Softwr

Inventory · head to head

Katana vs Seeq

Katana logo

Katana

Inventory

Smart manufacturing ERP for scaling businesses

From
$99/month
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Seeq logo

Seeq

Manufacturing

Self-service analytics for process manufacturing time-series data sitting on top of existing historians

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Katana limited BOM explosion and lead-time offset planning requiring manual work that should be automated; Seeq named-user pricing suits a small core team but scales badly: a site wanting a hundred engineers with occasional access pays for a hundred licences that mostly sit idle, which is why deployments often stay artificially narrow.
  • They diverge on capability: Katana covers Production planning, Seeq covers Query in place.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Katana and Seeq actually diverge.

Attributes where Katana and Seeq differ
AttributeKatanaSeeq
Starting price$99/monthOn request
Pricing modelUnknownquote
PlatformsWebWeb, Cloud, On-premise, Windows, Linux
CategoryInventoryManufacturing
Founded2015Unknown

Identical on both: free tier (No), user rating (Not yet rated).

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 Katana

  • Production planning
  • Real-time inventory
  • BOM management
  • Shop floor control
  • Shopify
  • WooCommerce
  • QuickBooks
  • Xero

Only in Seeq

  • Query in place
  • Capsules
  • Asset trees
  • Seeq Data Lab
  • Organizer
  • Multi-source joins

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Katana

  • Production schedulingnot Seeq
  • Material planningnot Seeq
  • Work order managementnot Seeq
  • Inventory optimizationnot Seeq

Seeq

  • A pharmaceutical plant comparing hundreds of batches against a golden batch profile without exporting historian data into spreadsheetsnot Katana
  • A reliability engineer investigating why a compressor trips, needing to overlay vibration, process and maintenance data across two years of historynot Katana
  • Refinery process engineers building a recurring shift report that pulls live values rather than being rebuilt by hand each weeknot Katana
  • A site whose data lake project has stalled and that needs engineers analysing plant history now, without waiting for an ingestion pipelinenot Katana

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Katana

  • Limited BOM explosion and lead-time offset planning requiring manual work that should be automated
  • No native invoicing capability, making it standalone without accounting system integration
  • Limited native integrations, with heavy reliance on Zapier for non-core tools
  • Slow performance with large datasets and high SKU counts

Seeq

  • Named-user pricing suits a small core team but scales badly: a site wanting a hundred engineers with occasional access pays for a hundred licences that mostly sit idle, which is why deployments often stay artificially narrow.
  • Seeq inherits whatever quality exists in the historian, so plants with unstructured tag names and no asset model spend real effort building asset trees in Seeq that should have been fixed upstream.
  • Certain historian connectors are charged separately, so the licence quote and the actual cost of connecting your specific data sources are two different numbers.
  • It is analysis, not control or action; findings still have to be carried into a CMMS or a control change by hand, so value depends on a workflow Seeq does not provide.
  • The product assumes competent process engineers. Organisations without that skill in-house get little from it, because Seeq deliberately does not ship prebuilt failure models the way condition monitoring vendors do.

Pricing, plan by plan

Katana

$99/month
  • Essential$99/month
    • Core inventory management
    • Production scheduling
    • Stock tracking
  • Pro$299/month
    • Shop floor control
    • API access
    • Advanced reporting

Seeq

On request
  • Seeq$undefined/year
    • Licensed per named user, not per tag
    • Separate charges for certain historian connectors
    • Cloud-hosted and self-hosted deployments quoted differently

Which should you pick?

Choose Katana if

  • You need production planning.
  • You also want real-time inventory.
Katana review

Choose Seeq if

  • You need query in place.
  • You work on Web, Cloud, On-premise, Windows, Linux.
  • You also want capsules.
Seeq review

Questions people ask

Is Katana or Seeq better?
Neither clearly leads. Katana starts at $99/month and Seeq at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Katana or Seeq?
Katana starts at $99/month and Seeq at On request.
Does Katana or Seeq run on more platforms?
Katana runs on Web. Seeq runs on Web, Cloud, On-premise, Windows, Linux.
What is Katana best used for?
Katana is most often used for production scheduling, material planning, work order management, inventory optimization. Of those, production scheduling and material planning are not what Seeq is typically brought in for.
What can Katana do that Seeq cannot?
Katana covers Production planning, Real-time inventory, BOM management, Shop floor control. Seeq covers Query in place, Capsules, Asset trees, Seeq Data Lab.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Katana: What is Katana's pricing structure?

Katana starts at $99/month for the Essential plan with core MRP features. The Pro plan costs $299/month and adds shop floor control and API access. Add-ons for traceability, manufacturing, and warehouse management cost extra and can reach $747-$1,095 total.

Source
Seeq: Does Seeq store my data?

No. It queries connected historians and databases in place. Removing Seeq leaves your data exactly where it was.

Katana: Does Katana support multi-level bills of materials?

Katana has limited BOM explosion and lead-time offset planning capabilities. Complex multi-level BOMs with sub-assemblies require manual workarounds, which becomes increasingly problematic as SKU count grows.

Source
Seeq: Who owns Seeq?

It is an independent private company in Seattle, most recently funded by a 2024 growth round led by Sixth Street. It has not been taken over by a private equity buyer.

Katana: Can Katana integrate with my accounting software?

Katana has no native invoicing capability and limited integrations with accounting systems. It is essentially standalone and requires manual data export or Zapier integration for most accounting workflows.

Source
Seeq: How is it licensed?

Per named user, with some historian connectors charged separately. Nothing is published; every number comes from a quote.

Katana: Does Katana have an offline mode?

No, Katana is a cloud-only solution requiring internet connectivity. There is no built-in offline mode for production floor access without internet.

Source
Seeq: Do I need a data scientist?

No, and that is the point. Workbench is aimed at process engineers. Data Lab exists for the minority who want Python.

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