SERTICA deserves a more careful comparison than most fleet software incumbents, because it is not a legacy system limping toward the cloud. Presented in 1991 by the Danish engineering company Logimatic and acquired by the class society RINA in 2021 with more than 1,400 vessels installed, it is class-type approved by DNV and Bureau Veritas, spans maintenance, procurement, HSQE, crewing, performance, logbook and project management, and ships genuine offline mobile apps for inspections and approvals. Its SIRE 2.0 work is serious: observations link directly to SIRE 2.0 questions through a cause analysis tool, the OCIMF questionnaire converts into an internal pre-SIRE audit, and the Inspection App runs offline on iOS and Android with ratings, remarks and photo documentation against a pre-planned route. Operators such as Hapag-Lloyd, Scandlines and Tarbit Shipping run it in production. So the honest question is not whether SERTICA is capable. It is narrower and more useful: does the app layer reach far enough into your crew's daily work, does the suite breadth match what you actually operate, and does a class-society-owned platform sit comfortably with your fleet's class mix. Start a free trial of Marine Inspection and put a mobile-first platform next to it on your own equipment register.
Marine PMS Comparison, 2026
A Capable Suite With One Structural Question: How Far Does the App Layer Reach
1991
SERTICA first presented by Logimatic
1,400+
Vessels installed at RINA acquisition
2021
Acquired by class society RINA
DNV, BV
Class-type approvals held
An Honest Capability Scorecard
A comparison that pretends the incumbent is weak wastes your time. Below is where SERTICA is genuinely strong, where it is solid, and where the answer depends entirely on your fleet. Read the evidence line before the rating. Book a Marine Inspection demo to see how the same areas score on a platform built mobile-first from the start.
Tanker Vetting and SIRE 2.0
Strong
Observations link directly to SIRE 2.0 questions with an embedded cause analysis tool, the OCIMF questionnaire converts into an internal pre-SIRE inspection, and the Vetting module compares OCIMF records against SERTICA data to surface discrepancies.
Procurement Depth
Strong
Invoice and budget management, logistics and shipment, inventory control, and PunchOut connecting supplier catalogues so items flow straight into requisitions. This is deeper than most maintenance-focused platforms attempt.
Class Approval Position
Strong
Class-type approved by DNV and Bureau Veritas, with RINA ownership adding a class society's technical depth behind the product. Approval status is a hard credential, not a marketing line.
Maintenance and PMS Core
Solid
Components, locations, jobs, history, certificates and spare parts on one structure, with certificate, dry dock and forms sub-modules and a defect workflow that links unplanned jobs to a service order or requisition.
Offline Working
Depends
Genuine offline capability exists in dedicated apps for inspections, approvals, maintenance jobs and forms, syncing when connectivity returns. The scope question is which parts of the daily workflow those apps cover and which still route back to the full system.
Fit for Lean Fleets
Depends
Pricing skews toward enterprise budgets with custom quotation, and deployment follows suite-platform timelines. A fleet operating three module families gets strong value; one operating maintenance alone is buying breadth it will not use.
The App Layer Question
This is the line that separates a system crews use from one they work around, and it is where SERTICA's own positioning is most precise. The apps are described as giving access to selected areas of the system rather than the whole of it, which is a meaningfully different architecture from a platform where every core workflow is native to the device. Map your crew's actual day against both layers. Sign up for Marine Inspection and test the same day against a platform with no layer split.
App Layer
Works offline, syncs on reconnection
Inspection App on iOS and Android — follow a pre-planned route or area, record ratings and remarks, attach photo documentation, view comments from the same job performed previously
SIRE 2.0 filtering by inspection group or ISM chapter, with questions and jobs assignable against group codes and crew roles
Approval App — purchase orders, invoices, jobs, forms and event postponements, with supporting reports and documents visible at the point of decision
Maintenance jobs and forms — create and finalise, view current and completed items, update jobs, read attached documents
Full System Layer
Where the rest of the suite lives
Configuration, module setup, workflow definition and rating system design across the maintenance, procurement and HSQE structures
Analytics and Report Generator, KPI dashboards, dry dock analysis and custom analytics templates
Risk assessment scoring of findings, cause analysis chains, management system administration and document distribution
Crewing, payroll administration, performance monitoring, vessel reporting and third-party integration handling
The Test That Settles It
Take one full working day for a chief engineer and one for a superintendent. Walk each hour through both layers and mark where the person would need to leave the app. If the answer is never, the architecture fits your operation. If it is several times a day, the app is a companion to the system rather than the system itself, and that distinction shows up directly in completion accuracy and crew adoption.
Capability Comparison: Suite Platform Against Mobile-First PMS
These are the lines where architecture and ownership force a genuine difference rather than a feature-list tie. Use the final column to settle each one inside a demo. Schedule a walkthrough and run the tests against your own vessel data instead of a vendor sandbox.
