Comparison

Unnati and ERPNext, compared honestly

Q: Does ERPNext handle Indian GST and e-invoicing?

Yes, through India Compliance — a separate open-source app installed on top of ERPNext, covering GST, e-invoice and e-way bill integration with the NIC portal, and GSTR filing and reconciliation. It is well regarded. The difference from Unnati is structural rather than functional: for us those are core screens rather than an app you add and keep in step.

Q: Does ERPNext include HR and payroll?

Not in ERPNext itself. Frappe HR is a separate product in the same ecosystem. Unnati has HR, attendance and payroll on the same login as everything else, though our statutory filing outputs such as ECR, Form 16 and 24Q are still on the roadmap.

Q: Is this comparison fair?

It is our comparison, so read it as such. The table is limited to what Frappe documents publicly, every source is listed at the foot of the page with the date we read it, and where we have not verified something we say so rather than guessing. ERPNext being free and open source is a real advantage and we have not tried to talk you out of it.

ERPNext is the closest thing to Unnati on this page: a broad operational ERP aimed at small and mid-sized businesses, with strong Indian adoption. It is also free and open source, which is a genuine advantage and not one we can match.

The real difference is assembly. ERPNext is a core product plus apps: India Compliance for GST and e-invoicing, Frappe HR for people and payroll. Unnati is one product with those inside it. Neither approach is wrong; they suit different businesses, and this page is about which you are.

See both on your own documents Where ERPNext wins

In short

ERPNext is a free, open-source ERP licensed under AGPL-3.0 that you can self-host at no licence cost or run on Frappe Cloud from about ₹410 a month. Indian GST and e-invoicing come from a separate India Compliance app, and HR and payroll from a separate product, Frappe HR. Unnati has those in one product with one vendor.

Side by side

Capability by capability

Compiled from Frappe's own public documentation, last read on 12 September 2026. Capabilities change, so verify anything decisive with the vendor before you buy. We have not tested ERPNext for speed, reliability or cost, and we publish no benchmark against it.

Capabilities as publicly documented, checked 12 September 2026.
Capability	Unnati	ERPNext
Licence and source	Proprietary. Subscription only; you do not get the source and cannot self-host.	Open source under AGPL-3.0. Frappe states it is free and open source with no paid features behind a paywall.
How it is delivered	Cloud, used in a browser, with a desktop app for Windows, macOS and Linux and a mobile app for Android and iOS.	Self-host free on your own server, or Frappe Cloud. Documented cloud tiers: Sites from ₹410 a month, Servers from ₹1,800 a month, Premium dedicated servers from ₹5,400 a month.
Commercial model	Annual subscription with every module included, priced per user: a rough ₹300 per user per month for a minimum of 10 users, times twelve, plus 18% GST. Final price agreed with you personally.	Per site or per server, not per user. Adding people does not change the bill. Self-hosting costs nothing in licence terms — you pay in hosting and the skill to run it.
Indian GST, e-invoice and e-way bill	Full sales document chain with GST, and GST returns validated against your own books before filing. Raised through the NIC systems from the sales invoice, with per-user permissions and the 24-hour IRN cancellation rule enforced.	Provided by India Compliance, a separate open-source app installed on top of ERPNext. It covers GST, e-invoice and e-way bill integration with the NIC portal, and GSTR filing and reconciliation.
HR and payroll	Attendance including biometric devices, leave, and payroll with maker-checker disbursement. Statutory filing outputs such as ECR, Form 16 and 24Q are on the roadmap, not in the product today.	Not part of ERPNext. Frappe HR is a separate product in the same ecosystem.
Modules in the core product	Fifteen, including HR and payroll, quality, POS, field sales and projects, all on one login.	Accounting, Procurement, Sales, CRM, Stock, Manufacturing, Projects, Point of Sale, Quality, Support and Assets, as listed on the ERPNext site.
Quality management	QC parameters, instruments, SLAs, calibration plans and calibration events, nonconformance and corrective action, and retained samples.	A Quality module covering quality checks, inspection templates, non-conformance, batch tracking and supplier quality. Instrument calibration and retained samples are not mentioned on the module overview — verify with Frappe if those are decisive.
Shop-floor manufacturing	Manufacturing orders with operations and routing, machine logs, downtime, tools, scrap and a daily production report. Job work is in the same module.	A Manufacturing module with multi-level BOM and production planning is documented.
POS and restaurant	Outlets, counters, cashier sessions, KOT, kitchen display, tables, recipes, loyalty, coupons and offers.	Point of Sale is documented as cloud-based and multi-store. Restaurant-specific handling such as KOT and kitchen display — verify with Frappe.
CRM and field sales	Leads, deals, companies, contacts, visit plans and GPS-verified check-in inside a 100 metre geofence.	CRM with leads, opportunities and quotations is in the core product. Check how field visit check-in and geofencing are handled for your case.
Asset management	Not a module today.	Assets is listed as a core module. This is a gap on our side, not theirs.
Customisation	Configuration, roles and permissions. Behaviour changes are a request to us.	Built on the Frappe Framework: scripting and custom apps are supported on Frappe Cloud, and with the source you can change anything.
Who supports it	One vendor, built and supported from Ahmedabad.	Frappe directly, a network of certified partners, or nobody — self-hosting and self-implementing from the documentation is a supported path.
Audit trail	Hash-chained audit log, so each entry is linked to the one before it and an outside change is detectable.	Verify the current audit-trail implementation with Frappe; we have not tested it and will not describe it second-hand.

