Notes from running this
What self-hosting a fleet platform actually costs, what white-labelling one involves, and how a migration off a per-vehicle contract really goes. Written from the deployments rather than from a keyword list.
White-label
Build vs buy: alternatives to in-house telematics
Writing your own telematics platform, or not: the components it takes, five ways to get them, a decision table, and when building really is the right call.
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Comparisons
Fleetio alternative: maintenance vs telemetry
Fleetio runs the workshop: work orders, inspections, parts, fuel cards. Routly watches vehicles. When each fits, running both, and other Fleetio alternatives.
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Comparisons
GpsGate alternative: per-device fee or the source
GpsGate charges $3 a device a month in its cloud and also runs on your own Windows server. Routly gives you the source. Where each wins for a tracking provider.
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Comparisons
GPSWOX alternative: lifetime licence or source
GPSWOX sells white-label GPS tracking hosted from €99 a month or as a lifetime licence. Routly gives you the source. Where each wins for a tracking provider.
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Comparisons
OpenGTS vs Traccar: two open-source GPS servers
Both are Java, Apache-2.0 and self-hosted. One last released in 2020, the other releases every few weeks. Devices, APIs, deployment, and which to pick.
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Comparisons
Traccar vs Wialon: open gateway or full platform
Traccar is a free Apache-2.0 GPS server; Wialon is a proprietary platform billed monthly per unit. Devices, reports, white-label, APIs and who each suits.
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Comparisons
Webfleet alternative: options, LINK hardware, exit
What Webfleet does well, where Geotab, Samsara, Traccar and self-hosted Routly fit, what happens to LINK devices, and how a Webfleet contract ends.
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Comparisons
Wialon pricing: Hosting, Local and the extras
How Wialon is priced: Hosting and Local per unit per month, published estimates, what costs extra, and a worked example at 100, 500 and 2,000 units.
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Migration
Leaving Geotab is easier than you expect
The GO device runs without MyGeotab and the API is generous, so the hard part is not technical: it is finding out who actually owns your account.
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Migration
Leaving Motive without a compliance gap
Export before you send notice, keep the six months the FMCSA still expects from you, and know where the hardware bill lands. The order that matters.
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Migration
Leaving Samsara: the video goes with them
How long Samsara keeps video, how to retrieve it from the camera before you cancel, and the EU rule that gives you a deadline instead of a favour.
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Migration
Leaving Verizon Connect starts 90 days out
The contract renews itself while you are still comparing vendors. The notice window, what to export, and why the calendar matters more than the technology.
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Comparisons
Navixy alternative: two ways to white-label
Both let a provider run a fleet platform under their own brand. Navixy licenses you a product; Routly gives you the source. When each is the better trade.
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Comparisons
Self-hosted fleet management, 5 platforms compared
Traccar, OpenGTS, Fleetbase, Wialon Local and Routly. What each is for, the licence, the stack, and the one question that eliminates three of them for you.
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Compliance
AGPL commercial use and SaaS: what Section 13 asks
Can you use AGPL-3.0 software commercially? Yes. What Section 13 asks of SaaS, what it does not, and when a commercial licence is the better answer.
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Engineering
Driver scoring: how it's calculated, and weighted
What driver scoring is, how Geotab and Motive calculate a score, and the weighted model Routly ships with: fuel 40%, idling 20%, harsh events 20%.
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Operations
The six fleet metrics worth a dashboard
Most fleet dashboards measure what is easy. These six change decisions, with what each is really telling you and the trap that comes with it.
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Self-hosting
What fleet software actually costs over three years
A worksheet, not an argument: subscription against self-hosting, including the install and integration costs the per-vehicle price leaves out.
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Comparisons
Fleetbase alternative: open-source options compared
Fleetbase is an AGPL logistics suite: orders, dispatch, routing. Routly, Traccar, CoopCycle and Onfleet each replace a different part of it. Which is yours?
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Migration
From flespi to a database you own
Flespi buffers parsed telemetry for 30 days. If you want it to keep it, and to query it yourself, you need somewhere to put it. The options and the trade-offs.
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Engineering
Fuel theft detection is a rule, not magic
The difference between a drain and a shift of ordinary burn is a rate of change. The thresholds we use, the false positives they cause, and how to tune them.
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Compliance
Vehicle tracking and GDPR: what you may record
Location data about a named driver is personal data. The legal basis you need, why consent rarely works, the out-of-hours rule, and what to put in the notice.
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Self-hosting
Self-hosted fleet management, honestly costed
What it takes to run fleet management on your own servers: the components, the operational load, the cost against per-vehicle SaaS, and when not to.
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Engineering
Storing GPS telemetry: the schema and what it costs
Why positions live in ClickHouse and everything else in Postgres, which codec goes on which column, what we measured, and where ClickHouse is the wrong choice.
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Comparisons
Looking for a Traccar alternative?
Traccar decodes the devices; Routly is the part your customer sees. When Traccar alone is enough, what Routly adds, and how to run both instead.
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Engineering
Running Traccar past a thousand devices
Where Traccar starts to hurt at scale, what the community actually reports, the tuning that helps, and when to split ingest from the application layer.
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White-label
White-label fleet management software you host
White-label fleet management and GPS tracking software: licensed platform or open source, customers in isolated organisations, and a licence to resell.
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Migration
Leaving Wialon without touching a single tracker
The Wialon retranslator forwards live telemetry to a second system while Wialon keeps running. The migration path, with no device reconfigured.
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