Table 1: Marine Suite Platform Compared With Mobile-First Cloud PMS
| Line | Marine Suite Pattern | Mobile-First Cloud PMS Pattern | Test in the Demo |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mobile scope | Dedicated apps covering selected areas — inspections, approvals, jobs and forms — with the wider suite on the full system | Every core workflow native to the device, including create, edit and submit offline | Walk a full chief engineer day and count the times the person leaves the app |
| Functional scope | Maintenance, procurement, HSQE, crewing, performance, logbook, project management and analytics | Maintenance, inspection, defect management, spares and compliance evidence only | Price only the module families you would genuinely operate in year one |
| Vetting and SIRE 2.0 | Deep tanker orientation with cause analysis, questionnaire conversion and OCIMF record comparison | SIRE 2.0 and CVIQ coverage built into the inspection workflow as the primary product | Run a pre-SIRE internal audit end to end and export the evidence pack |
| Class position | Class-type approved by DNV and Bureau Veritas, and owned by a classification society | Class-neutral, with no ownership relationship between vendor and any survey authority | Ask how a vessel classed with a competing society is handled on identical terms |
| Hosting | Vendor-hosted cloud option alongside self-managed deployment, depending on contract | Multi-tenant cloud only, no server, no client install, no version pinned to a vessel | Ask who patches what, and what a version upgrade costs in fleet downtime |
| Time to first value | Suite-platform timeline, commonly 3 to 6 months module by module, longer for full-suite rollouts | Roughly 6 to 12 weeks, and 6 to 10 weeks for five to eight vessels with usable records | Request a phased plan with named milestones, not an average timeline |
| Commercial model | Custom quotation skewing toward enterprise budgets, with services and data conversion priced separately | Published per-vessel or per-user subscription with the module set fixed at signature | Ask for year-one and year-three totals in writing, services included |
| Regulatory coverage | IHM through item certificate handling with analytics templates for Part I and Part III reporting | Certificate windows, survey due dates and audit trails native to the maintenance record | Generate the ISM Element 10 evidence pack live from your own data |
| Integration | Third-party integration and data conversion offered as named professional services | Documented API access, typically inside the subscription | Name your finance and telematics systems and ask for a working reference |
2026 EVALUATION REALITY
The regulatory floor is platform-independent. ISM Code Element 10 requires every company holding a Document of Compliance to run a documented maintenance system, and SOLAS Chapter IX makes ISM mandatory for SOLAS-certified ships, so passenger ships, cargo ships of 500 GT and above and mobile offshore drilling units are in scope whichever software they run. IACS formalised PMS requirements in 2001, and Bureau Veritas, DNV, Lloyd's Register and ABS approve owners' systems and conduct the initial survey. Class-type approval is a product credential, not a fleet exemption — it tells you the software has been assessed, and your own system still has to be approved for your vessels. A PMS survey arrangement generally assumes continuous machinery survey, so confirm your regime before assuming a platform change alters your survey credit position.
Test Where the App Layer Ends on Your Own Workflow
Equipment registers, interval and running-hour triggers, defect-to-work-order closure, spares, certificate windows and class survey dates — every core workflow native to the device, online or offline, with fleet-wide visibility from one dashboard.
Total Cost Across the Module Families
SERTICA's modular structure makes the entry price reasonable and the third-year picture different, and the services lines — data conversion, third-party integration, training, customer success — are named separately in the vendor's own service catalogue. Market analysis puts unlisted items at 20 to 40 percent of first-year total cost of ownership when they are not surfaced before signature. Start a free trial to see per-vessel pricing applied to your fleet without a custom-quote cycle.
Table 2: Cost Lines, Typical Patterns and the Question That Surfaces Each
| Cost Line | Suite Platform Pattern | Cloud Subscription Pattern | Put This in Writing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Module families | Maintenance, procurement, HSQE, crewing, performance and project management licensed as separate families with sub-modules inside each | Defined module set at a published price point | Itemised price per family and per sub-module, plus the renewal cost of dropping one |
| Data conversion | Named professional service covering extraction and conversion from the previous system | Standard extract, cleanse, map and validate cycle inside onboarding | Years of job history included, and who owns the cleansing work |
| Third-party integration | Named professional service, typically scoped per connected system | Documented API access, usually inside the subscription | Is integration access included at our tier, or behind an upgrade? |
| Hosting | Vendor cloud hosting available as a priced service alongside self-managed options | Included, with backup and patching held by the vendor | Hosting cost per vessel per year, quoted separately from licences |
| Training and enablement | Training and customer success offered as ongoing engagements | Role-based onboarding and in-product guidance for new joiners | Retraining cost for a full crew change on a single vessel |
| App licensing | Confirm whether inspection, approval and maintenance apps are included or licensed per user | Mobile access included for every licensed user by default | Per-user app cost, and whether every rank onboard is covered |
| Contract exposure | Custom terms skewing toward enterprise budgets with uplift at renegotiation | Annual or monthly terms at published rates | Contractual cap on annual increases |
Three Scenarios, Two Honest Answers Each
The verdict genuinely changes with vessel type and operating model. Find the scenario closest to yours and read both sides before deciding which one describes your fleet. Book a walkthrough and pressure-test whichever answer you land on.