Required reading

Where ERPNext is stronger

A comparison page with no losses in it is marketing, not information. These are the reasons a well-run business may be better off with ERPNext, and we would say the same on a call.

It is free, and that is not a trialERPNext is AGPL-3.0 and Frappe states there are no paid features behind a paywall. You can run the whole thing on your own server for the cost of the server. No subscription we offer will ever beat zero, and if budget is the binding constraint you should take that seriously.

The source is yoursYou can read it, change it, fork it and keep running it whatever happens to the vendor. For a business that has been burned by a supplier disappearing or a licence repricing, that is worth more than any feature on our list.

Adding people does not cost moreFrappe Cloud is priced per site or server. Unnati charges per user. If you have eighty people who each need to touch the system occasionally, ERPNext’s pricing shape is dramatically kinder than ours and the arithmetic is not close.

It is a platform, not just a productThe Frappe Framework underneath supports scripting and custom apps, on Frappe Cloud as well as self-hosted. If you have in-house developers, you can build what you need rather than wait for a vendor roadmap.

Asset management, which we do not haveAssets is a core ERPNext module. Unnati has no equivalent. If tracking, depreciating and maintaining fixed assets is part of what you are buying software for, that is a straightforward point in their favour.

A very large community behind itA global open-source community, public forums, a large partner network and a great deal of published material. When you hit an unusual problem at eleven at night, somebody has probably already written about it.

Migration

Coming from ERPNext

Businesses that move usually do so because keeping core, India Compliance and Frappe HR in step became somebody’s job. If nobody on your team minds that job, ERPNext is a good place to stay.

Step

Export from ERPNext

What happens

ERPNext exports cleanly and has a full API. Items, customers, suppliers, chart of accounts and balances at your cut-over date.

Step

Account for the separate apps

What happens

Payroll history lives in Frappe HR and GST artefacts in India Compliance. Decide what you need in Unnati and what stays as an archive, before you move anything.

Step

Map and import

What happens

Columns checked together, loaded through Import and Export Data, then reconciled against your ERPNext trial balance on the same date.

Step

Run a full cycle in parallel

What happens

One complete month in both, cut over at a quarter or financial-year boundary.

We would be suspicious of anyone claiming a one-click transfer of transactional history, including us. The support page sets out how onboarding is handled.

Questions

Frequently asked

If ERPNext is free, why would we pay for Unnati?

Free software is not free to run. Someone has to host it, upgrade it, keep the core, India Compliance and Frappe HR versions compatible, and be responsible when something breaks during a GST filing week. If you have that person, ERPNext is an excellent choice and its price is unbeatable. If you do not, what you are actually buying from us is that nobody on your team has that job.

Does ERPNext handle Indian GST and e-invoicing?

Does ERPNext include HR and payroll?

Is this comparison fair?

Sources

Where these claims come from

Everything in the table above about ERPNext is drawn from the pages below, read on 12 September 2026. If you find something out of date or wrong, tell us and we will correct it.

ERPNext and Frappe are trademarks of Frappe Technologies Pvt. Ltd. Unnati and Aavishkruti are not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by Frappe Technologies Pvt. Ltd. All product names, logos and brands mentioned on this page are the property of their respective owners and are used only to identify the products being compared. The comparison reflects our reading of publicly available documentation on 12 September 2026 and is our own opinion.

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Prefer to read first? The comparisons with Tally, Odoo, ERPNext and Zoho are written to be checked, not believed — each one names what the other product does better.