Lavu POS vs Lightspeed Restaurant Comparison

Square Point of Sale

Toast POS

Clover

TouchBistro

Revel Systems

Squirrel POS

My Review

Hi Etosha! Thank you for letting us know about your experience with Lavu - we will work on the issues you have come across to make it the best POS for all of our customers!

This is a wonderful product with amazing customer support. 

Thank you Lavu. 

Hi Bryce, thank you so much for your feedback! We truly appreciate hearing from our customers. If you need anything, please don't hesitate to reach out.

A+++. But my experience may vary since I had my local payments guy help me out! He’s outstanding.

Lavu Point-Of-Sale

Hi Donnell, thanks so much for taking your time to share your experience with Lavu. It means so much to us to hear that everything has been great!

Lavu has made it much easier for our restaurant to handle the influx of customers during the summer months 

Seafood restaurant 

Hi Mia, thank you for your feedback! It's great to hear how well Lavu has worked for your restaurant and staff. Please reach out if you have any questions! 

I have had an overall very good experience with Lavu at my previous hostessing job. 

Lavu Software Review

Hi Tarina, thanks for letting us know how well Lavu is working for you and your former restaurant. We greatly appreciate the feedback!

Overall, for the two years the system was satisfacotry. Until recenlty it was for the current management at the restaurant. The dealer is helpful - he is our first line of tech support before we go to KLAvu for support.

Former Lavu User

Hello and thank you for your review! We appreciate the feedback and we are happy that Lavu worked so well for your business. 

It's a very nice system. Easy to use and a better cost than others. It needs a lot of work providing more flexibility in changing features that your place might need more than another. 

Not a bad system, not a great system

Hi Scott, thanks for your feedback! Over the past few years, we've greatly improved the customization and features that Lavu offers, making it great for any type of restaurant. 

Thi POS is great, simple adn easy.  Disappointed of how coustmer service followed up to solving problem. And also, we have a plan to open another 1 account because we open new bar, we tried reached up by email, phone, they just asnwer to follow up but nothing happen.  

Dissapointed with costumer service and sales!

Hi Gede, thanks for letting us know how Lavu worked for you - we appreciate the feedback. We apologize that a customer service team member did not get back to you soon, and we hope you do not hesitate to reach out again if you have any issues. 

Nothing to come close to outweighing the cons

We are pulling our systems out of our restaurants

Hello Blaine,

We are sorry to hear about your experience and hope we can solve these issues you've been having. Our customer care manager is looking into the issue now and will reach out to you. In the meantime, we recommend reaching out to our 24-hour customer care line 1.855.528.8457 with any immediate issues you may be having. We would be more than happy to address the problems with your system. Again, we apologize for any inconvenience you may have had and look forward to working through these issues. 

-Kristin

fraud by billing request or shutdown lavu

Hi Enung, thanks for your feedback! We really appreciate it. We're sorry that you had some billing difficulties with Lavu, and we would love to hear more details. Please reach out to us at (855) 767-5288.

We had been using a regional POS system for years, and struggling not only with features, but also with reports, analytics, and their customer support. Lavu has stepped in to improve, full the gaps, and take the lead for us in terms of setup and deployment. 

Great system for us!

Hi Jessica! Thanks so much for taking the time to leave your review. We are so glad to hear that you are happy with Lavu!

I seek to help locally owned businesses implement the same level of service as a bigger franchise 

Great restaurant management platform 

Hi Brian, thank you for sharing your experience. We are so glad to hear that you are happy!

Lavu has helped our business stay afloat, especially during Covid as we had to close down. We use their online ordering software, Menudrive, as well. It made it easier for us to survive the pandemic financially and be able to open our doors again when restrictions were up. 

Use as a server and bartender at independent restaurant

Hi Caryn, 
Thank you so much for your feedback, we really appreciate it! It's so great to hear that your restaurant was able to make it through Covid with the help of MenuDrive. Please let us know if you need anything! 

