As of 28 Oct 2026, the panel rates JTL-Wawi 3.5/5 and Xentral 3/5 in ERP. Weighted by what each judge cares about, 6 of the 6 judges pick JTL-Wawi and 0 pick Xentral. JTL-Wawi scores higher on 6 of 7 criteria (Finance, tax & compliance, Rollout, roles & operations, Pricing transparency, plus 3 more). Xentral scores higher on 1 of 7 criteria (European sovereignty). Provenance — JTL-Wawi: EU-Made; Xentral: EU-Made. Ratings are the AI panel’s opinion, formed from public evidence: how scores are made.
JTL-Wawi holds the higher mean on six of seven criteria, firmest in finance and compliance, 6.8 versus 5.8 with five judges leaning JTL-Wawi and one tie, and rollout and operations, 7.2 versus 6.5 with four leaning JTL-Wawi and two ties. Sovereignty leans the other way, 4.3 versus 4.0 with two judges for Xentral and four ties: Xentral's data residency is listed as EU-only, though its subprocessor exposure is listed as US Cloud Act, while JTL-Wawi's pages state the software remains on JTL's server with no public information on hosting country. Orders and inventory sits at 8.3 versus 8.0, two leans to JTL-Wawi and four ties, Xentral holding a flat 8 on batch, serial and best-before tracking. Weighted totals run 6.1 to 7.3 for JTL-Wawi and 5.8 to 6.8 for Xentral; the leans split by criterion, so no overall winner.
Choose JTL-Wawi if
You need GoBD-conform archiving, ELSTER and One-Stop-Shop transmission from the ERP — finance and compliance leans JTL-Wawi 6.8 to 5.8, five judges to one tie.
Your team sells across Amazon, eBay and 30+ marketplaces and needs automatic order import with real-time stock synchronisation that prevents overselling — orders and inventory runs 8.3 to 8.0.
You want edition prices up front: three editions are publicly priced and pricing transparency leans JTL-Wawi 6.0 to 5.5, while Xentral's pages cannot compute an annual total from the from-prices.
Your rollout and day-to-day operations load matters most — that criterion leans JTL-Wawi 7.2 to 6.5, four judges to two ties.
You file VAT returns directly from the ERP — JTL-Wawi documents ELSTER transmission, while Xentral's pages mark VAT advance returns as a long-term goal or limited to corrections.
Choose Xentral if
Your procurement requires an EU-only data residency listing — Xentral's data residency is listed as EU-only, though its subprocessor exposure is listed as US Cloud Act.
You need batch, serial and best-before tracking across warehouses with scanner goods receipt and batch picking — orders and inventory holds a flat 8 for Xentral, while JTL-Wawi's sharpest judge gap turned on serial-number and recall gaps.
Your data protection review needs a published data processing agreement and an external German data protection officer — both are published for Xentral; JTL-Wawi's pages give no public information on a data processing agreement.
Sovereignty is your deciding criterion — it is the only criterion where judges lean Xentral at all, 4.3 versus 4.0, two judges leaning Xentral and four ties.
Read this comparison as one judge. Each weighs the same scores by what they care about.
The IT Integrator
Looks after IT for a mid-sized manufacturer and has to connect the ERP to the shop, the bank, payroll, the BI tool and a supplier's EDI. Wants a public, versioned API with webhooks and a sandbox, roles and an audit log, hosting and subprocessors named, and a full export the day the company leaves.
JTL-Wawi
This judge's pick
Xentral
Criterion by criterion
Finance, tax & compliance
JTL-Wawi
Invoicing, dunning with configurable deadlines and fees, per-country VAT with OSS, ELSTER transmission, real-time bank and payment matching and GoBD-conform archiving are all documented, together with a DATEV booking-data export and a JTL2DATEV service for the accountant. I found no public information on a general ledger, a GoBD procedure documentation, an auditor's attestation or multi-company books — and the vendor itself writes that payroll belongs to comprehensive ERP systems rather than to a goods-flow system.
Xentral
The finance pages show a working pre-accounting layer: invoices and credit notes, automated payment matching from PayPal, Stripe, Klarna and Amazon, dunning in the Pro plan, e-invoices sent automatically in ZUGFeRD and XML since 1 January 2025 and read in ZUGFeRD, XRechnung, XML and PDF, GoBD-conformant invoice processing, OSS readiness and a one-click DATEV export with a full export list. But the pages themselves say the ledger side is not there yet — BWA, Saldenliste and UStVA directly out of the system are a long-term goal, direct posting is limited to corrections, and several ledger features are marked as in further development or coming soon, so the books do not close inside the system.
Purchasing, inventory & order processing
JTL-Wawi
The goods chain is evidenced end to end: demand-based purchase proposals from minimum stock, lead times and sales forecasts, goods receipt and drop shipping, several warehouses with storage locations, batch and best-before capture, mobile barcode picking, returns with credit notes and click-based refunds, marketplace connections with real-time stock sync, and stock movements posted for valuation. I found no public information on recall traceability per batch from supplier to customer, so I stop just below the top.
Xentral
The goods chain is the strongest part: a documented process from order through payment, picking, shipping, invoice and posting, purchase orders with scanner-based goods receipt that books stock, real-time stock across unlimited warehouses, batch, serial and best-before tracking with FiFo/LiFo, mobile batch picking with location, article and box scanning, DHL/DPD/UPS and shop/marketplace connections, returns with credit notes, order suggestions and EDI, plus stock valuation from purchase prices. What I did not find documented is recall traceability per batch from supplier to customer and attributed, dated warehouse movements — that keeps it off the top level.
