eMaint vs UpKeep: A Comprehensive Comparison for Smart CMMS Choices

November 12, 2024
Dr.-Ing. Simon Spelzhausen

eMaint vs UpKeep 2024: Reviews, Features, and Pricing

Are you concerned about the lack of visibility into your maintenance processes? As a manufacturer, tracking what equipment needs maintenance, when it’s due, and who is responsible can be challenging leading to inefficiencies and unplanned downtime.

A CMMS (Computerized Maintenance Management System) can make your life easier by giving you clear visibility and control over maintenance processes so you no longer have to stress about tracking all your operations. But with a pool of options out there, choosing the right software for your business can be overwhelming.

To help you make an informed choice, this article dives deep into eMaint vs UpKeep CMMS platforms. We'll explore their key features, pricing, and ratings, giving you the insights needed to choose the best fit for your business.

What is eMaint?

eMaint is a cloud-based CMMS software developed by Fluke Reliability, designed to help maintenance professionals monitor and manage their assets. Trusted by over 50,000 users worldwide, this software is a great tool to help you predict failures, reduce downtime, and boost overall reliability.

Ideal for small businesses and large, multi-site operations, eMaint focuses on integrating maintenance management with data acquisition and analysis. This gives you real-time visibility into your operations and empowers maintenance managers to make data-driven decisions that prevent downtime. Mobile access is also supported for teams who are on the go.

eMaint pros and cons

eMaint Key Features

eMaint CMMS platform offers a rich set of features making it one of the best CMMS software options for enhancing efficiency. These include:

Predictive Maintenance

eMaint's predictive maintenance feature allows you to monitor critical assets and gain quick insights through its integrated vibration and temperature sensors.

You can set up alarms to notify your team of potential faults, ensuring timely intervention. For instance, you can trigger alarms when vibration levels indicate issues like misalignment, looseness, imbalance, or bearing failure.

Work Order Management

You can simplify the organization, creation, assignment, and tracking of work orders with eMaint. Its search functionality and customizable workspace make it easy to manage tasks.

It also allows you to create multi-asset work orders, route-based inspection orders, and standardized templates with built-in procedures so your work orders move smoothly through all approval levels.

Asset Management

With eMaint, you can browse a searchable asset hierarchy that provides quick access to important maintenance data. Additionally, its configurable view lets you personalize your workspace, showing current asset information, details of asset tracking, and key metrics like related spare parts.

You can also review maintenance history, and track the lifecycle of assets for better visibility into condition monitoring, and failure trends.

Inventory Management

This platform offers a comprehensive inventory control helping you keep track of spare parts. With its configurable and user-friendly view, you can also personalize your workspace.

eMaint also supports The Parts Reorder List (PRL) which notifies you when parts dip below set limits, giving you information on slow-moving parts and helping you plan accordingly.

Analytics and Reporting

eMaint CMMS allows you to design custom reports and dashboards to gain instant insights into maintenance activities and key performance indicators (KPIs). The user-friendly interface further allows you to explore metrics like uptime, mean time to repair (MTTR), and overall equipment effectiveness (OEE).

If you want real-time visibility, you can also generate automated reports on a set schedule, providing data on asset health status, spare parts inventory, and more.

eMaint Pricing

eMaint lets you choose between three pricing tiers to fit various business needs. The Enterprise plan which is available through a custom quote, supports five or more users and includes extensive features and large storage capacity. The Professional plan costs $85 per user per month, supports three or more users, and offers a robust set of features with moderate storage. Lastly, the Team plan, priced at $69 per user per month for a three-user package, provides essential CMMS features and basic storage. 

eMaint Rating

Most users appreciate eMaint CMMS for its quick customer service and user-friendly interface. These features have helped eMaint earn high ratings and become a popular choice for professionals seeking versatile CMMS software.

One of the users reviewed eMaint on G2 and says," Love the notifications of when PM's are generated. It takes the guesswork and communicational time out of the equation. It is very user-friendly and my techs have no problems navigating the system. Customer support is quick and the help center has relative material you can access 24-7."

