Top 10 Internet cafe software [2022] - Full Guide & Comparison

Internet cafes are different in 2022 than they used to be in the early 2000s. With Internet cafes, software for managing computers and business operations has also evolved. now the market offers everything from simple timers to multifunctional esports platforms.

Basic Internet cafe management software builds typically include remote control of computers, a timer, dynamic pricing settings, limit access rules for visitors and staff. but as we said earlier, the concept of internet cafes is constantly changing, and now the basic features need to be supplemented with additional features.

Reading: Software for internet cafe

When choosing software, business owners should prioritize what their Internet cafe might need. who is your target audience? what is the main service? For example, gaming cafes typically don’t need integration tools for voip protocols; but voip is essential in rural areas where an internet cafe becomes a main point of communication with the outside world.

So here you are, looking for software to manage a dozen PCs in your internet cafe, scrolling down through a bunch of brands on search pages. Some of this software is free and some require subscription fees, but how do you know which one is really worth it?

In this article we will try to make a brief description of the most popular types of software for managing modern Internet cafes.

senet

Internet cafe management software that can be a good choice for Internet cafes that provide digital services and gaming centers alike.

senet server is cloud-based and works with all three major cloud service providers: aws, microsoft azure and digital ocean. During a 7-day free trial, the multilingual support team builds the server and provides all the details, making it very convenient for business owners.

senet doesn’t need a separate computer to run the venue: owners and staff can access all the necessary information about the computers from a browser anywhere in the world. the client interface, or shell, is installed on each connected machine blocking access to windows. In addition, Shell offers customers to browse through available games and applications, adjust their personal account settings and earn loyalty bonuses.

senet has a modular structure, which means that Internet cafe owners can choose the features they need for daily operations and get rid of those that are irrelevant to their business. such a selection optimizes costs, while also simplifying the interface, making it less bulky and overwhelming for staff.

popular modules include, but are not limited to:

diskless solution senet boot. is designed to make software and game updates faster for places with a large number of computers. it is also a great tool for dealing with viruses that accidentally enter the system. Internet cafes running on diskless solutions simply have to reboot computers to clear malware or discard any system folder changes customers make during their gaming sessions.
booking module is a senet plugin that allows customers to book their favorite seat online. reservation is available through a public link that can be placed anywhere on the internet, providing a virtual map of seats in an internet cafe. if first-time visitors want to reserve a computer or game console, they create personal accounts without ever visiting the facility. this module can be useful for any modern internet cafe, regardless of its main service.

store and customer orders. while the digital cash register with x and z reports is available in any subscription package, premium senet users can choose to have an integrated shop option. this will allow your customers to order products, game time and offers right from their seat.

printing module that is essential for Internet cafes that provide digital services and access to the world wide web. Whether it is necessary to connect printers to the administration panel, control the number of printed pages, set dynamic prices for printing services – the senet printing module is a convenient tool to manage it all.

the tournament module is a plugin designed specifically for game centers. provides easy tools to create automated tournament pools and integrate game statistics into global league ecosystems. this feature is currently under development and is announced to be available soon.

another distinguishing feature of senet is that the consoles are controlled remotely via an android app. At the time of this writing, the senet console application is in beta testing and is available to senet users upon request. once the app is downloaded from google play on a smart tv, it allows remote control of the consoles via the cloud. For displays running on another operating system or those without smart features, senet offers a hardware solution in the form of small hdmi drivers.

senet test

antamedia

Small hotels and motels often have a public Wi-Fi hotspot or provide internet access through a couple of computers in the lobby. To bill users for the time they spend on the internet, while limiting users by bandwidth, hotel owners often found themselves with the antamedia solution. since 2001, it is a well-known name in the market if you need to set up public internet access points, so let’s take a look at its key points and specifications.

