How Open Is Your PMS? Our Exclusive Platform-by-Platform Breakdown

Real estate operators and tech companies have long complained that their property management platforms are walled gardens. Today, we’ll put some data behind that. 

We surveyed our readers on the openness of the major multifamily PMS platforms:  Yardi, Entrata, RealPage, AppFolio, and more.

Our poll asked respondents to consider how easily you can get your own data out, how straightforward it is to connect third-party tools, and how deep those integrations actually go in practice. While these questions have been relevant for years, the rise of AI has made platform openness a far higher priority.

Across all responses to our poll, no platform scored above a 6.5 out of 10 when it comes to openness. The lowest averaged just over 3. And some of the comments were scathing.

There have been major shifts in the PMS landscape since we did a deep dive on it in December 2023. Yardi released a model context protocol connector for Claude last fall. AppFolio launched its Stack Marketplace of vetted proptech tools. Entrata has reportedly begun charging for API access that was previously free.

None of it, however, appears to have meaningfully moved the needle on how the industry experiences these platforms day to day. What follows is the full breakdown, platform by platform, in respondents' own words.

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(Editor’s note: One company, DoorLoop, received too few reader reviews to be included here.)