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 Managing Director
Runs a sixty-person wholesaler that outgrew an invoicing tool, two Excel stock lists and a shop backend nobody reconciles. Wants one system that goes live without stopping the business for a quarter, an implementation path and cost they can plan before signing, and a vendor that will still be there when the contract renews.
JTL-Wawi
This judge's pick
Xentral
Criterion by criterion
Finance, tax & compliance
JTL-Wawi
For my books this is strong: GoBD-compliant archiving, automated dunning, VAT per country with ELSTER and One-Stop-Shop, real-time payment matching from banks and payment providers, and booking-data export to my tax adviser's DATEV. We found no public information on a general ledger, a procedure documentation or multi-company postings inside the system, so it sits a notch below a full financials suite.
Xentral
Invoices, payments and dunning run in the system with automatic VAT splitting, OSS readiness, e-invoices sent as ZUGFeRD and XML and received in XRechnung, ZUGFeRD, XML and PDF, plus a one-click DATEV export and DATEVconnect online — exactly the hand-over my accountant wants, and GoBD-compliant invoicing is stated. The ledger side is still moving: the immutable journal is marked coming soon, the receivables overview and tax module are in further development, and direct booking is described as planned and limited mainly to corrections.
Purchasing, inventory & order processing
JTL-Wawi
This is the strongest link for a wholesaler like me: purchasing with demand-driven order proposals per warehouse based on minimum stocks, lead times and sales forecasts, goods receipt, dropshipping, multi-warehouse operation with barcode scanning, batches and best-before dates, mobile picking, marketplaces from Amazon to eBay with automatic order import and real-time stock sync, and returns with credit notes and click-based refunds. We found no public information on serial-number tracking or recall traceability from supplier to customer.
Xentral
Orders from shops, marketplaces or CSV run through payment, picking, shipping, invoice and posting; goods receipt with scanner books stock, batch picking scans location, article and box, and multiple warehouses, batch, serial and best-before tracking, returns with credit notes, carrier connections and stock valuation from purchase prices are all described. Purchase orders and order proposals are absent in several lower packages and the AI purchasing agent is announced as not yet available; we found no public information on drop shipping.
Manufacturing, services & projects
JTL-Wawi
Production with bills of materials, production orders consuming stock, batches and best-before dates, and a touch workbench with guided steps is included in every edition and priced openly, which covers light assembly or finishing. We found no public information on capacity planning, routings, multi-level bills of materials, or time recording and project billing, so the depth stops short of a manufacturer's planning suite.
Xentral
The vendor names its models: bills of materials with production orders, time recording per production order by tablet or scanner, internal and outsourced production on one platform, and for services projects with logged hours billed in two clicks plus subscription and collective invoicing. The pages themselves cap the depth — Xentral is stated as built for simple to medium production and not laid out for several manufacturing stages, detailed capacity planning or machine connection — and we found no public information on project budgets, resource planning or milestone billing.
Integration, API & data portability
JTL-Wawi
The connector side is broad — more than thirty marketplaces out of the box, banks via HBCI/FinTS, PayPal, Amazon Pay and Mollie, DATEV, an EDI module and 700-plus extensions — plus a migration team for the switch. REST-API access, however, is listed as a Beta of the Enterprise edition, and we found no public information on a public API reference, webhooks or a documented full export on leaving; a local installation on my own server is documented as the alternative to the cloud.
Xentral
An open API and the Xentral Connect middleware are named, order import runs via CSV, XML or API, a document importer brings receipts from the previous system in already allocated and booked, and a marketplace with monthly prices covers shops, marketplaces, carriers and finance software including DATEV. We found no public information on a public versioned API reference with webhooks or on a full export of master data, documents and postings when leaving — the two points that decide my exit risk.
Rollout, roles & operations
JTL-Wawi
I can plan a go-live three ways from public pages: self-integration with a free guide and forum, a free initial consultation with remote installation by the vendor, or 280-plus certified service partners reached through a project exchange; support tiers with published response times from three business days to phone callback sit per edition. What I miss before signing: typical implementation duration, uptime history on the status pages, and test tenants; permissions and user administration plus timestamped change tracking on bookings are documented.
Xentral
Go-live planning is concrete: typical go-live in 8–12 weeks with named customer examples at 18 days, six weeks and under two months, standard processes and certified partners carrying the switch without a delivery stop, 56+ partner agencies listed by tier, support via helpbot, help centre, community and ticket with an emergency flag, and no-code Xentral Flows built without waiting for the next release. Beyond a per-order log of who did what and when, we found no public information on a role and permission model, a change log, or published service levels and availability beyond the Premium-SLA named for the top package.
European sovereignty
JTL-Wawi
The contracting entity is proven — JTL-Software-GmbH in Hückelhoven with register court, register number and VAT number — and a local installation on my own server is documented. We found no public information on where the hosted database runs or which subprocessors stand behind the AI agent, the document management and the finance and tax modules, so the chain beyond the German entity stays unverified.
Xentral
The contracting entity is Xentral ERP Software GmbH in Augsburg with a German commercial register entry, hosting is stated as in Germany, a data processing agreement is offered and a German external data protection officer is named. But the named provider is Amazon Web Services Inc. with a Seattle address, Google and Facebook marketing tools and ChatGPT or Claude connections via MCP run through non-EU providers without a stated safeguard, and we found no public information on the ownership chain or a certification; an on-premise option appears only in a general explanation of operating models while all published packages are cloud.
Pricing transparency
JTL-Wawi
Three of four editions carry public monthly prices — 0 € / Monat, ab 99 € / Monat, ab 329 € / Monat — with unlimited users in every edition, a clear per-order rate for marketplace orders and public add-on prices down to the workbench licences; Enterprise is "Preis auf Anfrage". We found no public information on implementation and migration fees, minimum term, VAT treatment or data return on cancellation, so the full annual cost is not yet computable.
Xentral
Editions are public with their inclusions — Launch ab 99 €/Monat through Pro ab 849 €/Monat — users cost nothing extra, the plan matrix shows which functions sit in which package, and marketplace connectors carry monthly prices. But prices are stated as depending on revenue and shipping volume, the top package Scale is "Auf Anfrage", and we found no public information on implementation or onboarding fees, minimum term, VAT treatment or data return on cancellation — so I cannot compute my real annual cost without a sales call.
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.