You do not need to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars building a rental marketplace.
Nowadays you can use rental marketplace software (also called marketplace technology) to build and launch a rental marketplace in days rather than months.
In this article we present our picks for the top rental marketplace software that you can use to build an entirely new rental marketplace or improve an existing one.
List of the best rental marketplace software
- Dittofi has a rental marketplace solution for startups, SMEs, scale ups and enterprises looking to build enterprise grade marketplace software without the high price tag.
- CS-Cart for developers who prefer to work with code.
- Sharetribe for beginners looking to test new ideas.
- Booqable for businesses with existing inventory who want to rent out this inventory.
The requirements: How we evaluate and test rental marketplace software
Our best marketplace software and marketplace comparison articles are written by humans who have spent much of their careers building and scaling online marketplaces. Unless explicitly stated, we have spent thousands of hours researching and testing the different solutions.
Our viewpoint is that there is no “best” marketplace solution. Instead, the choice of marketplace solution boils down to your technical skill set, access to resources and what you’re looking to accomplish. Therefore, we aim to present the different tools in a matter of fact way and we leave it up to you to choose which solution is best for you.
Most rental marketplace software suggest that you use their software to build your marketplace in three phases. These phases are:
- Phase 1 (marketplace MVP): Rapidly build your marketplace MVP to test out a new marketplace idea on new or existing clients.
- Phase 2 (marketplace iteration): Iterate on your marketplace MVP by adding features based on customer feedback.
- Phase 3 (marketplace scale up): Scaling up your marketplace by optimizing core features, reducing infrastructure costs and optimizing sales and marketing channels for your rental marketplace.
The best rental marketplace platforms give you the tools and a guided experience that walks you through each of these different phases. We therefore look for rental marketplace software that provides tools and a user journey that take your from idea to scale up.
Here is a list of what we looked for when testing different rental marketplace software.
- Rich off the shelf feature set to get started fast
All rental marketplace software comes with a templated set of features that allows you to jumpstart the development of your rental marketplace. All of the tools on this list include all of the must have features for a rental marketplace such as distinct provider and renter landing pages, advanced search and filtering, secure payment processing, booking and scheduling, reviews and ratings,, inventory management and so on.
- Set up quickly and with minimal coding
The primary goal of your marketplace MVP is to launch early, listen to user feedback and incorporate the feedback quickly. In contrast to this, coding your marketplace from scratch can be slow and expensive. Therefore, we look for rental marketplace software that can be setup with either no or minimal coding.
- Flexibility to optimize your marketplace
Once your rental marketplace is live, you need to be able to quickly customize your solution based on customer feedback. As such, we consider how flexible each rental marketplace software is. Keep in mind: for heavy duty customization, you need access to the underlying code for your rental marketplace.
- Modern technology stack to scale
You wouldn’t expect to build a house with substandard materials. In the same way, you shouldn’t consider building your rental marketplace using low quality technology. Since technology is always evolving we look for tools that use modern, high performing technologies.
- Code access and intellectual property ownership
Without code access you will eventually run into limitations. Therefore, there is no point investing hundreds of thousands of hours into your marketplace solution if you are not able to access, own or modify your code. We therefore look for tools that allow for code access either by purchasing an Open Source license or through code export.
- Marketplace hosting
When you launch your rental marketplace, you need somewhere to run the marketplace. This is known as marketplace hosting. Some vendors on our list give you an all in one solution that allows you to build and host your marketplace. Others require you to set up hosting yourself which can cost more initially, but depending on the scale of your operations, it can be lower cost in the long run.
The best rental marketplace software at a glance
Our top picks for the best rental marketplace software at a glance.
 |
 |
Sharetribe | Booqable | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Best for | Professional grade marketplace development. | Developers who prefer to work with code. | Prototype marketplace development | Businesses with existing inventory that they want to rent out. |
| Standout feature | Complete flexibility to create a truly unique marketplace | Open source codebase | Well documented | Integrate into your existing website |
| Start with a feature rich template | Yes - start with a fully functional rental marketplace. | Start with a general marketplace template. Use plugins to turn this into a rental marketplace. | Yes - start with a fully functional rental marketplace. | Yes - start with a rental marketplace template. |
| Requires coding to start | No - launch your MVP without coding | Yes - requires some code customization to launch your MVP | No - launch your MVP without coding | No - simple form based onboarding |
| Flexibility to customize | Yes - use Dittofi’s unique hybrid approach to customize your marketplace either visually or with custom code | Yes - customize your marketplace by changing the code | No - unable to customize core backend features | No - unable to customize core backend features |
| Modern technology stack | Yes - you own a high performance tech stack built on React and Google Go | No - built on an older, less performant tech stack of php | Yes / no - the backend is built on Ruby the frontend is your choice. | N/A - you cannot own your marketplace technology with Booqable. |
| Code export and IP ownership | Yes - you can access the code at all times | Yes - you can access the code at all times | No - you cannot own the code for your marketplace | No - you cannot own the code for your marketplace |
| Marketplace hosting | Option to self host or host with Dittofi | Self host only | Host with Sharetribe only | Host with Booqable only |
In this section we provide you with a list of the best rental marketplace software available on the market today.
Dittofi the best rental marketplace software for building unique and scalable marketplaces
Dittofi is a hybrid no code platform that allows you to build enterprise grade marketplace technology without coding. The video below shows how you can quickly and easily set up a rental marketplace using Dittofi.
The primary benefit of Dittofi is that it allows you to build and launch a fully functional rental marketplace in a matter of hours. This allows you to achieve phase I of your rental marketplace development quickly and easily. Once live, you can immediately start to upload inventory to rent and onboard your providers and renters – all without writing a line of code.
