Epicor Kinetic vs. Katana MRP

Our editorial review staff has hands-on experience with both Epicor Kinetic and Katana Manufacturing ERP. We’ve spent time demoing, testing, and reviewing these products to bring you a detailed comparison of Epicor ERP vs Katana MRP.

Epicor Kinetic Overview

Epicor Kinetic offers a wide range of features including compliance management, planning and scheduling, supply chain management, quality assurance, and maintenance management.

Epicor’s primary target market ranges from small companies with to large enterprises. Most notably, Epicor supports mixed-mode, made-to-order, engineer-to-order, and discrete manufacturing environments.

We appreciated Epicor’s extensive product configuration, discrete manufacturing capabilities, and customizable reporting. However, despite its multi-company management feature, Epicor is not the ideal choice for multinational organizations with numerous product lines.

Katana Manufacturing ERP Overview

On the other hand, Katana Manufacturing ERP is designed with small to mid-sized manufacturers in mind. It offers a visually appealing platform to manage inventory, production, and sales. Some of its key features include order management, raw material tracking, finished product tracking, production recipes, manufacturing, and stock management.

Katana is flexible and versatile, catering to various industries from apparel and electronics to food and aerospace. We were particularly impressed with Katana’s real-time inventory and order management, priority-based production planning, and multichannel sales management. However, it’s important to note that paid plans include only one full-access user, and the Essential plan lacks batch tracking and shop floor features.

Epicor ERP vs Katana MRP: Which is Better for Most Businesses?

After conducting an in-depth review, we conclude that Katana Manufacturing ERP is likely the better choice for most businesses.

Katana’s user-friendly interface, real-time inventory tracking, and affordable pricing make it an excellent choice for small to mid-sized manufacturers. While Epicor also offers a robust feature set, its high learning curve and relatively higher costs make it a bit less accessible for smaller businesses.

However, if you are a larger organization with complex manufacturing needs, Epicor might be more suitable. Its extensive product configuration and support for different manufacturing environments are particularly significant for larger businesses.

For a wider range of options, you can check our roundup of the best ERP software overall.