As of 30 Oct 2026, the panel rates Lightspeed Restaurant 2.5/5 and Tillhub 2.5/5 in POS & Checkout Systems. Weighted by what each judge cares about, 4 of the 6 judges pick Lightspeed Restaurant and 2 pick Tillhub. Lightspeed Restaurant scores higher on 4 of 7 criteria (Accounting handoff, DATEV & data export, Pricing transparency, Checkout, receipts & hardware, plus 1 more). Tillhub scores higher on 2 of 7 criteria (European sovereignty and Fiscal compliance (TSE, DSFinV-K, RKSV)). Provenance — Lightspeed Restaurant: Rest of world; Tillhub: EU origin, foreign-owned. Ratings are the AI panel’s opinion, formed from public evidence: how scores are made.
The benches split rather than decide. Lightspeed Restaurant is ahead on accounting and portability, 6.7 versus 4.0 with six leaning its way; on pricing transparency, 5.2 versus 4.3 with five leans; and on checkout and hardware, 6.7 versus 6.3 with two leans and four ties. Tillhub is ahead on sovereignty, 5.8 versus 3.8 with six leaning Tillhub, and on fiscal compliance, 5.7 versus 4.7 with five leans and one tie. Payments and fees sits close at 4.3 versus 4.0, one lean and five ties; operations and locations is level at 6.8 to 6.8, one lean each way. The published weighted totals split two and two: the tax adviser, 5.7 to 5.3, and the fee-conscious merchant, 5.3 to 4.9, favor Lightspeed Restaurant; the operations manager, 5.2 to 5.1, and the skeptic, 5.1 to 4.7, favor Tillhub. No overall winner emerges; the split is the finding.
Choose Lightspeed Restaurant if
You keep books through DATEV: Lightspeed Restaurant documents daily automated single records in DSFinV-K format into DATEV Kassenarchiv online and DATEV Kassenbuch online, and six judges lean Lightspeed Restaurant on accounting and portability, 6.7 versus 4.0.
You compare published plan prices before a sales call: five judges lean Lightspeed Restaurant on pricing transparency, 5.2 versus 4.3.
Your counter hardware is already Epson, Star, Safescan, Zebra or Verifone: the named catalogue and an offline mode whose limits are written down sit behind the checkout and hardware lead of 6.7 versus 6.3.
Your review panel includes a tax adviser: that judge's weighted total puts Lightspeed Restaurant ahead, 5.7 to 5.3.
Your compliance checklist requires a listed owner: the sovereignty attribute records Lightspeed Restaurant's ownership as listed.
Choose Tillhub if
You need to know where your data sits: the captured pages state storage immutable on two redundant servers in Germany, and six judges lean Tillhub on sovereignty, 5.8 versus 3.8.
You want TSE included in the till price: Tillhub publishes 'POS Go ab 30 € pro Monat inklusive TSE', and five judges lean Tillhub on fiscal compliance, 5.7 versus 4.7.
Your operations manager signs off the purchase: that judge's weighted total has Tillhub ahead, 5.2 to 5.1.
You read the panel's skeptic as your proxy: that judge's weighted total favors Tillhub, 5.1 to 4.7.
Read this comparison as one judge. Each weighs the same scores by what they care about.
The Tax Adviser
Looks after the books of sixty restaurants, bakeries and shops and has sat in on more than one unannounced Kassennachschau. Wants the TSE named with its certificate, a DSFinV-K export that opens in the auditor's software, the § 146a registration done, a procedure documentation that exists before it is asked for, a DATEV export with the right revenue accounts, and ten years of records still readable after the client changes tills.
Lightspeed Restaurant
This judge's pick
Tillhub
Criterion by criterion
Checkout, receipts & hardware
Lightspeed Restaurant
The hardware page names the real kit — Epson and Star receipt printers, a kitchen printer, Safescan drawers, a Zebra label printer, a 2D scanner and both iPad and iPhone tills — and the offline answer is honest about its limits: data is cached locally and synced later, X- and Z-closings work in the local WLAN, while master data maintenance and cloud reports need a connection. I found no public information on a customer-facing digital receipt, scales, or the purchase or rental terms for the hardware.
Tillhub
Two hardware paths are documented — the till as an iOS app on the Apple iPad and the Android-based POS Go with printer, scanner and card reader built in — plus barcode scanners, customer displays and iPad stands as add-ons. Receipts are printed, e-mailed or shown as a QR code, returns and per-employee storno rights exist, and offline selling with automatic cloud sync is claimed. The offline limits are not stated, no compatibility list with printer models is published, and purchase or rental terms for hardware are not described.
Card payments & fees
Lightspeed Restaurant
Lightspeed Payments is named as the embedded processor with the terminals e285 and v400m, tap to pay on the phone, tips and on-demand payouts within hours even at weekends, plus automated matching against the day. Nowhere on the captured pages did I find a transaction fee, a terminal fee or the acquiring institution published, and the terminal choice is limited to the vendor's own two models.
Tillhub
Card taking is built around Unzer: mobile and stationary terminals that "können problemlos an Deine Tillhub Kasse angebunden werden", an integrated reader in the POS Go, cash, EC, credit card and mobile as methods, and a live UnzerOne transaction dashboard. We found no fee figures — only "Günstige Transaktions- und Grundgebühren" — no payout timing, and only Unzer terminals are described, so a merchant wanting a different acquirer finds nothing here.