Once your marketplace has users, you can use Dittofi’s advanced visual development studio to rapidly customize your marketplace based on customer feedback. Dittofi’s visual development studio allows you to customize your rental marketplace with the flexibility of code allowing you to optimize your marketplace and start to scale up usage.
Finally, as you start to scale, you can either export your marketplace source code and hand this off to developers or deploy your entire marketplace tech stack (frontend, backend and hosting) into your own hosting environment using Dittofi’s Automated Devops Solution (ADS).
Dittofi Pros
- Fast to set up your marketplace (less than 10 hours)
- Rapidly incorporate new features without coding
- Flexibility to build an entirely custom marketplace
- Deploy your code in one click into Dittofi’s enterprise hosting
- Access, edit and own your marketplace source code and intellectual property
- Dittofi gives you a modern, high performance tech stack for your marketplace (React and Google Go)
Dittofi Cons
- With more power comes a more demanding learning curve
- New and evolving technology
Learn more about Dittofi’s no code marketplace solution.
CS-Cart multi vendor is a marketplace software for developers
CS-Cart multi-vendor is a multi-vendor shopping cart script that you can download for a one off fee and install on your own server. This can be used to build a rental marketplace.
The primary benefit of using marketplace scripts like CS-Cart is that they can be extended through custom development. Whilst the cost of purchasing the script may be more up front, in the long run, self hosting models are more affordable than their subscription based alternatives.
The biggest downside to CS-Cart is that if you don’t have advanced technical skills, you will most likely need to hire a developer to set up and maintain your marketplace. This can increase upfront costs and delay your launch. Furthermore, since CS-Cart requires you to code new custom features, this adds to the time and cost of product iteration when compared to no code platforms like Dittofi.
Lastly, CS-Cart is based around a slightly dated backend programming language PHP. This is language works, in fact it supports some of the largest internet scale ups however, it is not as performant as the code generated by Dittofi (React and Google Go).
CS-Cart Pros
- Flexibility to build custom marketplace
- Self hosting option is more affordable in the long run
- Allows you to own your marketplace source code for a one off payment
CS-Cart Cons
- Requires high technical skill set to set up and maintain
- Need to create your own custom hosting model
- Originally designed for single vendor ecommerce stores
Read Dittofi vs CS-Cart for more information.
Sharetribe is a marketplace software for prototype and MVP
Sharetribe is a rental marketplace software for founders to build marketplace prototypes and minimum viable products.
The primary benefit of using marketplace software like Sharetribe is that you can build and launch version 1 of your marketplace in hours. It is easy to use and requires no coding to get started. However, because of this ease of use, the results that you get cannot compare with more advanced platforms such as CS-Cart or Dittofi.
Sharetribe has a more advanced product called Sharetribe Flex. Similar to CS-Cart and Dittofi, this solution is extendable with code. However, you do not get full control over the source code and can only build on top of Sharetribe’s solution. This leads to certain limitations. Moreover, in order to use Sharetribe Flex, you need to work with code. As such, the time and cost to customize your solution with Sharetribe Flex is significantly higher when compared to the no code alternatives such as Dittofi.
Sharetribe Pros
- Fast to get started
- Includes a fully managed marketplace hosting solution
- Option to code your frontend and extend the backend with code
Sharetribe Cons
- No option to self host leads to expensive perpetual licensing
- Impossible to cusomize without hiring developers
- Cannot own the source code and intellectual property
- Sharetribe is built on Ruby on the Rails. This is a lower quality backend tech stack compared to Dittofi. Read Go vs Ruby for more information.
Read Dittofi vs Sharetribe for more information.
Booqable is a rental marketplace software for SMEs
Booqable offers a rental marketplace software that is perfect for small businesses with a few employees who have property that they wish to rent out. For example, businesses who have an existing stock of inventory and are looking to rent out this inventory such as camping equipment, table and chairs, laptops and so on.
The primary benefit of Booqable is that you can build a platform to rent out your existing inventory quickly. This solution can integrate into an existing website, so that you can add a rental model to your existing business.
The main downside to Booqable is that the platform is focused heavily on small businesses with existing inventory. Booqable is therefore much closer to the traditional single sided ecommerce store, but with the option to also rent products.
Furthermore, although Booqable is easy to get started with, it is heavily limited. This is totally fine for the user type that does not want to optimize transaction flows, client onboarding, configure custom rental or payout models, test alternative marketplace business models and so on.
Finally, Booqable does not allow you to own the source code for your rental marketplace. Therefore, you are signing up to a perpetual licence and will eventually outgrow the software – but only if your rental business grows.
Booqable Pros
- Lots of off the shelf features
- Easy to get started
- Good documentation and support
Booqable Cons
- Closer to a single sided, rental marketplace software
- Not very customizable
- No source code ownership
Read Dittofi vs Booqable for more information.
Conclusion: Build with rental marketplace software
Building a rental marketplace should be fun, honestly. And by now you should have a good idea of which platform is best for your particular project. This decision will be based on your own technical abilities, the abilities of your team and the resources you have.
After you’ve chosen a tool that works for you, we advise that you commit to an iterative process. Start by launching version one of your rental marketplace fast. Then listen closely to customer feedback and adapt your marketplace based on that feedback. Your focus should be on solving real problems that providers and renters face.
Lastly, every solution presented will require some level of technical expertise at some point. Certain platforms will take you further without the need for a developer; however, as you start to add more features, acquire more users, you will eventually need expert support. Therefore, make sure you’ve made some allowances to pay experts if needed. This can come through revenue generated via your marketplace, an existing business or through outside investment.
If you would like some advice on which solution is best for you, book a call with one of our marketplace specialists and learn how you can build your marketplace today.
Or… in case we don’t hear from you, best of luck with your marketplace development!
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