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The self-hosted Sling alternative

Rostera: Self-hosted staff shift scheduler — a weekly rota, exact hours, double-booking caught. Own it once, run it on your own server, and stop paying Sling every month.

Own Rostera for $69 Try the live demo

Stop renting Sling.

Rented Sling Premium $2.00/user/month ($1.70 billed annually); Business $4.00/user/month ($3.40 annually); free for up to 30 users [1] billed every month, for as long as you use it; your data in their cloud
Yours
Rostera
$69 once · self-hosted · your data on your server

12 months of Sling costs what Rostera costs once.

Buy once

How we counted: Per-user - calculator assumes 3 staff x $2.00 = $6.00/mo on Premium (monthly billing; $1.70/user billed annually). Sling is genuinely cheap per head, so the payback is long for a small team and shortens as the roster grows; Rostera is one payment for unlimited staff. Annual billing is a stated 15% off on both paid tiers.

How Sling pricing grows

Sling charges per active user on its paid Premium and Business tiers and automatically prorates the bill when a team member is removed.

“If a team member leaves or is deactivated, we’ll prorate your account for the unused spot.”, their own page, read 2026-08-11
What Sling does that we don't

Sling offers a permanently free scheduling plan for teams of up to 30 users, not just a time-limited trial.

“Shift scheduling with Sling is free for up to 30 users.”, their own page
Who should stay with Sling

If you need GPS or kiosk clock-ins, stay with Sling. Rostera plans the shifts; clocking in and out is Clockora's job — a live timer per person that files a draft timesheet entry — and both come in the Workforce Suite. Neither records anyone's location.

What Rostera deliberately doesn't do is on its product page.

Why owning beats renting Sling.

One payment

No monthly, per-seat or per-location fees. The license is perpetual.

Your data stays on your server

It never lives in Sling's cloud.

No plan ceilings

Records and users are limited by your hosting, not by a pricing tier.

It keeps working if the vendor doesn't

Self-hosted software can't be sunset or repriced out from under you.

The fair trade-offs: you host it, back it up and apply updates yourself. See the product page for its limits, and the full Rostera vs renting comparison.

Questions about moving off Sling.

Is Rostera payroll?
No. It plans shifts — who works, when, and for how long. It holds no pay rates or wages, calculates no pay, and moves no money. Zero payment surface, by design.
Is it a time clock?
No. Shifts are planned hours, not clock-in / attendance records — there is no time or biometric capture. It is a scheduling and planning tool.
How exact are the hours?
Exact to the minute. Times are stored as integer minutes and summed in PHP, with DST-correct shift lengths — the shipped test suite covers overnight shifts and both DST transitions — run it yourself with php tests/run.php.
MySQL or SQLite?
Either — SQLite for a zero-config trial, MySQL/MariaDB for production on ordinary shared hosting.
Better together
Rostera is part of the Workforce Suite
5 apps for one price, $136 less than buying them separately.
$249once

Related on this site

Workforce management softwareGym & studio softwareSalon & clinic softwareRestaurant & café softwareSchool & training-provider software

Sources

  1. Sling: price checked 2026-09-03, source“$ 2.00 1.70 per user per month”

Competitor prices change, so always confirm on the linked page. We only print figures we could verify on the date shown. This vendor is tracked in the Price Observatory: every figure verbatim, dated, re-checked quarterly.

Replace Sling with Rostera.
Open the live demo first; it costs nothing.
See Rostera Rostera vs renting All alternatives