Compare / Head to head
Fleetio vs Samsara
The decision every fleet manager makes once: software that reads the fleet you already have, or hardware in every vehicle that tells you what it is doing.
Checked 6 September 2026
We are not a neutral party, and you should read this knowing that. Rutba makes software that competes with both products on this page, and there is a section about us at the bottom. Everything above it is written from what each vendor publishes about their own product, dated, with no prices reproduced and nothing said about anyone’s roadmap, finances or customers. If we have described either product incorrectly, tell us and we will correct it and say that we did.
The actual decision
What you are really choosing between.
Whether your problem is knowing what is due, what is off the road and what a kilometre costs — or knowing where the vehicle is and how it is being driven. The first is a records problem. The second cannot be solved without a box.
Fleetio
Fleetio (Rarestep, Inc.)
Cloud fleet management built around the vehicle rather than the trip: service schedules and reminders, work orders and parts, electronic inspections from a phone, fuel-card imports, issue and defect tracking, and cost-per-mile reporting. It ingests telematics from third-party boxes rather than selling its own. Sold per vehicle per month.
Samsara
Samsara Inc.
A connected-operations platform sold with its own hardware: vehicle gateways, AI dashcams, asset trackers and environmental sensors, feeding real-time location, driver-behaviour scoring, video review of incidents, electronic logging for hours-of-service, and equipment monitoring. Sold on multi-year hardware and licence contracts, usually through a sales cycle.
Head to head
Where they actually differ.
Only the rows that differ. A comparison table padded with things both products do equally well is a table designed to be long rather than useful.
| Fleetio | Samsara | |
|---|---|---|
| What you install | Nothing. It reads fuel cards, service records and telematics from whatever hardware you already run. | Gateways, dashcams and sensors, fitted to every vehicle, usually on a multi-year term. |
| What it knows | What the fleet costs, what is due, what failed a check, what a driver is licensed for. | All of that plus live position, harsh braking, fuel efficiency per driver, and video of the incident. |
| How you buy it | Per vehicle per month, self-served, cancel when you like. | A sales cycle, an installation programme and a contract with hardware inside it. |
| What it does to the driver | Records their licence, their checks and their defects. | Scores their driving and, on the camera tiers, records them. That is a workforce decision as much as a software one. |
| Where the value lands | Maintenance discipline and visible cost. | Insurance, fuel and incident defence — which at scale is larger money. |
Which to pick
Real reasons on both sides.
A matchup where one option never wins is not a comparison, and every reader can tell.
Choose Fleetio if…
- You run fewer vehicles than the number at which a percentage point of fuel pays for hardware
- The problem is service schedules, checks and cost, not location
- You want to start this week without an installation programme
- You would rather not put cameras in front of your drivers
Choose Samsara if…
- You are under an electronic-logging regime that requires a device
- Your insurer prices on telematics or wants camera evidence
- Fuel and incident costs are large enough that behaviour scoring pays for itself
- You want one vendor for the box, the video and the platform
And now the part where we talk about ourselves
Where Rutba fits, on the same axes.
Constrained to what the comparison above actually examined. If neither product was measured on something, we do not get to win it here.
We are on Fleetio's side of this line, by design
No hardware, no cameras, no live position — the estate deliberately does not key a vehicle's position to a person, and the columns that would carry it are empty on purpose. Reading from a box you already own is the planned shape; selling you one is not.
The difference from Fleetio is what the vehicle already is
Here it is the asset the accountant depreciates and the maintenance team works on, and the driver is the employee whose rota and pay you already run. Fleetio has to be told all of it, and then the two records drift.
And the honest caveat
Fleetio ships today at full scope with fuel-card feeds and national licence checking. Our fleet app is marked coming soon. If vehicle compliance is this quarter's problem, this comparison is not close.
If you looked at us
The products this comparison touches.
With their real availability labels, which apply inside a comparison exactly as they do everywhere else.
Before you compare: Rutba Fleet, Rutba Facilities are not generally available yet. Anything we claim above that rests on them is a statement about what ships, not about what you can buy today.
Rutba Fleet
Coming soonFleet management software
Vehicles and their operating profile on the asset register, drivers and licences, walkaround checks and defects, duty and hours, fuel and energy, incidents, and cost per kilometre.
- The vehicle profile on the asset register - no second vehicle table
- Drivers, licences and the checks they are due
- Walkaround checks and defects from the cab
Custom pricing
Rutba Facilities
Early accessAsset & facilities management software
Every asset the organisation owns — laptops, machines, vehicles, buildings and their spaces — in one register with custody events that never lose the trail, lifecycle with contracts and licences, and the work that keeps them running against the same asset the accountant and the HR officer see.
- One asset register the whole estate reads from
- Custody as insert-only events — who had what and when it was returned
- Sites, buildings and spaces, with assets attached to each
Includes: Assets · Facilities
From $9 per user / month
Rutba People
Available nowHR, payroll & employee management software
Employee records, the org structure, attendance and leave, a shared time clock, and payroll that runs on all of it — plus a self-service portal so staff answer their own questions instead of asking HR.
- Employee records, employment history, contracts, teams and matrix reporting lines
- Attendance and leave with approval chains
- A shared time clock that gives attendance an actual source
Includes: HR · Employee Self-Service · Payroll · Time Clock · Workforce · Recruit · Talent
From $8 per employee / month
Keep comparing
Both of these against us, and against the rest.
Written to the same standard: sourced to what each vendor publishes, dated, and naming where each one wins.
The pillar
Rutba vs Fleetio
Fleet maintenance, compliance and cost without hardware — and the product Rutba Fleet is explicitly measured against first.
The pillar
Rutba vs Samsara
Telematics hardware, dashcams and driver-behaviour scoring — the category we deliberately do not enter, and the honest place to say why.
Weighing these two?
Tell us which way you are leaning and why. We will tell you honestly whether we belong on the shortlist at all — there are comparisons on this site where the answer is no.