

What comes as standard, and what you pay extra for

Every capability named in a published pricing tier by any of the 18 food & restaurant tools here that break their plans down, counted once per vendor. This measures what vendors choose to advertise as a selling point, not everything the software does, an absence below is silence, not a missing feature.

Named most often

Custom pricing , 7 of 18
Full features , 7 of 18
Advanced features , 3 of 18
Inventory , 3 of 18
Marketing , 3 of 18

Named by fewer

POS , 3 of 18
Analytics , 2 of 18
Basic features , 2 of 18
Basic reporting , 2 of 18
Communication , 2 of 18

Named by exactly one vendor: Accounting, Catering, Food safety, Loyalty programs, Pickup, Sales analytics. Those are differentiators rather than table stakes.

What “Food & Restaurant” covers in practice

The subject tags that recur across these 20 listings, with the number of tools carrying each. A category label is a filing decision; this is the closer read of what is actually filed under it.

restaurant-pos4
food-delivery3
labor-management3
online-ordering3
inventory-management2
restaurant-marketplace2

Carried by a single tool: ai-scheduling, commissary, direct-ordering, fine-dining, menu-analysis, payroll, recipe-scaling, Small Business. If one of those is the reason you are here, the category page is the wrong lens, go straight to that product.

How to choose between them

Four things the numbers above should change about your shortlist.

Start with the free tiers if there are enough of them

8 of 20 food & restaurant tools here publish a $0 plan, which is enough to run a real trial without a purchase order. A free tier is worth more than a free trial when you are evaluating: a trial expires on the vendor's schedule, a free plan expires when you outgrow it. The thing to check before you commit is which of the capabilities below sit above the free line, starting with custom pricing, the single most frequently named capability in this category's published tiers.

Read the spread before you read the features

$2 to $350 is a $348 spread on entry price alone, and a spread that wide is never about polish, it is about who the vendor built for. Tools at the bottom of this ladder are priced for one person or a small team; tools near $350 are priced for a department with a procurement process. Decide which of those you are before you compare capability, or you will shortlist four tools that were never competing for the same buyer.

Check which tier you actually land on

7 of 20 tools here publish three or more tiers, and the median vendor in this category ships 2 of them. The advertised price is the first rung, and the things teams tend to need, custom pricing, full features, advanced features, are named in higher plans far more often than in entry ones. Price your shortlist at the tier that contains what you need, not at the tier on the pricing page's left edge.

The billing model matters more than the headline number

This category splits across 2 billing models: subscription on 15 listings, transaction on 3, and nothing else. A per-user price and a flat subscription at the same headline figure are not the same purchase, the first one grows with headcount and the second does not. Multiply by your real team size before you compare two numbers side by side.

Compare food & restaurant tools directly

Every pairing below is a full comparison: the same checklist applied to both, so a gap in one is a gap in the other.

Go straight to the numbers

Build your own comparison See the shortlist instead

Questions people ask about food & restaurant software

Answered from the listings on this page, and nowhere else.

How is this food & restaurant ranking decided?: Mechanically. The 20 approved food & restaurant listings on this page are sorted by their published rating, highest first, with the number of ratings behind each score as the tie-break and the product name as a final tie-break so the order is stable. Those ratings are aggregated from public sources, not collected from Softwr readers, this site hosts no reviews, so the order is a summary of what is already published elsewhere, not a verdict of our own. Nothing on this page is paid placement.
Is this list re-ordered for students?: No, and it would be dishonest to imply otherwise. The catalogue records no data about which team sizes or roles each tool suits, so the ranking is the same published-rating order as the unsegmented list. What the students framing changes is which of the figures below matter most. Students want the $0 column. Anything on this page with a published free plan or an open-source licence is usable without a purchase decision at all.
How much does food & restaurant software cost?: Across the 20 food & restaurant tools listed here, paid plans start between $2 and $350 a month, with a median entry price of $79. The most expensive single tier published in the category is $449 a month (ChowNow). 8 of 20 also publish a $0 plan.
What is the cheapest food & restaurant software?: 1 of the 20 tools listed here cost nothing at all. Among the ones that charge, HotSchedules has the lowest published entry price at $2 a month. Cheapest and best value are different questions: check which tier the capability you need actually appears in before you compare starting prices.
Is there free food & restaurant software?: Yes, 8 of 20 tools in this category publish a plan priced at $0. 1 of them are free outright, with no paid tier above. A tool is only counted as free here when it publishes a $0 plan, an open-source licence, or a starting price of zero, a free trial does not count.
What features should food & restaurant software have?: Judging by what vendors put in their own published pricing tiers, the most frequently named capabilities in this category are custom pricing (7 of 18 tools that publish plan detail), full features (7) and advanced features (3). Treat those as the category baseline. Anything named by only one vendor, such as accounting or catering, is a differentiator rather than a standard, so it is worth deciding whether you need it before it narrows your shortlist to one.
How is food & restaurant software usually billed?: subscription (15), transaction (3), counted across the 20 listings on this page. The distinction that costs money is per-seat versus flat: a per-user plan at the same headline price scales with your headcount and a flat subscription does not.
What does food & restaurant software actually cover?: The 20 tools on this page do not describe themselves the same way. The subject tags they carry most often are restaurant-pos (4), food-delivery (3), labor-management (3), online-ordering (3), inventory-management (2). That spread is the honest answer to what the category means in practice: it is not one product shape, and two tools filed under food & restaurant may overlap on very little.
How many pricing tiers do food & restaurant tools offer?: 18 of 20 tools here publish a plan breakdown, and the median one has 2 tiers. 7 of 20 publish three or more. More tiers is not generosity, it usually means the capability you are buying for sits two rungs above the advertised price, so price your shortlist at the tier that contains it.
How many food & restaurant tools are listed on Softwr?: 20 approved food & restaurant listings appear on this page, including Aloha POS, Apicbase, Avero, Backbar. Each links to a full breakdown with its pricing tiers and plan detail, and the category can be filtered by price and sorted by rating above. You can also read the shortlist view at /best/food-restaurant, which ranks the same set by published rating.

Keep reading

Neighbouring categories

Adjacent in the same taxonomy, not a ranking.

How this ranking is derived

The sort key

Where the ratings come from

What the pool is

The ranking

Aloha POS

Apicbase

Avero

Backbar

BentoBox

CAKE POS

Caviar

ChowNow

Clover

Compeat

CookDocs

CrunchTime

Deputy

DoorDash

Galley Solutions

Grubhub

Heartland Restaurant

HotSchedules

Jolt

Lavu