What is UpKeep?

UpKeep was launched in 2015, and emerged as a mobile-first maintenance management software designed to refine maintenance tasks. UpKeep's primary focus is simplifying your work orders, asset tracking, inventory control, and preventive maintenance scheduling.

The working model of this CMMS software is ideal for a dispersed workforce as UpKeep allows your teams to manage things like budgets and work orders from a single platform. Technicians can respond to issues on the go, improving communication and eliminating the need for paperwork.

With its mobile accessibility and comprehensive features, UpKeep makes sure that your maintenance operations are handled promptly and effectively.

UpKeep pros and cons (table)

Main Upkeep Features

UpKeep comes with powerful features that can refine your maintenance processes. 

Preventive Maintenance

UpKeep's mobile app allows you to manage your preventive maintenance schedule from anywhere. This improves technician management as they can carry checklists and manuals in their pockets, making it easy to log meter readings, include photos, and close tasks on the spot. 

You can access these preventive maintenance checklists, schedules, and service history tracking records in just a few clicks.

Furthermore, the app's home screen displays prioritized tasks, prompting your teams to complete them timely.

Work Order Management

The platform supports filtering tasks by technician, location, due date, status, and priority. UpKeep also allows you to automatically create and assign work orders with mobile push notifications. With UpKeep, your team of technicians can attach PDFs, photos, and videos for clarity and save time.

Integrations

UpKeep can be smoothly integrated with different third-party services. It offers API, Webhooks, and Zapier workflows for hassle-free data sharing and workflow automation across your organization. The platform also provides white-glove integration services to create the necessary automation without requiring additional technical expertise.

Inventory Management

You can manage your inventory from anywhere using a tablet or smartphone with UpKeep's inventory management app. It lets you add spare parts to work orders manually or by scanning a QR code.

For example, if you think that you are missing a part, UpKeep enables you to update the work order and notify managers so everyone is on the same page about restocking. With this flexibility, your maintenance remains agile and systematic.

Safety and Compliance

Maintain safety and compliance with UpKeep's easy-to-find safety manuals and historical documentation. The platform's Asset Operations Management provides configurable analytics and reporting capabilities, so when needed, the inspectors and regulators have all the necessary information about your assets.

Additionally, UpKeep has compliance templates that prevent important tasks from being overlooked, eliminating wasted time and resources.

UpKeep Pricing

UpKeep provides a tiered pricing model to meet the needs of businesses of all sizes. Whether you’re a small team needing basic asset tracking or a large organization requiring comprehensive maintenance management, UpKeep has a plan for you.

The pricing tiers—Lite, Starter, Professional, and Business+—each offer progressively more features, integrations, number of users, and support.

UpKeep Rating

Many users value UpKeep CMMS for its intuitive interface and flexible customization options. 

One of the users shared about their experience with UpKeep on G2 and mentioned, "The layout of the platform is very user-friendly and easy to navigate. One of the best features of UpKeep is their Mobile App, which is super helpful for on-the-go people who need to open up tickets with pictures, or for techs who need to check on maintenance requests while away from their desk."

eMaint vs UpKeep: Feature & Pricing Comparison

Predictive Maintenance

eMaint offers advanced predictive maintenance with integrated vibration and temperature sensors for real-time monitoring. On the other hand, UpKeep focuses more on preventive maintenance with customizable triggers and mobile offline mode.

Work Order Management

Work order management is supported on both platforms. eMaint provides comprehensive work order management tools making it a good choice for complex needs. Meanwhile, UpKeep is ideal for user-friendly, mobile work order management as it offers an intuitive system with different filtering options and mobile push notifications.

Asset Management

Asset management is supported on both platforms. eMaint features a searchable asset hierarchy and customizable workspace for detailed maintenance data, suitable for desktop-based management. UpKeep on the other end offers robust mobile-friendly asset management, perfect for on-the-go access to asset information.

