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Agriculture · head to head

Lely Horizon vs Tucor

Lely Horizon logo

Lely Horizon

Agriculture

Dairy herd management software billed per lactating cow that only runs a Lely robot barn

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Tucor logo

Tucor

Agriculture

Decoder irrigation controllers with a yearly remote-access subscription priced separately for cellular and Ethernet

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: 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.; Tucor nLPNet is a yearly subscription priced differently for cellular and Ethernet, so a site with no cabled network path is committed to the higher recurring rate for the life of the controller with no way to change it later without running fibre.
  • They diverge on capability: Lely Horizon covers Per-cow milking data, Tucor covers NLP-C controller.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Lely Horizon and Tucor actually diverge.

Attributes where Lely Horizon and Tucor differ
AttributeLely HorizonTucor
PlatformsWeb, iOS, Android, WindowsWeb, Windows, iOS, Android

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 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

Only in Tucor

  • NLP-C controller
  • Decoder diagnostics
  • Flow monitoring
  • MAD-based programming
  • Station prioritisation
  • Weather correction and water budget
  • NLPNet remote access
  • Cycle Manager

What people use each for

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

Lely Horizon

  • A 180-cow dairy running four Astronaut robots that needs the attention list to replace walking the barn twice a daynot Tucor
  • A farm adding Vector automatic feeding that wants ration delivery driven by the same cow data as milkingnot Tucor
  • A dairy manager tracking transition cow health across two sites from one accountnot Tucor
  • A Lely advisor benchmarking a client's robot utilisation against comparable farms before recommending a fourth boxnot Tucor

Tucor

  • A university retrofitting a conventional multi-wire system to two-wire without trenching a new cable to every valvenot Lely Horizon
  • A nursery or greenhouse needing 50 independent programmes on one controllernot Lely Horizon
  • A grounds team chasing a decoder fault on a mile-long loop who need it located rather than dug fornot Lely Horizon
  • An HOA that wants unscheduled-flow alarms after a contractor cut a lateralnot Lely Horizon

Where each one falls short

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

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.

Tucor

  • NLPNet is a yearly subscription priced differently for cellular and Ethernet, so a site with no cabled network path is committed to the higher recurring rate for the life of the controller with no way to change it later without running fibre.
  • Neither the controllers nor the subscriptions have published prices, so a multi-controller estate cannot budget a rollout without distributor quotes for each site.
  • Tucor runs two separate cloud portals, NLPNet and Cycle Manager, which is a confusing surface for a small vendor and means the answer to where a function lives depends on which product line you bought.
  • It is a small independent competing with Rain Bird, Hunter and Toro, so the installer and spares network is thinner and a site is more exposed if a distributor relationship in its region ends.
  • The product documentation is sparse compared with the major manufacturers, so specifying and commissioning depends heavily on the local distributor knowing the platform rather than on published material a consulting engineer can read.

Pricing, plan by plan

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

Tucor

On request
  • NLPNet remote access$undefined/year
    • Yearly subscription required for remote access
    • Separate pricing for cellular and Ethernet connections
    • Priced per controller

Which should you pick?

Choose Lely Horizon if

  • You need per-cow milking data.
  • You work on Web, iOS, Android, Windows.
  • You also want health and fertility alerts.
Lely Horizon review

Choose Tucor if

  • You need nlp-c controller.
  • You work on Web, Windows, iOS, Android.
  • You also want decoder diagnostics.
Tucor review

Questions people ask

Is Lely Horizon or Tucor better?
Neither clearly leads. Lely Horizon starts at On request and Tucor at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Lely Horizon or Tucor?
Lely Horizon starts at On request and Tucor at On request.
Does Lely Horizon or Tucor run on more platforms?
Lely Horizon runs on Web, iOS, Android, Windows. Tucor runs on Web, Windows, iOS, Android.
What is Lely Horizon best used for?
Lely Horizon is most often used for a 180-cow dairy running four astronaut robots that needs the attention list to replace walking the barn twice a day, a farm adding vector automatic feeding that wants ration delivery driven by the same cow data as milking, a dairy manager tracking transition cow health across two sites from one account, a lely advisor benchmarking a client's robot utilisation against comparable farms before recommending a fourth box. Of those, a 180-cow dairy running four astronaut robots that needs the attention list to replace walking the barn twice a day and a farm adding vector automatic feeding that wants ration delivery driven by the same cow data as milking are not what Tucor is typically brought in for.
What can Lely Horizon do that Tucor cannot?
Lely Horizon covers Per-cow milking data, Health and fertility alerts, Work list generation, Feed management. Tucor covers NLP-C controller, Decoder diagnostics, Flow monitoring, MAD-based programming.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

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.

Tucor: Is remote access included with the controller?

No. NLPNet is a separate yearly subscription, and it is priced differently depending on whether the controller connects over cellular or Ethernet.

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.

Tucor: How many valves can one controller run?

The NLP-C addresses up to 500 decoders and 125 sensors across 20 points of connection, with up to 50 programmes.

Lely Horizon: What happened to T4C?

Horizon replaced it. Migration was required rather than optional, and reporting was rebuilt rather than ported.

Tucor: Can Tucor retrofit a conventional system?

Yes, converting a conventional multi-wire installation to two-wire decoder control is the main reason sites choose it.

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.

Tucor: Who owns Tucor?

It is a privately held company founded in 1995, based in Harmony, Pennsylvania, and independent of the major irrigation manufacturers.

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