As of May 2021, antamedia offers four products to control data consumption over public networks: hotspot software, bandwidth manager, kiosk software and internet cafe software. each of them comes in four packages: lite, standard, premium, enterprise, with price tags that increase according to the scale of the package and a set of included features.

all base builds of antamedia products share the same feature to limit internet usage time, upload/download rates and bandwidth. However, Internet cafe software also allows remote control of connected devices (PCs, consoles, virtual reality equipment, printers), while kiosk software only provides access to a selective number of applications on a computer.

antamedia kiosk

icafecloud

here we have a representative of a category of internet cafe software. icafecloud, also known as ccbootcloud, is positioned as a game management and billing platform. is designed to automate the simultaneous installation and update of games on multiple client devices, while keeping track of usage sessions and idle time. what internet cafe owners could use icafecloud for:

control client computers (turn on/off, disable for maintenance, etc.)
add/remove pc games and client consoles
create and manage user accounts
distribute game licenses between devices
fix prices, discounts, offers, loans
track game stats, create leaderboards

icafecloud does not require a dedicated computer to install its administration panel; as in senet, it can be accessed through any browser.

Internet cafe owners can manage PCs and consoles via icafecloud, though console management still has room for improvement. To turn the consoles on and off automatically, cafe owners need to purchase a Sonoff smart plug and configure it through a series of steps. The developer also warns against connecting the Smart Plug to consoles directly, suggesting using it with TV screens.

icafecloud still has a lot to offer for gaming. It is compatible with all major game launchers: Steam, Origin, Battle.net, Epic Games and Riot Games. It’s easy to set up automatic game updates, hide or enable some titles from the list of installed games. In case a game is not popular at the moment, administrators can easily hide it from all computers via icafecloud. they can also buy additional accounts on game launchers and distribute them, creating so-called “license pools” for players who do not have or cannot use their own accounts.

To honor the best players and encourage players to spend more time on the spot, icafecloud offers a game rating feature. At the time of writing, it supports 4 titles: Fortnite, League of Legends, Dota2, Valorant. game statistics are collected to form leaderboards, the best players get coins that can be exchanged for gifts or offers.

Gifts and offers along with other items are available on the “shop” page within the client interface. By logging into a PC, users can view and change their account information, browse through categories of games and launchers, read news published by the cafe, configure hardware settings (sound, mouse, display).

gadget

Internet cafe billing software being developed in Greece and Russia. it comes in a bundle called ‘gizmo suite’ and includes:

gizmo service, to configure the server on a dedicated local computer;
gizmo manager, to install the administration panel to automate various processes in place;
gizmo client, to install client interfaces on client computers.

admin panel

gizmo offers a variety of invoicing features for Internet cafes, pos interface for cafeteria employees, custom product groups and complex reports on sales transactions. To ensure information security, owners can limit access to most features to staff. in this way, all financial reports, inventory tracking, application installations and licenses, system configuration settings and many more are not available to the cafeteria employees. they will only be able to receive orders, process payments and create customer accounts.

gizmo is not a game-centric software, so clients can work with various types of applications through the client interface. each account will have a dedicated folder on the venue server to save user-specific files, so customers can access them regardless of which computer they sit at next time. It is worth mentioning that the developers of Gizmo have not yet implemented online PC reservation, but customers can still reserve devices in advance through the staff.

client interface

gizmo supports a third-party diskless solution, but apparently doesn’t have the option to use cloud servers. You will need a separate computer to manage the entire system, where it will take up to 8GB of hard drive space. Gizmo requires Windows Server 2012, later versions of the Windows operating system (8 or 10), and the pre-installed .NET Framework, Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable Package (x64, x86). It’s not fussy about hardware either: Intel or AMD Quad-Core 2.6GHz with 4GB of RAM with any graphics card will do the trick.

senet test

pancafepro

pancafepro has received great recognition from Internet cafe owners around the world. It’s free and has basic features to remotely manage PCs and consoles, set prices, disable access to Windows, and limit the amount of data copied from computers to USB drives. pancafepro is still popular with internet cafe managers, even though it hasn’t been updated for a while.

in addition, pancafepro has an option to keep track of the stock inventory of the products that are sold in the cafeteria. it’s pretty straightforward, designed primarily for reference, as it doesn’t support processing customer orders or direct payments within the system.

Most pancafepro users take advantage of the fact that it is free and available for download anywhere on the internet. however, this fact can cause some complications. There is only one email address available for support, and most social media accounts have stopped posting regularly since 2019. While PanCafePro meets all the basic requirements of internet cafe owners, it cannot be used as a software Independent Internet Cafe Management. For many other advanced features that are necessary in 2021, such as integration of payment services or simultaneous updates of applications, Pancafepro must be accompanied by other types of software.

smart launch

smartlaunch has been in the internet cafe industry since 2001. From basic internet cafe management software, it quickly evolved into internet cafe software, adding features that automate game updates and improve internet cafe operations across the board. general.

smartlaunch comes with about 300 presets for game content, which means easy and quick installation of new games on pc. also provides license management, so owners don’t need to buy copies of games for each computer; they can distribute games to users on demand, saving a bit of money. after each session, all user files, including game save files, are stored on the server and are available for use from any computer. of course, smartlaunch blocks access to windows, hotkeys, and drives.