Manufacturing, services & projects
JTL-Wawi
Production is included in every edition and the pages show bills of materials (several per article), three production modes including demand-driven, work orders consuming stock with batch and best-before assignment, and a touch workbench with multilingual instructions and checklists at the line. I found no public information on multi-level bills of materials, routings, work centres or capacity planning, which is what I would need before running a plant on it.
Xentral
For manufacturing the pages document bills of materials with production orders consuming stock, external production orders, per-order time tracking on tablets or scanners with material consumption, and post-calculation — and they state the limits openly: not designed for multi-stage manufacturing, detailed capacity planning, fine scheduling or machine connection. Services get projects with subprojects, hours booked and billed from logged time, service reports signed on site and subscription billing; no routings, work centres or MRP runs are documented, which keeps it below the deeper level.
Integration, API & data portability
JTL-Wawi
The connector side is strong — a marketplace with 700+ extensions and out-of-the-box links to shops, Amazon and eBay, banks via HBCI/FinTS, PayPal, Amazon Pay and Mollie, plus DATEV, a vendor migration team and a documented local installation on my own server. But REST API access sits in the Enterprise edition and is flagged as Beta, and I found no public information on a versioned API reference, webhooks, sandbox tenants or a documented full export when the company leaves; the terms also state that no source code is delivered.
Xentral
An open API is named, with API access from the Business plan, maximum API rate limits and volume in Scale, a pricing FAQ covering API, Flows and Xentral Connect, and CSV, XML and API bulk import plus a document importer for receipts from the previous system; the marketplace lists 200+ connectors with monthly prices, including DATEV, shops, carriers, payroll via Personio and a free MCP server connecting ChatGPT and Claude to live ERP data. What I could not find is a public, versioned API reference, webhooks, a developer sandbox, or a documented full export of master data, documents and postings when the company leaves — the exact things I need to sign a contract.
Rollout, roles & operations
JTL-Wawi
Three implementation paths are public — free download with guide and forum, vendor installation by remote maintenance, and 280+ certified partners with on-site setup plus a project exchange — with edition-tiered support whose response times (three business days at Bronze, one day at Silver, half-day callback at Gold) and status pages for shipping and hosting are stated. Access rights and timestamped, traceable bookings are documented; typical go-live duration, release notes and uptime history are not on the captured pages.
Xentral
Go-live is unusually well covered: 8-12 weeks typical with preconfigured processes, named customer cases from 18 days to two months, and a 56+ certified partner network with gold, silver and bronze tiers doing implementation and first-level support; support runs through helpbot, help centre and tickets with an emergency flag, plus Academy and learning paths, no-code customisation in Flows, automatic updates and a Premium SLA named for the Scale plan. But the captured pages show no roles and permissions model, no system-wide change log beyond a per-order history of who did what when, and no published availability figures or status page.
European sovereignty
JTL-Wawi
The legal notice and terms prove a German contracting entity — JTL-Software-GmbH in Hückelhoven, registered at the local district court — with a named data protection officer and a local-installation alternative. Where the cloud data is hosted is not stated, the processors behind the service are not listed, and I found no public information on a data processing agreement or a certification such as ISO 27001.
Xentral
The contracting entity is proven German — Xentral ERP Software GmbH, registered at Amtsgericht Augsburg, HRB 23930 — and a data processing agreement is offered in the terms; the privacy policy names AWS, a Seattle-based entity, as provider with the server located in Germany, and US marketing tools such as Google Analytics and the Facebook pixel with IP anonymisation stated. What I could not confirm is the ownership chain or where the ERP's business data itself is hosted — the stated server location refers to the website — and the subprocessors behind the actual service are not listed, so only part of the chain is evidenced.
Pricing transparency
JTL-Wawi
Four editions with public monthly prices (Start at 0 €, Advanced from 99 €, Pro from 329 €), order-package rates from 0.22 €, 0.16 € or 0.11 € per further order depending on edition, and production workbench licences priced per station let me compute much of a year's cost. The gaps are real: Enterprise is "Preis auf Anfrage", implementation and migration carry no published package prices, and minimum term and data-return terms on cancellation are not stated.
Xentral
Five editions are public — Launch ab 99 €/Monat, Starter ab 349 €/Monat, Business ab 649 €/Monat, Pro ab 849 €/Monat, Scale on request — each with a feature list, unlimited users at no extra cost and a 14-day trial without credit card, and even marketplace connectors carry monthly prices. But these are starting figures that depend on revenue and shipping volume with no published scaling rule, implementation through partners is unpriced, and minimum term, VAT treatment and what happens to the data on cancellation are not on the captured pages, so the real annual cost is not computable.
Sovereignty, side by side
Dimension
JTL-Wawi
Xentral
Legal entity
Not determined
Not determined
Ownership
Not determined
Not determined
Data residency
Not determined
Not determined
Subprocessors
Not determined
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 JTL-Wawi higher: 3.5/5 against 3/5. Weighted by what each judge cares about, 6 of the 6 judges pick JTL-Wawi and 0 pick Xentral. 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 JTL-Wawi or Xentral European?
JTL-Wawi is European (EU-Made). Xentral is European (EU-Made). Provenance is read from each company’s own legal pages: who builds it and who owns it.
Do JTL-Wawi and Xentral have a free plan?
As of 28 Oct 2026, JTL-Wawi’s own pages state a free plan; Xentral’s pages as captured do not. Each product page links the pricing page it was read from.