Inventory Management

Inventory management is a feature supported on both platforms. While eMaint tracks spare parts and provides notifications for low stock with a customizable view, offering detailed control. UpKeep simplifies inventory management with a mobile app for adding parts manually or via QR codes.

Although both are strong inventory management tools, UpKeep's mobile functionality offers an edge for real-time updates.

Safety and Compliance

Although safety and compliance are ensured on both platforms, eMaint provides detailed analytics and reporting for compliance, ideal for those needing in-depth data. UpKeep on the other hand offers easy access to safety manuals and historical documentation, making it a great tool for those who want a well-maintained and streamlined documentation.

Mobile Accessibility

eMaint and UpKeep offer mobile access but differ in functionality. eMaint supports mobile use but focuses on providing a rich desktop experience. Meanwhile, UpKeep is a mobile-first CMMS software, offering robust on-the-go management via its app making it a clear winner for mobile accessibility.

Pricing Comparison

eMaint and UpKeep both come with tiered pricing plans. eMaint's plans are generally higher in cost, starting at $69 per user per month, with extensive features suitable for larger teams and complex needs. UpKeep offers a more accessible entry point with plans starting at $20 per user per month.

eMaint vs UpKeep on Review Platforms

We delved into user feedback on different review platforms to understand what people think about the two CMMS software. While both platforms receive praise for their strengths, users also highlight aspects that can be improved for the overall user experience.

In the case of eMaint, users appreciate the tool for its flexibility and find it easy to set up and scalable for various maintenance needs:

  • "eMaint is highly flexible. I’ve used it at two different places for two totally different types of equipment."
  • "The best part is the support they provide. Even at their middle-of-the-road package, I had a dedicated support person."

However, users also note that eMaint comes with a few problems. They expressed that the mobile interface can be challenging to use and setting up reports can also be a headache:

  • "The mobile user interface is not the easiest to use."
  • "Trying to set up reports can be difficult."

On the other hand, UpKeep receives praise for its intuitive user interface and useful mobile app:

  • "The user interface is intuitive, and the mobile app is particularly useful for on-the-go updates."
  • "Simple and intuitive for the end user"

On the downside, some users report performance issues with UpKeep and express their concerns about its occasional bugs while reporting:

  • "Sometimes it is very slow and will not allow you to finish the task you are working on"
  • "We want to be able to run reports that are not tedious."

The variation in user feedback and experiences highlights that both eMaint and UpKeep come with their own strengths and weaknesses, and you must consider which features are most critical for your operations before making a choice.

To make this decision easier, here's an all in one solution for you.

Makula: A Better Alternative to eMaint vs UpKeep

Makula emerges as a powerful CMMS among other available options. It is designed to refine maintenance operations in industries like manufacturing. Furthermore, if you want to address inefficiencies in your asset lifecycle and work order management, Makula is a great tool for this, all at a competitive price.

The primary focus of this software is on user efficiency and satisfaction with its intuitive design and advanced customization options. It allows you to fine-tune your maintenance operations, prioritizing features that improve outcomes and team coordination without the clutter of unnecessary add ons.

If you want to discover what is it about Makula that makes it stand out as a robust choice for optimizing your business operations, book a demo to learn more.

Makula Key Features

Work Order Management

Makula can simplify your work order management from creation to completion. With this tool, you can generate service requests by selecting the facility and machine, specifying the reporter, and detailing the required work. These requests are then prioritized for timely execution.

Makula also supports the use of tools like calendars, maps, and Kanban boards which make it a breeze to manage schedules, track progress, and coordinate tasks.

3D Visualization Tools

Makula offers high-end 3D visualization tools that allow maintenance workers to view machine parts in 3D on any device. This feature is a great assistance in issue resolution and improves communication with suppliers, customers, and partners. 

Maintenance workers can easily identify parts and link them to inventory for seamless functionality. This feature is especially beneficial for industries such as oil and gas, utilities, and manufacturing.

