Compare / Head to head
Katana vs Tulip
Two products that never meet: one plans what should be built, the other runs the bench that builds it.
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.
Which of your two problems is the expensive one. If the schedule is wrong, Katana. If the schedule is fine and the bench is where the variation is, Tulip. Manufacturers who need both usually buy both.
Katana
Katana Cloud Inventory
A cloud manufacturing and inventory platform aimed at small D2C brands and job shops: bill of materials, make orders, live inventory across sales channels, and shop-floor cards for operators. Sold per user in tiered plans, integrated with Shopify, WooCommerce, QuickBooks Online, Xero and about eighty other tools by first-party connector.
Tulip
Tulip Interfaces, Inc.
A platform for building applications the shop floor uses: guided work instructions with images and video, digital forms and checklists at the station, connectivity to machines, scanners, scales and torque tools, and dashboards over what the floor produced. Sold per app or per station rather than per planner, and aimed at engineers who will build their own screens.
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.
| Katana | Tulip | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is for | The plan: bills of material, stock, work orders, purchasing. | The station: guided instructions, forms, device data, what actually happened. |
| Who configures it | A planner, in the product as shipped. | An engineer, building apps — real flexibility, and a project with an owner. |
| Where the data comes from | People entering orders and receipts. | Torque tools, scales, scanners and PLCs, read directly. |
| What it tells you | What to make and what to buy. | Cycle times, first-pass yield and variation between operators and shifts. |
| What it costs you to run | A subscription and the discipline to keep stock accurate. | A subscription and somebody who maintains the apps after the person who built them moves on. |
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 Katana if…
- Stock and the schedule disagree, and that is what is hurting
- You want MRP working this month without building anything
- Purchasing and production planning are the same person's job
Choose Tulip if…
- Complex manual assembly where operators vary and the cost is rework
- Machines and devices worth reading data from directly
- Work instructions that must be followed step by step and evidenced
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 Katana's side of the line, with a terminal on the other
The MRP run reads real stock and real orders against bill versions pinned at release, and the bench takes a dispatch list, reports output and downtime, and works offline. What it does not do is guide an operator through a build or read a torque tool.
The join is what neither of them has
Reported output consumes the materials issued and posts labour — piece-work pay included — to the same ledger and payroll. A Katana-plus-Tulip estate has that join as an integration project, twice.
A non-conformance stops the stock
Raised at the bench, it moves the quantity out of what can be picked. A failed checklist in a station app is a record; making the rest of the system act on it is more integration.
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.
Rutba Manufacturing
Available nowManufacturing & MRP software
Versioned bills of materials with work centres on every routing step, a regenerative MRP run that nets against real inventory and pegs plan to demand, and a shop-floor terminal that reports work in progress from the bench where it happens.
- Versioned bills of materials with effectivity, where-used and a change record
- Work centres with capacity, calendars, and a labour basis for costing
- A regenerative MRP run — nets on-hand and reserved, respects lead times, plans by lot policy
Includes: Manufacturing · Planning · Shop Floor · Quality · Maintenance
From $32 per user / month
Rutba Inventory
Available nowInventory management & warehouse (WMS) software
Stock levels, multi-location transfers, stocktakes, and valuation — the single source of truth every other part of the business reserves and deducts against.
- Live stock across unlimited locations and bins
- Transfers with in-transit visibility
- Scheduled and rolling stocktakes with variance reporting
Includes: Stock · Warehouse Control · Procurement
From $22 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 Katana
The MRP-for-makers category leader by momentum: cloud, self-serve, and integrated with Shopify and QuickBooks by design rather than by connector.
The pillar
Rutba vs Tulip
The frontline operations platform — no-code apps for the bench, machine connectivity and work instructions. The vendor you reach for when the plan is fine and the floor is the problem.
Other head-to-heads featuring Katana or Tulip
Head to head
Katana vs MRPeasy
The category leader by momentum against the value option that has been doing the same job for a decade. Both are focused MRPs; the decision is what you want next to the MRP.
Head to head
Katana vs Fishbowl
The cloud-native, Shopify-first MRP against the QuickBooks-adjacent one that will run on your own hardware. This decision is really about what your books look like.
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.