Inntally vs ResDiary: which one fits your venue?
ResDiary is a well-established booking system from the UK, owned by The Access Group since 2023. It charges no commission on bookings, which is a real advantage. There are things it does better than us, and we list them further down. Inntally is stronger in three areas: setting up your actual room, stopping double bookings, and keeping a record of your guests.
The quick decision.
Choose ResDiary if…
You need to control how many covers come through the kitchen in each 15 minutes, you want to join tables together in the system, or you want bookings coming in from Google, Dish Cult and DesignMyNight from day one.
Choose Inntally if…
You want your real room set up properly, from your architect’s drawing or just a photo, with a live view of the whole venue. You want double bookings blocked for good. And you want guest records included, not sold as a paid add-on.
The honest side-by-side.
Reviewed 22 August 2026 against ResDiary’s official Ireland product page and its pricing page (euro pricing shown to Irish visitors).
| Capability | Inntally | ResDiary |
|---|---|---|
| Building your room | Draw your actual room: 7 table shapes, turn any table to any angle, up to 20 seats a table, plus zones, standing areas, stages and walls. Changes only go live when you press Publish, so you can plan without touching tonight’s service | Table plan editor with areas, joining tables together, temporary joins, tables that only exist when two are pushed together, and a running order for which tables to fill first |
| A live view of the whole room | See your whole venue come alive on screen. Turn it, move around it and zoom in, with every table showing what is happening on it right now. For your staff, in a normal web browser | Not published anywhere by ResDiary. Its own floor-plan guide sends readers to other companies’ design tools |
| AI builds it from a photo | Already have a plan? Upload your architect’s drawing, or just a photo or a PDF. Our AI reads it and builds an editable floor plan for you. Set it to real metres and print it with measurements on it | Not documented publicly |
| Layout checks before it goes live | You cannot save a plan where tables sit on top of each other. Fourteen more checks warn you about narrow gangways, blocked fire exits, tables staff cannot reach, and two tables with the same name | Not documented publicly |
| Joining tables for a large party | Hold a large party across several tables at once, and every one of those tables is checked for clashes. Pushing the tables together is still something your host does on the floor plan | Table joins, temporary joins, tables that only exist when two are pushed together, and a running order for which tables to fill first — all documented |
| Controlling how many covers you take | Table times are set by party size — 75 minutes for a table of two, 120 minutes for a table of eight as standard — plus a limit on how many bookings you take in each time slot. You cannot cap the number of covers per 15 minutes | Set how long each sitting lasts, how long to leave a table between parties, and how many covers you take in each time slot — and set that separately for each booking channel |
| Spaces bookable only at certain times | Open an area only at certain times. The terrace can be closed at lunch and bookable from 6pm. This applies whether your staff take the booking or the guest books online. Walk-ins can still be served at the till | Not documented publicly |
| Stopping the same table being booked twice | Two bookings can never take the same table at the same time. This is blocked in the database itself, not just in the app, so it still holds if two staff book the same table at the same moment | Not documented publicly |
| Guest record | Every booking builds up a guest record: their visit history, preferences, notes, and a log of what they agreed to for GDPR. You can export or delete it on request. 97% of bookings in our live system are linked to a guest | Guest profiles, tagging and repeat-visit reporting; connecting a CRM or marketing tool is a €10/month add-on, with deeper CRM via Access Acteol |
| Waitlist and walk-ins | Tell a walk-in how long the wait is, keep their place in the queue, text or email them when the table is ready, and seat them in one step. This is new | W8list — an established waiting list that balances waiting and seated diners and fills tables when guests leave early |
| Getting bookings in the door | Your own booking page, which you link from your website, social media and Google listing. One page per venue. There is no group page and no diner network sending you bookings | Commission-free bookings from your website, Instagram, Facebook, Reserve with Google, its own Dish Cult discovery platform and DesignMyNight (UK) |
| Per-cover / per-booking fees | None | None — ResDiary is commission-free regardless of where the booking is made |
| Deposits and card guarantee | Take a deposit, or hold a card without charging it. The money goes straight into your own Stripe account and never sits with us. We charge a 2.5% platform fee | Deposits, prepayments and card guarantee natively through Stripe, plus a 1% surcharge on deposits and payments |
| Reservations and the till | Seat a party from the diary and their bill opens on that table at the till, linked to the booking | Not a till — “POS integration” is a €10/month add-on to connect the EPOS you already own |
| Recipe + allergen handoff | ✓ | Notes only |
| B2B procurement marketplace | Supplier catalogues supported | — |
| AI invoice processing | IntelliFlow | — |
| HACCP / Compliance | ✓ | — |
| HR / rota / tronc | HR360 | — |
| Where your guest data is hosted | AWS eu-west-1 (Dublin) | Not documented on its Ireland page |
| Published pricing | Plan prices on request; 60-day free trial published | Add-on prices published (€10–€60/month); plan prices on request |
How we read ResDiary. ResDiary cells describe what ResDiary publishes on resdiary.com, its Ireland page and its help centre, reviewed 22 August 2026. “Not documented publicly” means we could not find it published there — not that ResDiary cannot do it. ResDiary has been part of Access Hospitality (The Access Group) since 2023; this page compares the ResDiary product, not the wider Access portfolio.
Three honest differentiators.
An intelligent floor plan that builds itself
Draw your floor plan and keep every version. What your staff see only changes when you press Publish, so you can plan next month without touching tonight. Then see your whole venue come alive on screen: turn it, move around it, zoom in, and see what is happening on every table. Already have a plan? Upload your architect’s drawing, or just a photo, and our AI builds it for you. You cannot save a plan with tables sitting on top of each other, and fourteen more checks warn you about narrow gangways, blocked fire exits and areas nobody can reach.
No double bookings, ever
Two bookings can never take the same table at the same time. The block sits in the database itself, not just in the app, so it holds even if two staff book the same table at the same moment. Every booking is also given a table as soon as it is made: the smallest free table that fits the party, skipping any table that is blocked, held back for walk-ins, or closed at that time of day.
Guest records come included
Every booking builds a guest record: their visit history, what they like, notes your team adds, and a log of what they agreed to for GDPR. You can export it or delete it on request. In our live system, 97% of bookings are linked to a guest. Two things to know: it covers table bookings, and records are kept per venue, so a regular at one site is a separate record at another.
The honest acknowledgement.
Controlling covers through the kitchen
ResDiary is better than us here and we are not going to pretend otherwise. It lets you set how long each sitting lasts and cap how many covers you take in a time slot, and even per booking channel. Inntally sets table times by party size and limits how many bookings you take per slot, but it cannot cap covers per 15 minutes. If controlling the flow of food through your kitchen is your main problem, ResDiary does that today and we do not.
Table management
ResDiary is ahead on managing tables. It can join tables together in the system, set up temporary joins, create tables that only exist when two are pushed together, and rank which tables to fill first. Inntally can hold a big party across several tables and check each one for clashes, but joining the tables is still something your host does on the floor plan. We do not have table ranking.
Reach, and a head start we do not have
ResDiary says it is used by over 9,000 venues worldwide and more than 900 in Ireland. It brings in bookings from your website, social media, Google, its own Dish Cult site and DesignMyNight in the UK, with no commission, plus unlimited users and 24/7 support on every plan. We give you one booking page per venue and no network sending diners your way. If you are buying a booking system to bring you new customers, that is a real advantage.
Reminders before the visit
ResDiary sends automatic reminders to diners before they come in. Inntally sends a confirmation when the booking is made and a follow-up after the visit. We do not send a reminder before the booking yet.
See the full-platform math.
Free workspace, 60 days. No card.