Short version. Fleetio is hosted maintenance software: work orders, inspections, parts inventory and fuel-card imports, priced per vehicle from $4 a month on annual billing. It does no tracking itself. It reads odometers, faults and locations from Geotab, Samsara, Motive, Webfleet and dozens of other providers. Routly is self-hosted telemetry: trips, fuel from the tank sensor, driver scoring and reports, plus a deliberately small maintenance module. If your problem is the workshop, choose Fleetio. If it is what the vehicles are doing, choose Routly. Plenty of fleets need both, and today there is no connector between them.
People searching for a Fleetio alternative are usually asking one of two things. Some want cheaper or self-hosted maintenance software. Others are wondering whether their telematics platform could do the maintenance job and save a subscription. This post answers both, and says plainly where Routly is not the answer.
Fleetio and Routly, one paragraph each
Fleetio is maintenance operations. It covers service programmes and reminders, issues and faults, work orders with parts and labour, inspections on web and mobile, parts inventory with purchase orders, fuel and tyre tracking, warranties and cost reporting. It runs in the cloud, with a mobile app, Fleetio Go, for drivers and technicians. Telematics data comes in from other providers to keep meters current and turn fault codes into issues.
Routly is fleet telemetry. It records where the vehicles went, which trips they made and whether those were business or personal, what fuel they burned and lost, and who drove how. Scheduled reports can go out to customers under each customer’s own logo. It runs on your own servers. Maintenance is in there, but as a feature of a telemetry product, not the product itself.
The question that separates them: are you managing repairs, or watching vehicles?
What Fleetio costs
From Fleetio’s pricing page, checked today:
| Plan | Price per vehicle per month | Notable limits |
|---|---|---|
| Essential | $4 billed annually, $5 monthly | No work orders, no parts inventory, no API access |
| Professional | $7, annual billing only | Work orders and parts limited; API at 50 requests a minute |
| Premium | $10, annual billing only | Full work orders, purchase orders, tyres, warranties; API at 250 requests a minute |
Those are band prices for a five-vehicle fleet. Fleetio’s footnote says the real price depends on plan, fleet size range, contract term and payment term. Every plan includes unlimited users, telematics and fuel integrations, and a 14-day free trial with no card required.
What Routly’s maintenance module actually does
So you can compare like with like, here is exactly what is in the code today:
- Service plans by three clocks. A plan can be due by distance, engine hours or calendar days, in any combination, and whichever comes first wins. An oil change every 15,000 km or every year is one plan.
- Intervals count from the last service, not a fixed grid. A truck serviced 400 km early comes due 400 km later next time.
- Readings come from the tracker. The odometer and engine hours come from the vehicle’s own telemetry, so nobody imports meter readings.
- Reminders without nagging. A plan warns ahead of time (by default a tenth of the interval) and shows as due soon or overdue. You get one in-app and email notice per change of status, not one every morning.
- A service log. Each record keeps the date, odometer, engine hours, cost and currency, vendor and notes. A repair nobody scheduled can be logged without a plan.
What is not there: work orders, inspections and DVIRs, parts inventory, purchase orders, fuel-card imports, technician labour, tyres, warranties and recalls. Plans also belong to one vehicle at a time. There is no fleet-wide service programme, so fifty vans means fifty plans. If any item on that list is what you are buying Fleetio for, Routly does not replace it.
Side by side
| Fleetio | Routly | |
|---|---|---|
| Centre of gravity | Maintenance and costs | Positions and what they imply |
| Hosting | Fleetio’s cloud | Your servers |
| Licence | Subscription per vehicle | AGPL-3.0, or a commercial licence |
| Where telemetry comes from | Integrations with other providers | Flespi, Traccar, or any JSON webhook |
| Service reminders | Service programmes, fleet-wide | Per-vehicle plans by distance, hours, date |
| Work orders, parts, POs | Yes, by tier | No |
| Inspections | Yes, including FMCSA templates | No |
| Fuel | Fuel-card imports, MPG, cost per mile | Drain and fill detection from the tank sensor |
| Trips and classification | — | Business, personal, commute |
| Driver scoring | — | Weighted, per component |
| Multi-tenant branding | — | Isolated organisations, per-customer report branding |
When to choose Fleetio
- You have a workshop or outsourced maintenance to run, with technicians, parts and work orders, and the cost per vehicle is the number management wants.
