Captain Crews: The BoatOn Alternative Built for Marine Professionals
A practical, honest comparison of Captain Crews and BoatOn Book to help marine professionals choose the right boat management software.
If you are evaluating a BoatOn alternative, you are probably running real operations: a fleet to maintain, mechanics in the workshop, crew to pay and owners who want to know what is happening with their boats. BoatOn Book is a capable maritime CMMS with a maintenance logbook, spare-parts inventory and automated carbon-footprint reporting. Captain Crews approaches the same problem from the operations side. It pairs fleet and maintenance tracking with a professional workshop module (signed PDF job sheets, before/after photos, AI invoice OCR), built-in crew time tracking and pay calculation, and a transparent owner portal. This page lays out where each tool is strong so you can pick the one that fits how your business actually works. Where we are unsure about a BoatOn detail, we say so rather than guess.
Captain Crews vs BoatOn: the comparison
Core focus
Captain Crews
All-in-one platform: fleet, workshop and job sheets, crew time and pay, owner portal, bookings.
BoatOn
Maritime CMMS organised, per their FAQ, into five families: maintenance, navigation and logbook, HR, dashboards, decarbonisation.
Fleet and maintenance
Captain Crews
Detailed boat record, engine hours, live status, maintenance alerts, bulk import.
BoatOn
Preventive and corrective maintenance, spare-parts inventory with stock alerts, purchase orders, availability metrics (MTBF, MTTR).
Workshop and job sheets
Captain Crews
Checklists, before/after photos, signed PDF job sheets, parts tracking, invoices read by OCR.
BoatOn
Task planning and assignment to crew or providers, purchasing module tracked from quote to delivery, archived purchase orders.
Crew time tracking and pay
Captain Crews
Geolocated mobile clock-in, automatic overtime, bonuses, travel allowances and zones, custom pay period, leave, multi-timezone. PDF pay summaries and exports for your accountant — the statutory payslip and filings remain theirs to issue.
BoatOn
Maritime HR module: mobile clock-in, leave, MLC-compliant timesheets, and automatic calculation of pay and rest entitlements from built-in maritime collective agreements. Stated outputs: timesheet export to PDF or Excel.
Owner relationship
Captain Crews
Dedicated owner portal with cruise mode: owners follow their boat's status and jobs, and exchange with the manager.
BoatOn
Role-based permissions. Their FAQ states that the Owner role allows viewing data, without modification.
AI and automation
Captain Crews
AI document sorting and invoice OCR included, built-in AI assistant.
BoatOn
AI-assisted data entry advertised from the Bosco plan, and automated carbon reporting (ADEME and GHG Protocol methodologies).
Logbook and compliance
Captain Crews
Digital maintenance log, documents with expiry dates and alerts, full history per unit.
BoatOn
Electronic logbook fed by AIS or smartphone (position, speed, weather), electronic signature, crew list generated automatically.
Your data
Captain Crews
Full one-click export of all your data, any time (in the spirit of GDPR Art. 20). Hosted in Europe.
BoatOn
Documented PDF and Excel exports (timesheets, inventory), centralised document storage.
Pricing and trial
Captain Crews
From €5 excl. VAT per user per month, whatever the number of boats. 30-day trial, no credit card.
BoatOn
Six plans billed per boat, from €4.99 to €299 excl. VAT per month per boat on an annual commitment (€5.54 to €332.22 excl. VAT without commitment). The €4.99 plan is limited to a single boat.
The two offers do not share the same billing unit: BoatOn bills per boat, Captain Crews per user. Actual cost therefore depends on your number of boats AND your number of users — run both sums with your own figures. Above 10 boats, BoatOn points to a sales contact: their fleet pricing is not public.
This comparison was made in good faith from public information gathered on boaton.fr and info.boaton.fr on 2 August 2026. It covers the BoatOn Book software, published by BOATON, SAS, RCS Bordeaux 838 874 204. Offers change: check each vendor's current pricing and features before deciding. Their pricing page
Why look for a BoatOn alternative?
BoatOn Book is a solid maintenance and compliance tool, and for many owners and commercial operators it does the job well. Teams start shopping for a BoatOn alternative when their day-to-day work extends past the maintenance logbook: a workshop that needs signed proof of what was done, crews whose hours and pay have to be tracked across boats and zones, and owners who want a live window into their fleet without phoning the manager. If your bottleneck is operations and accountability rather than carbon reporting, Captain Crews is built for that shape of work. The goal here is fit, not a winner: read both columns and pick what matches your workflow.