Tanker Operator Under Oil Major Vetting
Suite wins if
SIRE 2.0 is your dominant commercial risk and you want cause analysis, questionnaire conversion and OCIMF comparison sitting inside the same system as maintenance and procurement. The vetting depth here is purpose-built and hard to assemble from separate tools.
Alternative wins if
Crew execution is your weak point rather than office analysis. If internal inspections are completed on paper and entered later, the deepest vetting analytics in the industry are analysing a reconstruction.
Mixed Commercial Fleet, Three Module Families Live
Suite wins if
Maintenance, procurement and HSQE genuinely run through one database with data entered once and reused. The synergy across those three is the platform's core argument and it holds up when all three are in daily use.
Alternative wins if
Two of the three drifted into spreadsheets. A licensed module nobody opens is worse than no module, because it hides the gap from management reporting while still appearing on the invoice.
Lean Inspection-Led Fleet Under 20 Vessels
Suite wins if
You are growing into procurement and crewing within the term and want one platform to absorb that growth rather than a second migration in three years.
Alternative wins if
Maintenance and inspection are the whole job. Published per-vessel pricing, a six to ten week deployment and every workflow native to the device solve the actual problem without funding breadth you will not reach.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who owns SERTICA, and does class ownership matter?
SERTICA was presented in 1991 and developed by the Danish engineering and technology company Logimatic. In 2021 the classification society RINA acquired Logimatic Solutions, bringing SERTICA into its maritime portfolio with more than 1,400 vessels installed at the time. Ownership by a class society brings technical depth and long-term backing, and it also raises the same question that applies to other class-affiliated platforms: whether a fleet classed largely with another society is comfortable running its maintenance evidence on a competitor's product. Classification and software procurement are separate commercial relationships, so it is a preference question rather than a compliance one, but it is worth asking internally before shortlisting.
Does SERTICA work offline at sea?
Yes, through dedicated apps. The Inspection App runs offline on iOS and Android, following a pre-planned route or inspection area, capturing ratings, remarks and photo documentation, and synchronising with the main system when connectivity returns. Approval and maintenance apps cover purchase orders, invoices, jobs, forms and event postponements. The evaluation question is scope rather than existence: the apps provide access to selected areas of the system, so map your crew's full working day against what the apps cover and what still needs the complete platform. That distinction is what shows up in completion accuracy.
What are the main alternatives to SERTICA in 2026?
Alternatives group into tiers rather than a ranked list. Full maritime ERP suites integrate technical, commercial, crewing and financial management on one data model. Established maritime PMS specialists offer comparable maintenance and procurement depth with per-vessel licensing. Modern cloud PMS platforms including Marine Inspection are mobile-first with every core workflow native to the device, published pricing and deployment measured in weeks. Generic industrial CMMS products suit shore facilities and shipyards but typically lack Continuous Machinery Survey logic and ship-to-shore offline sync. Identify the tier that matches your vessel type, class mix and operating pain before comparing individual products.
Is SERTICA class approved, and does that cover our vessels?
SERTICA holds class-type approval from DNV and Bureau Veritas. Type approval is a product-level credential confirming the software has been assessed against a society's requirements, and it is genuinely useful during an evaluation. It does not substitute for your own approval: class societies approve the owner's maintenance system and conduct an initial survey on your vessels, and what they assess is whether adequate maintenance was carried out at the right interval by competent people with the right parts, and whether the condition found was recorded. Confirm acceptance for your specific societies and flags whichever platform you choose.
How long does migration to a cloud PMS take?
For five to eight vessels with reasonably complete records, roughly six to ten weeks covering data audit, extraction and cleansing, single-vessel pilot, crew training and phased rollout. Suite-platform implementations more commonly run 3 to 6 months module by module, and full enterprise rollouts longer. Data quality moves the timeline far more than software does. Run one vessel in parallel for a full cycle before committing the fleet, train crews during cutover rather than after it, and set a firm read-only date on the legacy environment once evidence continuity is confirmed, because a writable old system keeps part of the crew on it indefinitely.
Put Both Platforms in Front of a Chief Engineer
The decision is settled on deck and in the engine room, not in a feature grid. Marine Inspection gives crews every core workflow on the device they already carry — offline capture, sub-minute defect logging, photo evidence and instant sync — with class-neutral certificate and survey tracking across every society in your fleet.
