There is one Kantivo, in two forms: installed on a Windows PC, or run for you on our servers and opened in a browser. The accounting is identical. What differs is where the books sit, who looks after them, and how you reach them, and you can change your mind at any time.
| Kantivo Desktop | Kantivo Cloud | |
|---|---|---|
| Location of your data | Your own Windows PC | US data centre (New York); a separate database and application for each customer |
| Access | On that PC, and from your other devices and offices through your own encrypted VPN (Tailscale) while it is switched on | Any modern browser, anywhere, with no office PC left running |
| New versions | Offered to you; you choose when to install | Applied automatically overnight in your time zone without interrupting you; a fix for a problem you report usually arrives within about an hour |
| Backups | Managed by you | Encrypted off-site copy every night, attachments hourly, point-in-time recovery over the last 7 days |
| Your accountant or fractional CFO | Invited through Accountant Access; available while your PC is on | Invited through Accountant Access; available around the clock, without taking one of your seats |
| Supported devices | Installed on Windows; phones, tablets, Macs and Chromebooks use it through a browser over your VPN | Windows, Mac and Chromebook, through the browser |
| Price (Professional plan) | $540 a year — $144 less than the cloud | $684 a year, with $144 of hosting for the plan's 1 user included; each additional user adds $12 a year of hosting (how cloud billing works) |
The move tool lives in System Admin → Backup & Restore. It compares the trial balance of every company on both sides and shows you the result before you commit, carries your licence across, and leaves the old copy read-only so you never end up with two diverging sets of books.
The single strongest case for the cloud. Books held on your computer can only be opened while that computer is switched on and connected, whichever way your accountant or fractional CFO reaches them. Shut it down overnight, take it on a trip, or let it sleep, and they can't work. Hosted books are available around the clock, so your bookkeeper can close the month at the weekend and your CFO can update the forecast before you're in, with nothing left running at your end.
If that PC is off, restarting or in for repair, everyone stops. With Kantivo Cloud each person signs in from their own browser, so the team never hinges on a single computer.
The desktop edition already follows you to other devices and offices over a highly secure VPN, provided the PC it runs on stays switched on and online. If you'd rather not rely on that PC, hosted books open in any modern browser, anywhere, at any hour.
The desktop edition installs on one Windows PC, which your other devices then use through a browser. With no Windows machine at all, on a Mac or a Chromebook, Kantivo Cloud gives you the complete product in the browser, not a lighter web edition.
Hosted books get an encrypted off-site backup every night, attachments copied hourly, and point-in-time recovery across the last 7 days. On the desktop, that responsibility sits with your own backup routine.
Go cloud for the trip, work from your laptop wherever you are, and move back to the desktop when you're home. Hosting covers a full year and isn't refunded on moving back, but coming back to the cloud later in that same year costs nothing extra.
Cloud editions update themselves overnight, and when we fix something you've reported, the fix reaches your books within about an hour. There's nothing to download and nothing to restart.
Then stay on the desktop: it works without an internet connection, keeps your books on hardware you own, and costs no hosting fee. It's the natural fit if your PC is on whenever the books are needed, whether you work alone on it or your team reaches it from other devices and offices over the VPN. The desktop edition remains fully supported, and you can still try the cloud later and come back.
Kantivo Cloud is a young service. We cap hosted trial places for now; written terms are provided on request. If you already run Kantivo for desktop, you can move whenever you choose.