Pros:  very efficient product.. has only malfunctioned once in the four years that I  have been using this product and their customer support helped me resolve the issue in less than an hour

Cons: none to date

Lavu has honestly helped my restaurant become a hit around town. Before I bought this POS system my waitstaff and just overall service was lacking. Lavu has made my restaurant service 10x quicker and has also helped me better track overall trends, which in turn has led to increased sales over the past four years. I highly recommend this system!

Lavu has helped my restaurant reach new heights

Hi Anand, thank you for your review. We are glad to hear that Lavu has been working so well for your restaurant. If you need anything, please reach out at (855) 767-5288. 

A truly innovative piece of software.

Hi Carey, thanks for your feedback! We are happy to hear that Lavu has been the solution to your restaurant's needs. If you need help with anything, please reach out at (855) 767-5288. 

As a restaurant that focuses on local ingredients with constantly changing specials, the image option for ordering in Lavu is important for servers and cooks to be on the same page.  When you have lots of brunch items as specials, sometimes everything looks the same under Hollandaise sauce!

Lavu makes it easier!

Hi Katie, we're really happy that the menu images feature works so well for your ingredient list and custom dishes! We love to hear that! If you need anything, please reach out at (855) 767-5288. 

Processing is a little pricey than most competitors. Took way too long to set up, but once it is ready to go we like it. We will see how it is live with the restaurant,  I cannot say how that will turn out yet since we are not open yet.

True review! With Lavu

Hi Jason, thank you for sharing your experience with Lavu. We are sorry to hear that the experience did not go as planned, but are glad to hear that Nazia did an amazing job. Please reach out if there is anything we can do for you!

Horrendous.   Customer Service pressures retention on cancellations - then they fraudulently charge bank accounts after the fact.    T Their CEO spams all account holders each week with cringe-worthy emails.  Lavu is an embarrassment to the POS industry.  LAVU is a shady company at best and a headache for any real restaurant at worst.

Worst POS System Ever

Hi Jamison, thank you for being a customer of Lavu for more than two years, but I am very sorry to hear how bad your experience was, especially towards the end of your use of us. I do apologize on behalf of the customer support team if you were not contacted in a timely manner, or communications were not clear. We would be happy to sort any remaining issues out, so please let us know if that is something you are interested in. 

Lavu POS

Hi Murtaza, thank you for your review! We love hearing from our customers. We are always working towards making our product the best it can be!

WE LOVE YOU LAVU!

Hi Joe, thank you so much for sharing and the wonderful testimonial. We are so happy that everything went smoothly and you have enjoyed your experience with Lavu! As always, if you need anything please let us know.

Like mention in the previous review by another fellow user, the lavu has it right. But just falling short of being a complete perfect product. 

Pros: 
Easy to use, work well with modifying and custom to my needs for a typical chines restaurant. 

Cons:
When making changes, struggles to load and changes are very slow to execute. One of the major features which made me take this was the "OFFLINE" possibility. I found out this was a lot of hot air! Could only use one device to send when off line and I paid for a gold package  which supposed to worked for all 10 device! Even that with only one device was a real pain just to send an order and half of the time the orders doesn't reach the intended KDS! Glitches are a constance pain to deal with too! 

Conclusion:
Having used this since April 2014, I have been solving problems more then I have benefited for the better as what has been promised. Sad as this is a very good system but just as mentioned before, falling really really short.

Overall Use of Lavu on and off line

Hi John, thank you for your feedback. We're sorry that some of our features have fallen short of your expectations, but we have been working diligently to perfect our product over the years. 

Pros:
If you are running a simple quick serve model restaurant (or another retail business with perhaps one terminal) then the software is easy to program and the system will probably allow for simple modifications to fit your business. 

Additionally, the pricing is fairly competitive for a single license.

Beyond that limited use I would strongly suggest looking for an alternative.  

We used the software for more than 2 years but are aggressively looking to replace.

