Agriculture · head to head
DairyComp vs Lely Horizon
DairyComp
Agriculture
Command-line dairy herd management software used by large North American dairies
- From
- On request
- Rated
- -
Lely Horizon
Agriculture
Dairy herd management software billed per lactating cow that only runs a Lely robot barn
- From
- On request
- Rated
- -
The short version
- Each has a real cost: DairyComp the command language interface takes weeks to learn and effectively ties the dairy to whichever staff member knows it, so losing a herd manager can strand the herd record until someone else is trained.; Lely Horizon billing is per lactating cow, so the software cost grows with the herd indefinitely and a farm that expands from 120 to 200 cows takes a permanent software cost increase it did not budget when it bought the robots.
- They diverge on capability: DairyComp covers Command language reporting, Lely Horizon covers Per-cow milking data.
- Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which DairyComp and Lely Horizon actually diverge.
| Attribute | DairyComp | Lely Horizon |
|---|---|---|
| Platforms | Windows | Web, iOS, Android, Windows |
Identical on both: starting price (On request), pricing model (quote), free tier (No), user rating (Not yet rated), category (Agriculture).
What each one covers
Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.
Only in DairyComp
- Command language reporting
- Complete lactation records
- Parlour and meter integration
- Reproduction management
- Health event tracking
- Genetic evaluation import
- Benchmarking exports
Only in Lely Horizon
- Per-cow milking data
- Health and fertility alerts
- Work list generation
- Feed management
- Farm Management Support
- Multi-site view
- Mobile alerts
- Reporting and benchmarking
What people use each for
The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.
DairyComp
- A 3,000 cow freestall dairy whose herd manager needs to build an arbitrary cull or breeding cohort in secondsnot Lely Horizon
- A dairy consultant working across a dozen client herds who needs identical reporting on all of themnot Lely Horizon
- A dairy integrating parlour milk weights and conductivity into the animal record for early mastitis detectionnot Lely Horizon
- A veterinary practice running repro audits and protocol compliance checks across a client basenot Lely Horizon
Lely Horizon
- A 180-cow dairy running four Astronaut robots that needs the attention list to replace walking the barn twice a daynot DairyComp
- A farm adding Vector automatic feeding that wants ration delivery driven by the same cow data as milkingnot DairyComp
- A dairy manager tracking transition cow health across two sites from one accountnot DairyComp
- A Lely advisor benchmarking a client's robot utilisation against comparable farms before recommending a fourth boxnot DairyComp
Where each one falls short
Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.
DairyComp
- The command language interface takes weeks to learn and effectively ties the dairy to whichever staff member knows it, so losing a herd manager can strand the herd record until someone else is trained.
- It is a Windows desktop application at heart rather than a cloud service, so multi-site access, remote working and mobile data entry are bolt-ons rather than native, and back-ups are the dairy's own problem.
- Zoetis ownership puts a pharmaceutical company in control of every treatment record on the farm and biases the integration roadmap towards Zoetis sensors and services rather than the best available.
- No pricing is published anywhere, so herd-size-based quotes vary by dealer and there is no way to benchmark what you are being charged without asking neighbouring dairies.
- It assumes North American dairy conventions, so European dairies dealing with different milk recording bodies, national herd databases and statutory reporting formats find the fit poor and often need local software alongside.
Lely Horizon
- Billing is per lactating cow, so the software cost grows with the herd indefinitely and a farm that expands from 120 to 200 cows takes a permanent software cost increase it did not budget when it bought the robots.
- Horizon is not optional: the barn equipment depends on it, so the subscription cannot be cancelled in a difficult year the way a discretionary analytics tool can, which removes any negotiating position at renewal.
- It manages Lely equipment and effectively nothing else, so a farm running a Lely robot alongside a conventional parlour or another manufacturer's feeder ends up with two systems and no combined cow record.
- The migration from the older T4C system was compulsory and rebuilt the interface and reporting, and farms that had years of T4C reports and custom lists found the equivalents either missing or shaped differently, costing retraining time.
- Everything is bought and supported through the local Lely Center, so pricing, response time and the quality of advice vary by dealer with no published rate card, and a farm with a weak local centre has no practical alternative supplier.
Pricing, plan by plan
DairyComp
On request- DairyComp$undefined/year
- Licensed per dairy, priced on herd size
- Support and update contract quoted separately
- Parlour and meter interface modules quoted per system
Lely Horizon
On request- Horizon Basic$undefined/month
- Core robot operation and monitoring
- Per lactating cow subscription
- Invoiced digitally by the local Lely Center
- Horizon Control$undefined/month
- Adds herd management and fertility tooling
- Per lactating cow subscription
- Horizon Advance$undefined/month
- Adds analysis, benchmarking and advisor tooling
- Per lactating cow subscription
Which should you pick?
Choose DairyComp if
- You need command language reporting.
- You work on Windows.
- You also want complete lactation records.
Choose Lely Horizon if
- You need per-cow milking data.
- You work on Web, iOS, Android, Windows.
- You also want health and fertility alerts.
Questions people ask
- Is DairyComp or Lely Horizon better?
- Neither clearly leads. DairyComp starts at On request and Lely Horizon at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, DairyComp or Lely Horizon?
- DairyComp starts at On request and Lely Horizon at On request.
- Does DairyComp or Lely Horizon run on more platforms?
- DairyComp runs on Windows. Lely Horizon runs on Web, iOS, Android, Windows.
- What is DairyComp best used for?
- DairyComp is most often used for a 3,000 cow freestall dairy whose herd manager needs to build an arbitrary cull or breeding cohort in seconds, a dairy consultant working across a dozen client herds who needs identical reporting on all of them, a dairy integrating parlour milk weights and conductivity into the animal record for early mastitis detection, a veterinary practice running repro audits and protocol compliance checks across a client base. Of those, a 3,000 cow freestall dairy whose herd manager needs to build an arbitrary cull or breeding cohort in seconds and a dairy consultant working across a dozen client herds who needs identical reporting on all of them are not what Lely Horizon is typically brought in for.
- What can DairyComp do that Lely Horizon cannot?
- DairyComp covers Command language reporting, Complete lactation records, Parlour and meter integration, Reproduction management. Lely Horizon covers Per-cow milking data, Health and fertility alerts, Work list generation, Feed management.
Answered from the vendors’ own pages
DairyComp: Who owns DairyComp now?
Zoetis, through its acquisition of Valley Agricultural Software. It sits in the same portfolio as the Smartbow cow monitoring system.
Lely Horizon: How is Lely Horizon priced?
As a subscription per lactating cow milked by the Astronaut robots, in Basic, Control and Advance tiers. Lely does not publish rates; the local Lely Center quotes them.
DairyComp: Is it hard to learn?
Yes, genuinely. It is driven by a typed command language rather than menus, and most new users need weeks of practice before they are productive.
Lely Horizon: Can I run Horizon without Lely robots?
No. It is the control and management layer for Lely equipment and has no meaningful function without it.
DairyComp: Does it run in the cloud?
It is fundamentally a Windows application. Hosted and multi-site arrangements exist but the software is not a browser-native cloud product.
Lely Horizon: What happened to T4C?
Horizon replaced it. Migration was required rather than optional, and reporting was rebuilt rather than ported.
DairyComp: What does it cost?
Nothing is published. Pricing is quoted per dairy based on herd size, plus separate charges for support and for each parlour or meter interface.
Lely Horizon: Does the subscription end when the robot is paid off?
No. It continues for as long as the robots are milking, which is the cost most robot business cases understate.
Related pages
More on Lely Horizon
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