Preventive Maintenance Management

You can automate your preventive maintenance schedules with Makula to extend equipment lifespan and reduce downtime. 

This lets you set up maintenance events based on usage data or sensor insights to prevent failures.

For example, meter-based maintenance uses integrated machine meters to automatically trigger work orders. This proactive approach saves time, and money while keeping your equipment in the best working condition.

Digital Maintenance Forms

Makula's feature of digital maintenance forms allows you to collect maintenance data offline using digital forms that sync automatically when reconnected to the internet. You can add pictures to forms for detailed visual records, eliminating the need for paper documentation.

The mobile access to these forms lets you gain real-time data about maintenance on mobile devices, collect signatures, monitor statuses, and receive updates.

Additionally, the feature allows OEMs (Original equipment manufacturers) to create and maintain a comprehensive library of machine service history tracking.

Smooth Integration Capabilities

Makula supports integrations with various third-party applications, including ERP and CRM systems. The API links your systems, automating processes and maximizing scope. Additionally, the CSV upload feature simplifies data import from other software, allowing easy input of spreadsheet data without complex integrations.

Asset Management Solution

You can manage assets effectively with Makula giving mobile access to key machine information from such as model, extra documentation, and warranty. This means you can schedule and plan repairs or replacements confidently.

Makula also supports real-time asset management facilitating you in making informed decisions about maintenance and replacements. All it takes is adding production lines, specifying essential details, and choosing facilities if needed.

User-Friendly Design

Makula's intuitive user interface allows for a smooth user experience. Whether handling maintenance activities or managing assets, the user-friendly design allows teams to work efficiently with minimal training.

Final Verdict: Which One is Better for You?

decision, choice

Choosing between eMaint, UpKeep, and Makula depends on your specific business needs and priorities. Here’s a breakdown to help you decide which software is the best fit for your organization:

Scalability:

  • eMaint: Ideal for larger enterprises needing comprehensive maintenance solutions.
  • UpKeep: Suitable for small to medium-sized businesses prioritizing ease of use and on-the-go functionality.
  • Makula: Offers scalability for both small and large enterprises with versatile and user-friendly features.

User Experience:

  • eMaint: Highly customizable but less intuitive, especially on mobile.
  • UpKeep: Excels in user experience with an intuitive, user-friendly interface.
  • Makula: Combines ease of use with advanced features, offering an intuitive interface and extensive customization options.

Cost-Effectiveness:

  • eMaint: Higher starting cost with extensive features suitable for larger enterprises.
  • UpKeep: More affordable with essential maintenance management features for smaller businesses.
  • Makula: Competitive pricing with advanced features, offering high value for businesses seeking a cost-effective solution.

Makula stands out as an excellent choice for a versatile yet easy-to-use CMMS. Its advanced features, such as digital maintenance forms and 3D visualizations, cater to the evolving needs of modern maintenance management.

Key Takeaways

  • Make a Note of Scalability: It is important to choose a CMMS that can grow with your organization.
  • Ensure Good User Experience: Opt for a platform with an intuitive interface and minimal training requirements so it saves time.
  • Consider Cost-Effectiveness: Consider your budget and select a solution that offers the necessary features within your financial constraints.
  • Decide on Your Maintenance Focus: Decide if you need advanced predictive maintenance or simpler preventive maintenance capabilities.
  • Think About Your Integration Needs: It is crucial to know your operational needs and if the chosen CMMS can integrate easily with your existing systems.
  • Examine the Mobile Accessibility: Prioritize mobile-friendly platforms in real-time, and remote management is important for your business and teams

If you are interested in learning more about our product, schedule your demo today to experience the ease and power of advanced maintenance management.

Dr.-Ing. Simon Spelzhausen
Co Founder & Chief Product Officer

Simon Spelzhausen, an engineering expert with a proven track record of driving business growth through innovative solutions, honed through his experience at Volkswagen.