*Literally dozens of server crashes... 100% preventable 
*Unusable features (delivery, CRM, inventory) - for clarification all of these features are promoted and are in fact inside the package - however none of them did what we expected.  None.
*Anytime there is a problem software support is very nice, and quick to point the finger at someone else (internet speeds, credit card processing, etc.)  
*Promoted (not sure if they still do or not) that user devices were unlimited. ... turns out not to be true... if your user is processing sales (as in point of sale) then that device will require a paid license...
*Doesn't appear to be supporting new CC processing technology and no communication about if they will


Overall a bust and in the three years we have been open it's the stand-out worst decision we've made.
 

Lavu ... Not For U

Hi Thomas, we are sorry that your experience with Lavu was less than optimal. Please reach out to our support team if you would like to discuss at (855) 767-5288. 

I deployed LAVU POS at three of my restaurants several years ago. Initially the basic product was well supported and reasonably easy to use. 

About the time of the pandemic everything changed. The US based customer support staff disappeared and was replaced by a call center in India, our monthly fees nearly doubled (in the middle of the pandemic!) and LAVU rolled out Menu Drive, an online ordering platform, which we subscribed to. 

The biggest problem is that there is little to no integration between Menu Drive (which they purchased from a third party) and the LAVU POS. So any changes you make to pricing or item availability on your POS will not show up in Menu Drive. This was extremely frustrating. Menu Drive itself appears a very rough and amateurish clunky and visually unappealing effort.  

In addition to the constant frustrations with MenuDrive, we began to have major problems with printers randomly going offline several times a day. My managers made endless calls to the LAVU customer support center in India, often waiting hours to get through. On the rare occasions that they were able to reach someone the solutions offered were basic and ineffective. Several times we had to close the restaurant because we were unable to keep LAVU operational for an entire day. 

Between the lack of customer support, the inherently low level of design/functionality in both LAVU POS and Menu Drive, the relativly high monthly cost, I would say avoid at all costs! 

Underdeveloped and unsupported 

Hi Daniel, thank you for letting us know about your experience with Lavu. First and foremost, we are sorry to hear the changes to the product (including MenuDrive) did not benefit you as they were intended. We now have customer service representatives in Mexico City, India, Tampa, and New Mexico to insure our 24/7 support line is answered. If we can help in any way, please reach out. 

I purchased a complete system from LAVU on April 2019 with the intent to upgrade my existing POS from CAKE which served me well the first 4 years of running my restaurant, but being somewhat of a basic system I started feeling like it was holding me back. LAVU was running a 50% off on hardware so I called and spoke to a salesperson. Let me tell you, I wish I had recorded the conversations, as there was very little in common between what was verbally promised and what was actually delivered, VERY LITTLE! Typical sales tactics, they put extreme pressure on you to sign up (do it in the next 6 hours or the promotion expires), give you practically no time to read the fine print, and all of a sudden you find yourself in a 3 years contract with ridicules early termination penalties and a service provider that is incapable of delivering half of what was promised. They count on you not having the time or resources to take them to court. Last remaining hardware piece originally promised arrived 5 months later! Thank god I kept my CAKE system going or I would have gone out of business. Their customer service is of the lowest level you would ever see, especially from an IT company, they provide practically no solutions to issues or a very vague future fix, and their system keeps crashing leaving you with no ability to run your business mid-day and with no warning, time after time. They send you system-wide emails apologizing saying their system was hacked and therefore the interruption i

Stay Away!

Hi Guy, thank you for your feedback. We really appreciate hearing how Lavu worked for your business, and what can be improved. 

Shutting Down During Peak Times

Thank you for your review, Jennifer. We hear what you're saying and we are working diligently to bring offline mode to our customers by late July. We know that the downtime is unacceptable and we appreciate your patience with us. The Lavu Team.

Quick Set Up

If you own small restaurant, you may consider this POS. But they are newbie from retail POS. So if you dont require to many modifier, this is good. 

Need improvement. But good for small business

Great Product for Seasonal Restaurants!

Lightspeed Restaurant Accountant

Been reliable part of our business for over 4 years now. 

Affordable and reliable 

User Friendly

Overall, our experience has been great, but no software is perfect. Their rates are comparable, but the customer support is phenomenal. 