There are many sales and payment options within the system. For customer convenience, time, products and offers can be ordered directly from a player’s seat and charged to their accounts. At the same time, cash registers, barcode readers and printers can be integrated into the smartlaunch point of sale for managers. stock control, employee shifts, sales, and transactions are tracked through reports, and owners can also limit access to different areas of the system with multiple administrator accounts.

The client interface provides settings for setting up user accounts, ordering products, browsing through available applications, and sending messages via the integrated chat. There is no online reservation that customers can make on their own, but the cafe staff can reserve a computer, room or table for them through the admin panel. due to the discontinuation of adobe flash player, smartlaunch users have had problems with custom skins in their client interfaces. the problem has not yet been resolved, while Internet cafe owners are looking for other software alternatives.

cybercafepro

While in 2021 the UN recognizes 195 countries in the world, the cybercafepro website claims to have clients in 208 🙂 Once quite popular software for managing computers in cybercafes, now cybercafepro does not receive updates, is not supported and does not run on windows 10.

for those who run their internet cafes on win 7, cybercafepro is still available for free on the internet. However, Windows 7 also reached End of Life on January 14, 2020, which means it no longer receives security patches and puts its users at risk of hacker attacks. Considering the security issues, we can’t recommend cybercafepro as the best software for managing internet cafes, but we had to mention it in our list as it has been a choice of many for over a decade.

handy coffee

another top-tier free software that has stopped its updates and support. The latest versions of Handy Cafe Server and Client were released in 2016 and can be downloaded from the official website or anywhere on the Internet. It doesn’t run on windows 10, but it still supports windows 7. Although Handy Cafe has all the basic features internet cafes need (timer, remote pc control, desktop screenshots, adjustable prices, etc.), we can’t I recommend it as a suitable software. Be careful when downloading patched or old versions of Handy Cafe from the Internet.

gapazo

one of the few products on the market pushing the internet cafe market towards esports. ggleap is game center software that automates many daily operations for staff and improves customer engagement.

It’s cloud-based, hosted on AWS, which means cafe owners and managers can monitor business activities from anywhere. Customers interact with the PC client that is installed on each computer in the venue and allows them to not only adjust their account settings, but also view leaderboards, game statistics, order products and services from their seat, earn coins for playing and recovering prizes in return for the coins won.

Reports on customer information, the apps they use, and the orders they place are available in the form of dashboards, downloadable files, and automated emails. that includes guest sessions, when a customer without a registered account comes to play.

ggleap’s game catalog simplifies the process of adding games to the system: the catalog serves as a series of presets for the world’s most popular games, all owners need to do is type in the license information . license pools are also available, making it easy to distribute public accounts to customers when needed.

consoles and pc are managed remotely. however, unlike senet, ggleap does not have a hardware solution for console time control. when time is about to expire in a console session, the administrator is notified to power off the device. however, this is a minor inconvenience.

The tournament module is included in the basic subscription of ggleap. During the lockdown, the company launched Ggleap AtHome as a marketing tool for gaming centers that are unable to receive customers due to the pandemic. truth be told, owners had no income while their customers could access their games remotely through the athome solution, but it was considered as an option to extend customer retention during these difficult times rather than a complete alternative to open game centers.

senet test

krisan coffee

Internet cafe timer software with basic functions:

autoboot, restart and lock pc
dynamic pricing for pc usage
url filtering and bandwidth limitations
usb drive monitoring
report generation
inventory stock management

krisan cafe needs a separate machine to set up a server and run its administration interface. installation files can be found on the open internet or on the official website of the product. After a 30-day free trial period, Krisan Cafe users must purchase one of the licenses (Lite, Standard, or Pro) to continue using the software. the professional package starts from $35 for 10 client computers and has the most variety of features for cyber cafe owners and staff. However, consoles and other devices cannot be monitored through Krisan Cafe even with a professional license.