Fiscal compliance (TSE, DSFinV-K, RKSV)
Lightspeed Restaurant
A certified cloud TSE is claimed, signing every transaction across cash, vouchers and cards, and the audit hand-off is genuinely strong: single records go daily and automatically in DSFinV-K format into DATEV Kassenarchiv online and on into the Kassenbuch, with Z-closings possible offline. But the TSE provider and its BSI certificate number are not named on the captured pages, and I found nothing on the § 146a registration, a procedure documentation template, ten-year GoBD storage or a second country's fiscal rules.
Tillhub
The cloud TSE from fiskaly is named with its official BSI certification, receipts are automatically signed and archived, ten-year cloud archiving of all receipts is stated, Kassenabschlüsse are created per button press, and a one-click export for Steuerprüfer is offered. I still miss the word DSFinV-K for the export format, any offer of a Verfahrensdokumentation, help with the § 146a AO registration, and any second country's fiscal rules such as the Austrian RKSV.
Inventory, tables, staff & locations
Lightspeed Restaurant
Inventory runs deep — suppliers with multi-supplier links, automated reorders, recipes and waste management — and the kitchen display with stations, a QR ordering channel and unlimited locations under central stock and benchmark reporting cover most of what my gastro clients need. I found no public information on staff logins with granular rights or a per-employee log of cancellations and cash differences.
Tillhub
Articles with Warengruppen and images, price books by time and by Filiale, central stock across branches with supplier management, digital stocktaking and goods receipts, staff with individual rights, Kassensturz at shift change and per-employee analyses, plus table plan, Funkbonierung, Trinkgeldfunktion and the Orderpro waiter ordering system for gastro. A kitchen display and guest self-order are not described, and no per-void change log or stock transfer between branches is promised.
Accounting handoff, DATEV & data export
Lightspeed Restaurant
The DATEV hand-off is the strongest thing here: daily automated DSFinV-K single records into DATEV Kassenarchiv online, automatic mapping of product categories, accounts and payment methods, corrections re-sent as new transactions, an invitation for my DATEV login, and a direct API offered as an add-on with published documentation. A complete export of articles, customers and sales at contract end is not stated anywhere I read.
Tillhub
A "DATEV-konforme Datenübergabe" is offered monthly or quarterly, Kassenabschlüsse export for the Steuerberater, and sales, stock and staff reports go out as CSV, Excel or PDF with scheduled sending. Whether the DATEV export carries revenue accounts and tax rates is not stated, an API or webhooks are not documented, and we found no public information on a complete export or continued access when a client cancels.
European sovereignty
Lightspeed Restaurant
German customers contract with Lightspeed POS Germany GmbH in Berlin with a commercial register number, and payments run through Lightspeed Netherlands B.V., but the infrastructure is described only as unnamed third-party multi-tenant providers with no location stated and the subprocessor list lives on an English-language page; the group itself is Canadian. SOC 2 Type 2 and ISO 27001 are claimed for the infrastructure providers' controls, though the hosting country, the cloud TSE provider and the payment licensing are not named on the captured pages.
Tillhub
The contracting entity is UTill Commerce GmbH in Hamburg (HRB 97310, Amtsgericht Hamburg), data sits "unveränderbar auf sicheren Servern in Deutschland" with redundant servers, the TSE comes from fiskaly and payment from the Unzer group. The privacy policy names subprocessors with addresses, and the web chain includes US providers (Google/DoubleClick, Hubspot Inc.); a published data processing agreement, a named hosting infrastructure and a certification covering the operating chain rather than the development process are not documented. Tillhub has belonged to the Unzer group since 2022, whose majority owner is the US private-equity firm KKR.
Pricing transparency
Lightspeed Restaurant
Three plans are published at 89 €, 159 € and 249 € per month with each further licence at 49 €, free 24/7 support, first setup included, and monthly contracts ending at the month's end while annual ones cannot be cancelled early. But the TSE fee, hardware prices, card transaction fees and the add-ons — the kitchen display points to a separate pricing page — are not stated on the captured pages, so a year's real cost for a client is not computable.
Tillhub
Two public prices exist — "POS Go ab 30 € pro Monat inklusive TSE - iPad Kassen ab 69 € pro Monat" — and the TSE inclusion is at least stated. Card fees appear only as "Günstige Transaktions- und Grundgebühren" without figures, and we found no public prices for hardware, setup, support plans, or a minimum term and notice period, so the annual cost is not computable.
Sovereignty, side by side
Dimension
Lightspeed Restaurant
Tillhub
Legal entity
Not determined
Not determined
Hosting location
Not determined
Not determined
Hosting options
Not determined
Not determined
Open source
Not determined
Not determined
Data processing agreement
Not determined
Not determined
Transfer impact assessment
Not determined
Not determined
Facts, side by side
Only facts both products carry under the same definition — anything else would not be a fair row.
Which is better, Lightspeed Restaurant or Tillhub?
As of 30 Oct 2026, the panel rates both 2.5/5. Weighted by what each judge cares about, 4 of the 6 judges pick Lightspeed Restaurant and 2 pick Tillhub. 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 Lightspeed Restaurant or Tillhub European?
Lightspeed Restaurant is not European by provenance (Rest of world). Tillhub is European (EU origin, foreign-owned). Provenance is read from each company’s own legal pages: who builds it and who owns it.
Where do Lightspeed Restaurant and Tillhub store customer data?
Per the vendors’ own pages as captured — Lightspeed Restaurant: its pages as captured do not say. Tillhub: Default not stated; pages mention Germany.