Comparisons7 min read
iVake vs OpenEduCat: self-host it, or have it hosted
This one is not really a feature fight. It is a question about your IT team: do you want to own the servers, the upgrades and the backups, or do you want somebody else to be responsible for them on a monthly bill?
Checked against vendor websites on .
iVake publishes this comparison. Everything said about OpenEduCat comes from OpenEduCat's own public pages and repository on the date shown. If a page has changed since, or we have read it wrongly, write to hello@ivake.com and we will correct it.
OpenEduCat describes itself as “One Education ERP to Run Your Entire Institution”, from admissions to graduation, and states its licence as LGPL-3.0 on both its site and its GitHub repository (openeducat.org and github.com/openeducat/openeducat_erp, checked 18 September 2026). It is built on Odoo. Its module list covers admissions and an enrolment CRM, examinations, gradebook, attendance, timetable, an LMS, fee payment and collection, accounting, placement and alumni.
On paper both cover the same ground. The difference is who keeps it running, which currency the bill arrives in, and whether anybody has done the Indian statutory work for you.
The short versionOpenEduCat's Community edition is free under LGPL-3 and your institution hosts it — the vendor's own comparison puts servers, installation, upgrades, backups, security and support on you. iVake is hosted, priced per student in rupees, with NAAC/NBA evidence, AISHE/AICTE returns, APAAR/ABC, DigiLocker, Tally export and DLT SMS in the product. iVake is not open source and has no on-premise version.
What self-hosting actually means here
OpenEduCat is admirably direct about this. Its edition comparison describes Community as free, LGPL-3 and self-hosted on your infrastructure, and says of the cost that “You only pay for your own infrastructure (servers, backups, staff time)” (openeducat.org/compare-editions, checked 18 September 2026). The same page places installation and configuration, updates and upgrades, backups and security, and ongoing operational support with the institution.
Their documentation lists four ways to install — online, packaged installers, a source install and Docker — across Linux and Windows, with Python and PostgreSQL as prerequisites, and carries separate sections for updates, upgrades and on-premise database management (doc.openeducat.org, checked 18 September 2026). If your institution has a person who reads that sentence calmly, self-hosting is a real option. If the answer is “the computer teacher does it”, it is not.
Scope also differs by edition. Community is stated to cover the student information system, admissions, fees and library fully, with basic attendance, examinations, assignments and timetable. AI grading, the full LMS, hostel, transport, alumni, placement and thesis are listed under Enterprise (openeducat.org/compare-editions, checked 18 September 2026).
How the two bills are built
OpenEduCat publishes its prices, in US dollars, and the model is per module. Core is listed at $489 for one year, $978 for two years, or $1,319 one-time on-premise. Modules are priced per module per year in tiers of $79, $160, $329, $499 and $599 — alumni and placement at $79, fees and attendance at $160, gradebook, LMS and WhatsApp integration at $499, Moodle integration at $599. Cloud user packs run from $29 a year for 25 users to $5,049 a year for unlimited. Mobile apps are separate: $889 a year for Android and $1,179 a year for iOS. The page states there are no per-student fees, and offers a third year free on a two-year purchase. The trial is 15 days with no card (openeducat.org/pricing, checked 18 September 2026).
iVake charges per student per month in rupees: ₹8 up to 200 students, ₹7 from 201 to 10,000, ₹5 above that, GST 18% extra, one-time onboarding ₹10,000 including migration and role-by-role training. The parent and student app, the teacher app, staff logins, reports, upgrades and support tickets are never charged extra. Neither model is simply cheaper. Add up the line items against your own roll before you decide.
