Compare / Head to head
MRPeasy vs Fishbowl
The cheap cloud MRP against the older on-premise one - a comparison usually decided by whether the accountant is on QuickBooks Desktop.
Checked 3 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 the shop is looking for the least-cost cloud MRP that has what it needs, or a mature on-premise product that fits an existing QuickBooks Desktop life.
MRPeasy
MRPeasy Ltd
Cloud MRP for small manufacturers: bills of materials, routings with work centres, MRP runs, purchase orders, work orders and stock control. Sold per user in tiered plans, with QuickBooks and Xero connectors and a public API. A single product rather than a platform.
Fishbowl
Fishbowl Inc.
Inventory management and manufacturing for QuickBooks and Xero users, sold per site (rather than per user) and available in cloud or on-premise editions. Bills of materials, work orders, multi-warehouse stock, purchasing and barcode/mobile scanning are the core; Fishbowl Advanced adds asset tracking.
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.
| MRPeasy | Fishbowl | |
|---|---|---|
| Where it runs | Cloud, per-user. | Cloud or on-premise, per-site. |
| Price at small scale | Cheapest in the group at low seat counts. | Higher up-front for the site, before add-ons. |
| Depth of the register | MRP first; the asset side is thin. | Deeper inventory and asset tracking, especially in the Advanced tier. |
| Scanning and barcode | Available; not the product's strength. | Mature, with dedicated mobile clients. |
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 MRPeasy if…
- Price is the driver and the requirement is straightforward
- The team wants a simple product, not a suite
- You are already living with cloud tools and want another one
- Requirements are stable and unlikely to sprawl
Choose Fishbowl if…
- QuickBooks Desktop is on the ledger and staying
- You need on-premise, and it is a real requirement
- Warehouse scanning and mobile capture are core
- The site count is small and the user count is large
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.
The ledger question goes away
Neither product is your accounting system; both bill their integration with it. Rutba Books removes that seam. That does not make us cheaper than MRPeasy or more mature than Fishbowl - it makes the comparison different.
Your own instance without the on-premise commitment
A Rutba licence runs on your own instance if you want it, and does not require Windows or an installer to update. That is the middle position Fishbowl offers on-premise and MRPeasy does not offer at all.
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
From $22 per user / month
Rutba Books
Available nowAccounting & bookkeeping software
Invoicing, bills, banking and reconciliation on one side; the ledger, tax, budgets and the financial reports on the other — fed automatically by every sale, pay run and stock movement happening elsewhere in the business.
- Two apps on one ledger - the daily bookkeeping surface and the accountant’s workbench, neither hiding anything from the other
- Sales invoices, bills, receipts, supplier payments and credit notes, with per-line tax
- Bank statements read in whatever your bank emits - CAMT.053, MT940, OFX/QFX or CSV - and matched, with reconciliation that must reach zero
Includes: Books · Accounts
From $14 per user / 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 MRPeasy
A pragmatic, mid-priced MRP that has been doing the same job for a decade - the value option in this group and the one most price-sensitive shortlists reach.
The pillar
Rutba vs Fishbowl
An older, QuickBooks-adjacent MRP and inventory platform, sold per site and available on-premise - the closest thing to a QuickBooks manufacturing edition.
Other head-to-heads featuring MRPeasy or Fishbowl
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.