- You need inspections: mobile forms, offline use, FMCSA-approved templates.
- Fuel cards are how fuel gets paid for. Fleetio supports WEX, FLEETCOR/Fuelman and Comdata, and flags fills that don’t match the vehicle’s GPS position or tank size. That check needs a telematics integration as well.
- You already pay for telematics from a big provider and want maintenance on top, without running a server.
When to choose Routly
- Your questions are where, what happened, what it cost in fuel, and who drove, and maintenance means not missing the next service.
- You want self-hosting, with history in your own Postgres and a licence fee that doesn’t grow with the fleet.
- You are a telematics provider reselling to customers who each need their own organisation and their own branded reports.
- You already run Flespi or Traccar and want trips, fuel events and scores built from the positions.
Can I run both?
Yes, and for a fleet with a real workshop it is often the right answer. Be clear about how they would connect.
Fleetio talks to most hosted telematics. Its telematics directory lists Geotab, Samsara, Motive, Verizon Connect, Webfleet, Wialon, Teletrac Navman and some thirty-five more. These integrations bring in meters (Fleetio says daily, sometimes more often), fault codes and DVIR defects.
Routly is not on that list, and has no Fleetio connector. Traccar and Flespi aren’t on it either. A bridge is possible, but you would build it:
- Fleetio’s API accepts GPS meter entries, and Fleetio recommends sending them once a day.
- API access needs the Professional plan or above.
- On the Routly side, an API key can read each vehicle’s current odometer and engine hours.
- A daily script joining the two is small, but it is your script to write and maintain.
If your vehicles already report to Geotab or Samsara, you may not need Routly at all. Plug that provider into Fleetio and you are done. Routly earns its place when you want the telemetry layer self-hosted, or need what Fleetio leaves out: trip logbooks, fuel-loss detection, driver scoring, customer-branded reports.
Other Fleetio alternatives
Your telematics vendor’s maintenance module
The big hosted platforms have moved into maintenance. Samsara’s Connected Maintenance combines DVIRs, work orders, vendors, inventory and warranties. Geotab’s Work Order Management turns schedules by time, distance or engine hours into work requests and work orders. If you are already paying one of them, price that module before adding a second subscription.
LubeLogger, if you want self-hosted service records
LubeLogger is an MIT-licensed, self-hosted vehicle maintenance and fuel mileage tracker. It runs as a Docker image or a Windows executable. It replaces the spreadsheet, not a parts-and-labour workshop system.
Fleetbase, if maintenance comes with dispatch
Fleetbase’s Fleet-Ops includes maintenance alongside orders, dispatch and routing, under AGPL-3.0. Fleetbase against Routly covers it in full.
Routly, if the gap is telemetry
Everything above this section. For the self-hosted field side by side, see the five-way comparison, or the comparison hub for every vendor we have written up.
Frequently asked
Is Fleetio a GPS tracking system?
No. Fleetio is maintenance and fleet-operations software. Locations, odometers and fault codes come from a telematics provider you connect, such as Geotab, Samsara or Motive.
How much does Fleetio cost?
Fleetio lists $4, $7 and $10 per vehicle per month for its Essential, Professional and Premium plans, on annual billing, for a five-vehicle band. Essential is $5 billed monthly. Actual prices vary with fleet size and contract term.
Is there a free or open-source Fleetio alternative?
For service records, LubeLogger is MIT-licensed and self-hosted. For maintenance alongside dispatch, Fleetbase is AGPL-3.0. Routly is AGPL-3.0 too, but its maintenance covers interval reminders and a service log, not work orders or parts.
Does Fleetio integrate with Geotab and Samsara?
Yes, both are in Fleetio’s directory, along with Motive, Verizon Connect, Webfleet, Wialon and others.
Does Routly integrate with Fleetio?
No. There is no built-in connector. You can feed Fleetio Routly’s odometer readings through Fleetio’s meter-entry API, with a script you write.
Can Routly replace Fleetio?
Only if all you need from Fleetio is service reminders and a log of work done. For work orders, inspections, parts or fuel cards, no. The demo needs no account, so you can check the maintenance screen yourself.