Lightspeed POS for Restaurant

Really happy with this POS, easy to use and learn, customisable, cost effective. Links in well with xero.

Customisable and User Friendly 

Incredible Platform

The POS system that caters for everyone and everything. The team just keep bringing out better and better versions!!

BEST POS System!!

Would highly recommend for any small business.

Switched from Lightspeed

Lightspeed has been really good to us over the past 4 years with regards to reports and POS systems. 

Lightspeed POS

Feel like your buying high price Pos but when ou using it it feel like its a early Beta version!

Work like a Beta version

New PoS user purchased LightSpeed

I know amount that i calculate manual in every type of payment are balance or not because kounta showing it amount minus or over, so we can double check before we accept to close cashier or shift.

Not worthed as  the expensive price 

Very easy and intuitive, great support resources from KTV.  Great features that allow detailed interrogation of POS date for performance analysis.

The Byabarra

Very user friendly!

Very easy to use, easy to get help specific to your problem

Best Supported POS System

Anytime an issue or a question rise up, the team is super helpful and quick to solve it !

Best on the market

Kounta POS is In the implementation stages of introduction into our store  & we feel  that it has satisfied our needs so far...

 Kounta is great...

Exactly what we were hoping for

If there was another option that exceeded the value, I would recommend a change for something that is more intuitive, more user friendly, and offered more complete support.

Lightspeed for Bicycle Retail

Easy to use, excellent reporting features.

User for 6 months with two stations and in house server

I have moved to kounta and im extremely happy with the pos great and easy to use and great value for money with excellent customer support thanks 

Great pos 

Compare Lavu POS and Lightspeed Restaurant based on features, pricing, verified reviews, integrations & more. Find out which software is best for your business today.

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Toast POS solution is a cloud-based restaurant management platform for restaurant owners to reduce staff & operational costs and improve customer experience

Clover is an all-in-one platform designed to help on and offline retailers, quick service restaurants, and other service businesses manage their point-of-sale operations, with secure payment solutions and reliable business management features

An all-in-one restaurant iPad POS system offering inventory management, employee scheduling, sales monitoring and customized reports

Access Controls/Permissions

Accounting Integration

Activity Dashboard

Alerts/Notifications

Bar Tab Management

Barcode/Ticket Scanning

Billing & Invoicing

Cash Management

Clock In/Out

Contact Management

Credit Card Processing

Customer Accounts

Customer Database

Customer History

Customizable Branding

Customizable Categories

Customizable Reports

Data Import/Export

Data Security

Data Synchronization

Delivery Management

Discount Management

Dynamic Pricing

Electronic Payments

Electronic Signature

Employee Management

For Bars/Clubs

For Food Trucks

For iPad Devices

For Restaurants

For Retail

Gift Card Management

Inventory Control

Inventory Management

Inventory Tracking

Invoice Management

Item Management

Kitchen/Menu Management

Loyalty Program

Mobile Access

Mobile Payments

Multi-Location

Offline Access

Online Ordering

Order Entry

Order Management

Ordering Automation

Partial Payments

Payment Processing

Point of Sale (POS)

Price/Margin Management

Pricing Management

Promotions Management

Purchase Order Management

Real-Time Data

Real-Time Reporting

Real-Time Updates

Receipt Management

Remote Access/Control

Reporting & Statistics

Reporting/Analytics

Restaurant POS

Retail Inventory Management

Sales Reports

Sales Tax Management

Sales Trend Analysis

Self Check-In/Check-Out

Self Ordering

Separate Checks

Split Checks

Surveys & Feedback

Table Management

Third-Party Integrations

Timeout

Tips Management

Transaction History

Web-based

iPad

iPhone

owner

Very fun to see the company develop over the years. Almost all my experiences have been good with Lavu.

Lavu POS vs Lightspeed Restaurant Comparison

Lavu POS

Lightspeed Restaurant

Overview

Video & Screenshots

Pricing

User reviews

Key features

Integrations

Alternatives