- You manage other people's boats and owners want real-time visibility
- Your mechanics need signed PDF job sheets with before/after photos
- You track crew hours, overtime, travel and zones, and want pay calculated automatically
- You are drowning in invoices and want AI OCR to sort and capture them
What BoatOn Book does well
Credit where it is due. BoatOn Book is a maritime CMMS with a genuinely useful maintenance logbook: preventive and corrective maintenance, spare-parts inventory with stock alerts, purchase orders, document storage and industrial maintenance metrics such as availability, MTBF and MTTR. It also offers an electronic logbook fed by AIS or a smartphone, and automated carbon reporting using ADEME and GHG Protocol methodologies. Its maritime HR module advertises MLC-compliant timesheets and automatic pay calculation from built-in maritime collective agreements, which is valuable for vessels with strict regulatory obligations. They address vessels from 15 to 150 metres explicitly. If compliance, industrial maintenance and sustainability reporting are central to your operation, BoatOn is a strong fit and worth a close look.
- Maintenance logbook with automatic alerts and spare-parts inventory
- Electronic logbook fed by AIS or smartphone, with electronic signature
- Automated carbon reporting (ADEME and GHG Protocol methodologies)
- Maritime HR module with MLC timesheets and collective-agreement pay rules
Where Captain Crews is different
Captain Crews is built around the daily operations of a management company or busy fleet. The workshop module turns every job into a traceable record: checklists, before/after photos, parts used, and a signed PDF job sheet you can hand to an owner or insurer. AI invoice OCR captures supplier invoices automatically and AI sorting keeps documents tidy. Crew time tracking is native: staff clock in from their phone with GPS, and the system applies overtime, bonuses, travel and zone rules on a pay period you define (for example the 26th to the 25th), then produces PDF pay summaries and exports for your accountant. To be precise, Captain Crews calculates hours and generates pay summaries and exports; it does not file payroll taxes or issue a certified statutory payslip, so you still run final payroll through your accountant or payroll provider. For maintenance intervals, always follow the engine and boat manufacturer's manual; Captain Crews schedules alerts around the figures you enter.
- Professional workshop: checklists, before/after photos, signed PDF job sheets
- AI invoice OCR and AI sorting included, not a paid add-on
- Native crew time tracking with custom pay periods and PDF pay summaries
- Transparent owner portal and cruise mode for real-time owner visibility
Pricing, trial and getting started
Captain Crews starts at €5 excl. VAT per user per month, whatever the number of boats, with a 30-day free trial that does not require a credit card. That makes it easy to pilot with one boat or a small crew before rolling it out across a fleet. BoatOn Book publishes six plans billed per boat, from €4.99 to €299 excl. VAT per month per boat on an annual commitment, the entry plan being limited to a single boat (figures checked on boaton.fr on 2 August 2026). The important point is not the headline price but the billing unit: they bill per boat, we bill per user. On a large fleet run by a small team, the gap matters — run both sums with your own numbers. Above 10 boats, BoatOn points to a sales contact, so their fleet pricing is not public. Both tools work from a phone: Captain Crews is a mobile-first web app you install on an iPhone or Android home screen in one tap, without going through a store. When you switch, a one-click full export of your data is built in, which also supports your data-portability rights under GDPR Article 20.
- Captain Crews: from €5 excl. VAT / user / month, boats not billed
- BoatOn: six plans billed per boat, €4.99 to €299 excl. VAT (checked 2 Aug 2026)
- Different billing units — compare on your own boat and user counts
- One-click full data export supports GDPR Article 20 portability
Frequently asked questions
Is Captain Crews a good BoatOn alternative for boat management companies?+
Yes, especially if you manage boats on behalf of owners. Captain Crews combines fleet and maintenance tracking with a professional workshop module, native crew time tracking and pay calculation, and a transparent owner portal so owners can follow their boats in real time. BoatOn Book remains a strong choice if your priority is carbon-footprint reporting or flag-state crew compliance.
Does Captain Crews handle crew payroll like BoatOn?+
Captain Crews tracks crew hours via mobile GPS clock-in, applies your overtime, bonus, travel and zone rules over a custom pay period, and generates PDF pay summaries and exports for your accountant. It does not file payroll taxes or issue a certified statutory payslip, so final payroll still runs through your payroll provider. BoatOn Book offers a maritime HRIS with MLC-compliant timesheets and pay calculation from collective agreements, which suits regulated commercial vessels.
Can I move my data from BoatOn to Captain Crews?+
Captain Crews includes a one-click full export of your own data, which supports your portability rights under GDPR Article 20. To bring existing records across, you can use bulk import for your fleet and boat details. For maintenance intervals, enter the figures from your engine and boat manufacturer manuals so alerts are scheduled correctly.
Compare on your own data
30-day free trial, no credit card. From €5 excl. VAT / user / month.