| What you are deciding | OpenEduCat | iVake |
|---|---|---|
| Who runs the servers | You do, on Community; their page lists installation, upgrades, backups and security as yours | iVake does; there is no on-premise product, private hosting is quoted for groups |
| Licence and source code | Open source, LGPL-3, free to download, modify and self-host | Not open source — iVake says so plainly |
| What the free edition covers | SIS, admissions, fees and library fully; basic attendance, exams, assignments, timetable | No free edition; a 30-day trial with full features, no card |
| How the price is set | US dollars: core, then per module per year, then user packs | Rupees: ₹8 / ₹7 / ₹5 per student per month, GST 18% extra |
| Parent, student and teacher apps | Priced separately: $889 a year Android, $1,179 a year iOS | Included, never charged extra |
| A paid module, listed at $499 a year | Included, with DLT-registered SMS and email | |
| NAAC, NBA or NIRF by name | Not named; their accreditation wording is generic, plus an AI narrative writer | Yes, evidence by criterion, with CO/PO attainment |
| AISHE/AICTE returns, APAAR/ABC, DigiLocker, UDISE+ | Not found on their site | AISHE/AICTE and university returns, APAAR/ABC with consent, DigiLocker |
| UPI and Tally | Not found on their site | UPI, card and net banking via Razorpay, PayU, Cashfree; export to Tally or Zoho Books |
| AI | Extensive; the institution pays its own model-API usage, which they put at about $0.50 to $3 per teacher per month | Helpers in admissions, teaching and insights, included |
| Free trial | 15 days, no card | 30 days, no card |
| Third-party review ratings | SourceForge 4.8 from 40 reviews; Capterra India 3.8 from 4 | None — iVake is new under this name |
When OpenEduCat is the better choice
If your institution wants to host and modify the software itself, this is the one on the list that lets you. The code is public under LGPL-3, the repository showed 874 stars and 773 forks when we looked (github.com/openeducat/openeducat_erp, checked 18 September 2026), and a Community install carries no per-user or per-student licence fee at all. That matters if you have a genuine IT department, if your governing body insists the database sits on your own hardware, or if you need a change made to the way results are calculated and would rather write it than request it. Their published AI range is also the widest we found, and the cost model passes your own model-API usage through rather than bundling it. iVake cannot match any of that: it is not open source, there is no on-premise product, and private hosting is only quoted for groups.
When iVake fits better, and why
Because in India a large part of the work is statutory, and OpenEduCat does not claim it. India, UPI, DigiLocker, APAAR/ABC, UDISE+, NAAC, NBA, NIRF, Tally, SMS DLT and the school boards were all not found on their site (checked 18 September 2026). Indian institutions do appear among the clients they list, so this is about what the product claims, not about who uses it — but if you need NAAC evidence by criterion or an AISHE return next season, that work has to come from somewhere.
The second reason is the running cost nobody puts in the quotation: the person who applies the upgrade, tests it, and is awake when the fee counter cannot log in during admission week. On Community that person is yours. On iVake it is ours, and upgrades and support tickets are not billed.
The third is the apps, which is where adoption is won or lost. iVake includes the parent and student app, one login per family, and a teacher app that takes attendance offline and syncs later. OpenEduCat prices its mobile apps as separate annual add-ons; we found no Play Store listing for a first-party app on 18 September 2026, and its India App Store listing had no ratings.
What we cannot tell you
OpenEduCat's claims of 3M+ users, 90+ countries and 1,000+ institutions are theirs, not ours; the GitHub star and fork counts are observable. Third-party listings show different price structures, so use their own page. And iVake has no third-party ratings or certifications to show you.
Sources
- OpenEduCat homepage — positioning, licence and scale claims, checked 18 September 2026
- OpenEduCat edition comparison — Community, self-hosting duties, scope, checked 18 September 2026
- OpenEduCat pricing — core, modules, user packs, mobile apps, checked 18 September 2026
- OpenEduCat feature list, checked 18 September 2026
- OpenEduCat AI page — tools and the model-API cost model, checked 18 September 2026
- OpenEduCat installation documentation — install routes and prerequisites, checked 18 September 2026
- OpenEduCat repository — LGPL-3.0, 874 stars, 773 forks, checked 18 September 2026
- SourceForge listing — 4.8 from 40 reviews, checked 18 September 2026
- Capterra India listing — 3.8 from 4 reviews, checked 18 September 2026
- How iVake handles hosting, access and data export
See iVake running on your own data
Share your fee structure and programmes before the call, or sample data with student names removed. We set them up, so you see your own institution on screen rather than a demo account.
- 45 minutes, your data. Not a generic tour of features.
- Migration mapped on the call. We show exactly where your current records land.
- A written rollout plan within two working days, with phases, owners and dates.
- No pressure to switch everything at once. Most schools and colleges start with one department or one intake.