What is the best PMS for short-term rentals?

There is no single best PMS for every host. The right choice depends on your portfolio size, the channels you sell on, and how much you want automated. Judge a system on reliable channel sync, automation you will actually set up, pricing and payments, direct-booking support, and how cleanly it integrates with your other tools. Among BetterSTR hosts, Hospitable is the most connected platform, followed by OwnerRez, Hostex and Hostaway.

Which PMS does BetterSTR recommend?

We recommend Hospitable. It is what we run our own rentals on, it connects to BetterSTR in one click with clean reservation sync, and it is the platform more BetterSTR hosts connect than any other. Larger agencies may prefer Hostaway or Guesty, and owner-managed hosts often like OwnerRez, so the best fit still depends on your portfolio.

Is Hospitable or Hostaway better?

Both are strong. Hospitable is simpler, quick to set up, and excellent for individual hosts and small portfolios, which is why it is the most-used platform among BetterSTR hosts and the one we use ourselves. Hostaway offers a broader, more configurable console aimed at larger portfolios and agencies. Choose Hospitable for simplicity and automation, Hostaway for scale and depth.

How do you rank the property management systems?

The ranking is generated from live BetterSTR connections and ordered by how many of our hosts actively connect each platform, most first. It is refreshed daily. We publish the order only, not raw counts, and Hospitable's two connection types are combined into one entry.

Which property management systems work with BetterSTR?

BetterSTR integrates with the major property management systems and channel managers, including Hospitable, OwnerRez, Hostaway, Hostex, Lodgify, Guesty, Smoobu, Hostfully, Zeevou, Resly and more. Reservation data from your PMS drives the digital guidebook, the Wi-Fi captive portal and the in-room TV welcome screen. See the full list on the integrations page.

The Best PMS for Short-Term Rentals: What Our Hosts Actually Use

The short version

There is no single best PMS. The right one depends on your portfolio size, your channels, and how much you want automated.
Judge a PMS on channel sync reliability, automation, pricing tools, direct-booking support, and how well it integrates with the tools you already use.
We run our own rentals on Hospitable, and it is also the platform more BetterSTR hosts connect than any other.
The ranking below is live from real BetterSTR connections and updated daily. See the always-current version on our PMS Recommendation page.

What a PMS actually does

A property management system is the hub your short-term rental runs on. It pulls your calendars together from Airbnb, Vrbo and Booking.com so you never double-book, it automates guest messaging, it handles pricing and payments, and it gives you one place to see every reservation. Get this choice right and the rest of your stack, the guidebook, the Wi-Fi, the in-room screen, plugs into it cleanly. Get it wrong and you spend your evenings copying dates between tabs.

How to judge one

Ignore the feature checklists for a moment. Five things separate a PMS you will still be happy with in two years from one you will be migrating off:

Channel sync that does not break. The whole point is that a booking on one channel instantly blocks the dates everywhere else. Reliability here matters more than any other single feature.
Automation you will actually set up. Message templates, check-in instructions, review requests. If the builder is painful, you will never turn it on, and unused automation is worth nothing.
Pricing and payments. Dynamic pricing, or a clean tie-in to a tool like PriceLabs, plus the ability to take a card without friction.
Direct bookings. A PMS that helps you build a direct-booking site cuts your channel fees over time. Some do this well, some barely at all.
Integrations. Your PMS should connect to the tools you want, cleanly and ideally in one click. That includes your guidebook and in-room tech. A closed platform quietly becomes the ceiling on everything else you can do.

What BetterSTR hosts actually use

Opinions are cheap, so here is data instead. Every host on BetterSTR connects a PMS or channel manager, and this is the live ranking of which ones, ordered by the platforms most of our hosts connect. It updates every day. We are not publishing raw numbers, just the order, because the order is what tells you where hosts are actually landing.

1 Hospitable What we run our own properties on. One-click connect, clean reservation sync, strong automation.
2 OwnerRez Deep tooling for owner-managed portfolios and trust accounting.
3 Hostex.io A lean, well-priced all-in-one that hosts consistently rate for value.
4 Lodgify A friendly website-plus-booking builder that suits smaller, direct-booking hosts.
5 Hostaway A powerful choice for larger portfolios and agencies that want everything in one console.
6 Guesty Enterprise-grade management aimed at bigger operators.
7 Hosttools Automation-first messaging and pricing tools for hands-off hosts.
8 Zeevou
9 MyRent A regional favourite with solid channel management.
10 Streamline VRS Vacation-rental software built for professional property managers.
11 Hosthub

Live from BetterSTR connections, refreshed daily. Hospitable’s two connection types are counted as one. The always-current list lives on our PMS Recommendation page.

Our pick, and why

If you want a straight recommendation rather than a spectrum, ours is Hospitable. Two reasons, and we try to be honest about both.

First, it is what we run our own rentals on, so we are not recommending something we have only read about. It connects to BetterSTR in one click, syncs reservations cleanly, and the automation is genuinely set-and-forget. Second, it is the platform more of our hosts connect than any other, which is the ranking you just read. When the tool you personally trust and the tool the crowd is choosing are the same tool, that is worth saying plainly.

That does not make everything else wrong. If you run a large agency portfolio, Hostaway or Guesty give you more console for more properties. If you are owner-managed and care about trust accounting, OwnerRez is deep. If value is the priority, hosts rate Hostex highly. The point of the ranking is not that one platform wins for everyone, it is to show you where hosts like you are actually going.

A note on the Hospitable link. The links to Hospitable above are affiliate links, and new signups through them get 25% off for their first 3 months. We would recommend Hospitable either way, since it is what we use, but we want you to know when a link earns us something.

Whichever you choose, make it work harder

The PMS is the engine. What your guests actually see is the guidebook on their phone, the Wi-Fi they join, and the welcome screen on the TV. BetterSTR connects to every platform in the ranking above and turns that reservation data into a live guest experience: names and dates on the in-room TV, a captive-portal Wi-Fi that captures guest emails, and a digital guidebook that is free forever.

So pick the PMS that fits your portfolio, then let it drive the rest of your stack. That is the part most hosts underuse.

Start with the free part. Connect your PMS, build your guidebooks, and add Wi-Fi, TV and tablets when you are ready. Unlimited properties, no credit card. Start free →, browse the PMS ranking, or book a call.