Comparison
Arena vs Duro, and where ManyRows fits
These two come up together because both are cloud PLM built for people who make hardware, and the choice between them is usually depth against speed. Arena is the one you pick when the product is regulated and the audit trail has to hold up. Duro is the one you pick when the bill of materials comes out of Altium or SolidWorks and you want it in the system without re-keying. Neither is trying to be the other. The third column is what happens when the product is not only hardware.
The Arena and Duro columns below say what each product is built for, in its own terms, taken from our full write-up of Arena PLM and Duro. We have not run the two against each other, and nothing here claims one beats the other. Read it as two self-descriptions side by side, with ours in the third column.
| Capability | Arena | Duro | ManyRows |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entity types, and base types over them | Item categories | Hardware categories | Both, in a form |
| One field, reused across types, tuned per type | Category attributes | Category specs | Yes |
| Derived fields that follow a reference | Not its focus | Not its focus | Reverse and lookup |
| Relationships that carry their own data | Item relationships | Not its focus | The link is a record |
| The BOM line is a record you design | Line attributes | Line attributes | Yes |
| Effectivity on two axes at once | Change effectivity | Revisions | Dates and unit numbers |
| Someone to build the model with you | Onboarding services | Guided onboarding | Free on Pro and above |
| Multi-level BOM | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Where-used, multi-level | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Approved alternates per line | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Formulas with co-products and by-products | Not its focus | Not its focus | Yes |
| Fixed vs variable line quantities | Not its focus | Not its focus | Yes |
| Several BOM planes per product | One structure | One structure | Yes |
| Import a BOM from a CAD or spreadsheet export | Built in | Built in | Built in |
| Delegation and departed-approver handover | Yes | Approvals | Yes |
| Immutable revisions with the sign-off manifest | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Several change requests released as one decision | Yes | One at a time | Yes |
| Test rounds with verdicts and dispositions | Yes | Not its focus | Yes |
| Measured values against a spec | Yes | Not its focus | Yes |
| Costed BOM with wastage and landed cost | Add-on | Yes | Yes |
| Lot genealogy and recall trace | Not its focus | Not its focus | Yes |
| Price you can work out yourself | Quoted per seat | Quoted per seat | Listed on the site |
| Free trial | Trial via sales | Trial | 7 days, no card |
| Export the whole project and re-import it | Export tooling | Export tooling | One request |
| Full REST API on every record | Included | Included | Included |
| Outbound webhooks when something changes | Via API | Via API | Built in, signed |
| Custom development when something is genuinely missing | Roadmap request | Roadmap request | Free on Pro and above |
When one of these two is the right answer
If you build electronics or medical devices and need audited quality processes, training records and deep approved-manufacturer data out of the box, Arena is purpose-built for that. If your bottleneck is getting a CAD bill of materials in without re-keying it, and a component library that already understands parametric part specs, Duro is further along than we are. Both are good answers to the question they were built for. ManyRows is the better fit when the product is a garment, a formula or several different kinds of thing at once, and when you would rather shape the system than fit into it.
Questions
- Is ManyRows a replacement for Arena or Duro if I build electronics?
- Not automatically. If your product is a circuit board and you need regulated quality records or CAD-native BOM ingest, both of those are built for it and we would say so. Where we win on hardware is when it is not the only thing you make, or when you want published pricing and a data model you control rather than a category system someone else defined.
- We make hardware and soft goods. Does that change the answer?
- Yes, and it is the main reason people find us. Arena and Duro both model one shape of product very well. In ManyRows a hardware assembly, a garment with a size spec, and a formulation with co-products are just different entity types you define. They share fields, filters and reporting instead of needing separate systems or a spreadsheet stitched between them.
- How does pricing compare?
- Ours is on the pricing page and you can work out your bill without talking to anyone. We do not publish theirs, and it is not our place to. What we will say is that comparing PLM on licence alone is misleading anywhere: implementation and configuration are usually the larger number.
- What if ManyRows is missing something we need?
- Ask. We do custom development for free on the Pro plan and above, within reason, and when the gap is something ManyRows should have had anyway we build it and ship it to every customer. The limit is honest too: we will not build a one-off only you would ever use, and you get that answer in a sentence rather than a services quote.
- Can we try it before deciding?
- Yes. There is a free plan and a seven day trial with no card required, and the API is open on every record from the start, so you can load a real bill of materials and see how it behaves rather than judging from a demo.