As of 28 Oct 2026, the panel rates inFlow Inventory 2.5/5 and Katana 3/5 in Supply Chain & Logistics. Weighted by what each judge cares about, 2 of the 6 judges pick inFlow Inventory and 4 pick Katana. inFlow Inventory scores higher on 3 of 7 criteria (Pricing transparency, Warehouse operations: receiving, picking & packing and Multi-carrier shipping & returns). Katana scores higher on 3 of 7 criteria (European sovereignty, Freight & transport management and Integrations, automation & exit). Provenance — inFlow Inventory: Rest of world; Katana: EU-Made. Ratings are the AI panel’s opinion, formed from public evidence: how scores are made.
The benches split rather than settle. inFlow Inventory is ahead on pricing transparency (6.3 vs 4.7, six judges leaning inFlow), warehouse operations (6.2 vs 5.8) and shipping and returns (4.5 vs 4.2). Katana is ahead on sovereignty (5.8 vs 3.5, six judges leaning Katana) and marginally on integration and automation (6.5 vs 6.3) and freight and transport (1.2 vs 1.0). Inventory control sits level at 7.5 apiece, with two judges leaning each way and two ties. Weighted totals favor Katana for four judges and inFlow Inventory for two. Sovereignty attributes as they stand: Katana lists data residency EU only and legal entity jurisdiction Estonia; inFlow Inventory lists data residency US default and legal entity jurisdiction unknown; both list US Cloud Act subprocessor exposure. The captured pages give different statements on where Katana's data lives.
Choose inFlow Inventory if
You need published prices before you commit: pricing transparency leaned to inFlow Inventory with six judges (6.3 vs 4.7), and the four tiers are published at Lite 79, Core 229, Pro 389 and Max 539 EUR/mo billed annually.
Your team runs stock across multiple locations and sublocations with reorder points set per location: warehouse operations leaned to inFlow Inventory (6.2 vs 5.8, two judges leaning its way, four ties).
You print parcel labels through EasyPost or ShipStation on your own carrier accounts and handle returns on the sales order: shipping and returns leaned to inFlow Inventory (4.5 vs 4.2).
You weigh the warehouse manager's and fulfilment provider's views of the panel: those two judges scored inFlow Inventory higher in weighted totals (6.4 vs 5.3 and 5.7 vs 5.4).
Choose Katana if
You need EU data residency: Katana's data residency attribute is EU only, and six judges leaned Katana on sovereignty (5.8 vs 3.5) — noting that the captured pages give different statements on where Katana's data lives.
Your team manufactures: Katana's verdict covers production management and reorder quantities computed from stock, forecast demand, safety stock and MOQ, with inventory control level at 7.5.
You sell on WooCommerce, BigCommerce or eBay: those connectors appear in Katana's integration verdict, and integration and automation leaned Katana (6.5 vs 6.3, two judges leaning its way).
You require a known EU legal entity: Katana's legal entity jurisdiction is Estonia, while inFlow Inventory's is listed as unknown.
You weigh the ecommerce operations lead, transport planner, integration lead and skeptic views of the panel: four judges scored Katana higher in weighted totals.
Read this comparison as one judge. Each weighs the same scores by what they care about.
The Transport Planner
Books forty pallets and three part loads a week for a machinery wholesaler, mostly by e-mail and phone. Wants quotes from several forwarders compared in one place, the agreed rates stored so invoices can be checked against them, eCMR instead of paper, and a CO2 figure per shipment the sustainability report can cite.
inFlow Inventory
Katana
This judge's pick
Criterion by criterion
Inventory & stock control
inFlow Inventory
Real-time stock across locations with transfers and full counts, bins and aisles, lots, serials and expiry dates with FEFO and FIFO lot suggestions, reorder points per product and location, and stock pushed to online and offline storefronts — most of what I need to trust the figure. We found no public information on a stated inventory valuation method, movements booked with a reason and a user, or demand forecasting, so I stop short of full confidence.
Katana
Stock is the heart of this product: real-time movement tracking, batches shown in first-in-first-out order with operators barred from picking expired ones, unique serial numbers with every adjustment recorded in the item's history with location and date, storage bins and multi-warehouse stock, bundles and kits resolved through bills of materials, and reorder points driven by forecast demand, safety stock and minimum order quantities. We found no public information on a stocktaking routine or a stated inventory valuation method, which is what keeps it off the top step.
Receiving against purchase orders with lot assignment and partial receives, pick lists routed through sublocations with three named picking strategies, automatic allocations that stop two workers taking the same stock, and scanning on phones, USB scanners and a named rugged handheld — a proper shift tool for a small warehouse. We found no public information on batch, wave or multi-order picking, putaway suggestions, a packing verification check, or pick and error rates per user and shift.
Katana
The browser-based Warehouse app pushes receiving tasks from purchase orders and picking and packing tasks from sales orders, works on any device with a camera for QR scanning, assigns tasks to the first operator who starts them, records who received or packed each order, and is meant to run the floor paperless. We found no public information on batch, wave or multi-order picking strategies, putaway suggestions, or pick, pack and error rates per user and shift, so the shift-management layer above the basics is undocumented.
Multi-carrier shipping & returns
inFlow Inventory
Parcels go out through EasyPost and ShipStation with FedEx, USPS, UPS and Purolator on our own carrier accounts, a rate comparison is advertised, customers get a shipment confirmation e-mail at collection, and returns are handled internally with refund or credit and restock or discard. We found no public information on bulk label printing, customs documents beyond a VAT prefill, branded tracking pages, a self-service returns portal or a returns label flow.
