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Lightspeed vs Toast POS
March 01, 2025 | Author: Sandeep Sharma
10★
Lightspeed is the leading provider of cloud-based POS software. Our customers typically see a 20% growth in sales after their first year. Now is the time to join the growing list of independent businesses that choose Lightspeed POS to handle their everyday needs. Lightspeed Restaurant allows you to create your menu in seconds, update your floor plan directly in the system, impress customers with photos of items and allow your staff to focus on creating a unique restaurant experience.
18★
One Platform to Power Your Restaurant Operations. Simplify your operations by combining POS, front of house, back of house, and guest-facing technology on a single platform.
In the vast and occasionally bewildering cosmos of point-of-sale systems, Lightspeed and Toast POS are two very determined entities, both looking to make sure you never have to count cash manually again—unless, of course, you're particularly nostalgic for the 1980s. Both live comfortably in the cloud, offering an array of features like inventory tracking, sales analytics and employee management tools, all while making you feel like you're at the helm of an intergalactic business empire. They both also support multiple locations and a variety of third-party integrations, ensuring that nothing in your business world is left to chance, unless, of course, it's the Wi-Fi.
Lightspeed, which first graced the world with its presence in 2005 from the faraway land of Canada, decided to spread its wings far beyond retail, jumping into the world of restaurants, e-commerce, and—presumably—everything else that might require a point-of-sale system. It runs on both iOS and web platforms, because it believes in offering you flexibility, much like a travel agent who can book you a flight to Mars or the moon depending on your mood. With a healthy habit of acquiring companies like ShopKeep and Vend, Lightspeed is clearly aiming for total POS domination, though without any of the actual world-conquering drama that usually accompanies such plans.
Toast, on the other hand, appeared in 2012 in the United States with an entirely different agenda—food. Toast boldly declared that only restaurants were worthy of its attention and it was very particular about its hardware, insisting on Android-based systems that give off the distinct vibe of a culinary master in charge. With features that cater specifically to the food service world, like kitchen display systems, payroll and menu engineering, Toast has positioned itself as the restaurant industry’s best friend and it does so with the quiet confidence of someone who knows exactly how long a soufflé should take to rise—and when to fire the waiter.
See also: Top 10 Retail software
Lightspeed, which first graced the world with its presence in 2005 from the faraway land of Canada, decided to spread its wings far beyond retail, jumping into the world of restaurants, e-commerce, and—presumably—everything else that might require a point-of-sale system. It runs on both iOS and web platforms, because it believes in offering you flexibility, much like a travel agent who can book you a flight to Mars or the moon depending on your mood. With a healthy habit of acquiring companies like ShopKeep and Vend, Lightspeed is clearly aiming for total POS domination, though without any of the actual world-conquering drama that usually accompanies such plans.
Toast, on the other hand, appeared in 2012 in the United States with an entirely different agenda—food. Toast boldly declared that only restaurants were worthy of its attention and it was very particular about its hardware, insisting on Android-based systems that give off the distinct vibe of a culinary master in charge. With features that cater specifically to the food service world, like kitchen display systems, payroll and menu engineering, Toast has positioned itself as the restaurant industry’s best friend and it does so with the quiet confidence of someone who knows exactly how long a soufflé should take to rise—and when to fire the waiter.
See also: Top 10 Retail software