Katana
Parcels go out through named shipping integrations — Shippo, ShipStation and 2Ship — with tracking numbers held on the sales order and packing slips generated, and the vendor itself notes that shops on e-commerce platforms often let the platform handle shipping. Returns are genuinely handled inside the product: item-level reasons, flexible restocking, statuses from received to restocked, automatic Shopify return sync and QuickBooks credit notes. We found no public information on shipping rules, customs paperwork for non-EU destinations, or a self-service returns portal, and whether own carrier contracts apply is not said.
Freight & transport management
inFlow Inventory
For my forty pallets and three part loads a week there is nothing usable here: the captured pages describe parcel labels through EasyPost and ShipStation and a freight cost field on sales orders. We found no public information on pallet or groupage booking, forwarder quotes and tenders, CMR or eCMR documents, freight invoices checked against agreed rates, or CO2 per shipment reported to any standard.
Katana
I book forty pallets and three part loads a week and this is a different kind of tool — an inventory, warehouse and production system for small makers — so we found no public information on pallet, groupage or full and part truckload booking, forwarder quote comparison, stored freight rate tables, eCMR or digital delivery notes, freight invoice checking against agreed prices, or a CO2 figure per shipment. What the pages do show is a place to keep addresses and tracking references on B2B and EDI sales orders, a native 3PL connection whose inbound shipment and tracking view is listed as coming soon, and custom EDI and 3PL integrations built by the vendor's engineers on the Advantage plan.
Integrations, automation & exit
inFlow Inventory
A documented REST API with read and write access, API keys, pagination and MCP documentation, connectors to Shopify, WooCommerce, Amazon, Square, QuickBooks and Xero among a claimed 90+, Zapier, and automatic stock pushes to storefronts — good plumbing around the stock system. We found no public information on webhooks, EDI, documented API rate limits and versioning or a developer sandbox, and the exit export is partial: manufacture orders, attachments, most addresses and settings cannot be exported, and a back-up is delivered within 30 Business Days once all fees are paid.
Katana
The connector list is real and named — Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, eBay, Amazon, QuickBooks Online and Xero, plus Zapier, Make and a 3PL connection — backed by an open API, per-user permissions over API keys and webhooks, real-time stock sync, automatic CRM order-import triggers, and Advantage engineers who build and maintain custom EDI, CRM and 3PL integrations. We found no public information on API rate limits or versioning, an ERP connector beyond accounting, or a documented export of orders, stock movements and shipment history at the end of the contract.
European sovereignty
inFlow Inventory
The contracting entity is Archon Systems Inc., an Ontario corporation, hosting is Microsoft Azure in the North Central US region in Illinois with no EU hosting option in the captured pages, and the subprocessor list sits behind a trust centre link that was not among the captures, with processors described as primarily US-based. Stated GDPR and SOC 2 compliance, annual SOC 2 audits and EU model clauses are more than a bare privacy policy, but we found no public information on EU hosting or an EU contracting entity, so the chain stays non-European.
Katana
The captured pages give different figures for where data lives: the privacy policy states the service is hosted in the EU with centralized EU databases, while the terms say systems and service providers may be located in the European Union, the United States and other jurisdictions, with Standard Contractual Clauses or the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework given as safeguards for transfers. In favour: the contracting entity Katana Technologies OÜ is named, an Article 28 data processing contract sits in the terms, AWS is the named host, and a SOC 2 Type II audit result is published. Against full transparency: the subprocessor list is only provided on request, and Google Analytics runs on the public site with an opt-out.
Pricing transparency
inFlow Inventory
Four tiers are public at 79, 229, 389 and 539 EUR/mo. billed annually with unlimited products, sales and purchases on all plans, onboarding at a required one-time 399 EUR, optional packages at 799 and 2299 EUR and extra training at 169 EUR /hour, so a buyer gets a long way. The API add-on price, monthly-billing rates and VAT treatment are not in the captures and the pricing page shows EUR while the terms state fees are payable in US dollars (USD), so the real annual total is not fully computable.
Katana
A free plan at $0 with a 30-SKU cap and the Core plan "starting at $299 per month" are public, and the terms are unusually open about structure: a base fee plus per-sales-order usage fees on an exponential decay pricing model, one location included with each extra location charged as posted on the website, monthly to annual billing commitments with auto-renewal, fees exclusive of taxes, payable in advance and non-refundable. But we found no public information on the actual per-order rates, the location fee amount or the price of the Warehouse Management add-on, and the Advantage plan is custom-priced, so I cannot compute a year's cost from the public pages.
Sovereignty, side by side
Dimension
inFlow Inventory
Katana
Legal entity
Not determined
Not determined
Ownership
Not determined
Not determined
Data residency
US by default
Not determined
Subprocessors
US CLOUD Act reach
US CLOUD Act reach
Facts, side by side
Only facts both products carry under the same definition — anything else would not be a fair row.
As of 28 Oct 2026, the panel rates Katana higher: 3/5 against 2.5/5. Weighted by what each judge cares about, 2 of the 6 judges pick inFlow Inventory and 4 pick Katana. Which one fits depends on the criteria that matter to you; the table on this page shows both side by side, and each judge’s reading has its own page. Both were scored by the same AI bench under the same rubric, from public evidence only, as the methodology describes.
Is inFlow Inventory or Katana European?
inFlow Inventory is not European by provenance (Rest of world). Katana is European (EU-Made). Provenance is read from each company’s own legal pages: who builds it and who owns it.
Where do inFlow Inventory and Katana store customer data?
Per the vendors’ own pages as captured — inFlow Inventory: In the US by default. Katana: its pages as captured do not say.
Do inFlow Inventory and Katana have a free plan?
As of 28 Oct 2026, Katana’s own pages state a free plan; inFlow Inventory’s pages as captured do not. Each product page links the pricing page it was read from.