How does a school move from its current ERP to Kindred?

A school starts with one class rather than migrating the whole campus. That class's roster is imported, the school geofence is set, parents are invited and the class teacher is trained, which takes about a working day. Kindred runs alongside the existing system until the school chooses to expand, so there is no cutover weekend and no term-boundary deadline.

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Comparisons · CampusCare alternative

Looking for a CampusCare alternative? Kindred is free.

Q: Is there a free alternative to CampusCare?

Kindred is free school management software for schools and colleges in India, covering the student information system, geofence-verified teacher attendance, live bus tracking, in-app fee collection, homework, marks, behaviour notes, announcements and private parent-teacher chat. There is no licence fee, no per-student charge, no setup fee and no paid tier.

Q: Does Kindred do everything a full school ERP does?

Kindred covers the student information system, teacher attendance, student attendance, homework, marks, behaviour notes, health records, announcements, parent-teacher messaging, bus tracking and fee collection with reconciliation, plus a leadership dashboard. Schools with deep requirements in areas like payroll, inventory, hostel management or library circulation should check those specifically before switching, because a school should confirm coverage against its own list rather than take any vendor's word for it.

Q: Where does Kindred host school data?

In India. Kindred is DPDPA-compliant, and student and parent data is never sold, never shared with advertisers and never used to train models.

CampusCare is an established school ERP used by institutions across India, including larger campuses and multi-school groups. Schools and trusts usually start looking elsewhere for one of two reasons: what the per-student licence compounds to across several campuses, or a parent experience that never became the thing families actually use. Here's exactly what Kindred is, so you can judge it against what you have.

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We won't put words in CampusCare's mouth. We can't verify another vendor's current pricing, feature set or roadmap from the outside, and those change without notice. A table where we filled in their column with guesses would be worthless to you and unfair to them. So the comparison below is against what is typical of paid school ERPs in India as a category — never against CampusCare specifically. Take the rows to your account manager and ask. Their answers are the real comparison.

Kindred vs a typical school ERP

The right-hand column describes what is common across paid school ERPs in India. It is not a claim about any particular product. Where the category genuinely varies, it says so — "check this yourself" is more use to you than a tick.

Capability	Kindred	Typical school ERP
Cost to the school	Free	Per-student annual licence
Setup / onboarding fee	None	Commonly charged
Features held back behind paid tiers or add-on modules	None — one version, all of it	Common
Cost as your enrolment grows	Unchanged	Rises with every student
Smallest unit you can start with	One class, about a working day	Usually a campus-wide contract
Annual renewal negotiation	None	Every year
Advertising in the app	None	Uncommon in paid ERPs
Parent app	The primary product	Usually a portal beside the admin system
Teacher attendance verified by GPS geofence	✓	Rare — register or biometric
Student attendance recorded per period	✓	Often once daily
Live bus GPS tracking	Every 15 seconds	Common, refresh rate varies
Bus fuel accountability per route	✓	Rare
Teacher phone numbers kept private in messaging	✓	Varies — worth checking
English, Hindi and Kannada, set per user	✓	Varies — worth checking
Data hosted in India	✓	Varies — ask which country
Data never sold, shared or used to train models	✓	Varies — ask for it in writing
Boards supported	State, CBSE, ICSE, IGCSE, IB	Varies — check yours

What Kindred covers

Student information system, class rosters, parent contact tree
Geofence-verified teacher attendance with arrival time and lateness
Per-period student attendance — not one daily tick
Homework with reference photos, test marks with trend lines, behaviour notes tagged positive / neutral / concern
Health records — allergies with severity tags, medications, conditions, blood group, emergency contact tree, per-field visibility controls
Live bus GPS tracking every 15 seconds, timestamped boarding alerts, driver SOS, fuel accountability
In-app fee collection with automatic reconciliation and overdue reporting
Private parent–teacher chat with voice notes and read receipts; no teacher numbers exposed
Class and school-wide announcements in one indexed feed
Leadership dashboard for the principal and senior faculty

If you run more than one campus

For a trust or group, per-student licensing is the line item that scales exactly wrong: every new campus and every year of enrolment growth makes it bigger, and the software you're paying more for is the same software. Kindred costs nothing at one campus and nothing at six, so growth stops being a budget conversation.

Kindred also ships a founder-level console above the individual school dashboards — a cross-campus view for the people running the group, rather than asking a trustee to log into each school separately and reconcile by hand.

Where Kindred might not be your answer

Worth saying out loud, because a switch that fails costs you a term. Kindred is built around the daily school day and the parent relationship. If your current system is load-bearing for staff payroll, inventory and stores, hostel administration, library circulation, transport billing or exam board submissions, check those against Kindred specifically before you move — don't assume, and don't take our word for it either. Ask us directly and we'll tell you straight whether it's there.

Questions to ask before you renew

What is the total annual cost, all in — per-student charges, module add-ons, SMS credits, gateway margin, support tier?
What will renewal cost next year? In writing.
How many parents opened the app in the last 30 days — not how many accounts exist?
Where is the data physically hosted: which country, provider and region?
Is the contract DPDPA-compliant, and who is named as data fiduciary? Show me the clause.
What does a full export look like — formats, timeline, cost, and does it include message history and attachments?
Is student or parent data ever sold, shared, or used to train models? In writing.
When something breaks during admissions, is there a named person or a ticket queue?
Can we run one class as a trial without committing the campus?

Ask us all nine too. Why we do comparisons this way →

How switching actually works

Apply. One short form, read by the founder, reply within two working days.
Pick one class. Ideally one where the class teacher is willing and the parents are vocal.
One working day of setup. Roster import, school geofence, parent invitations, teacher training.
Run both systems. Keep your current ERP for that term. Compare parent engagement between the two directly.
Expand when the parents ask you to. In practice that's the signal — the other grades' parents start asking why they don't have it.

Frequently asked questions

Is there a free alternative to CampusCare?

Kindred — no licence fee, no per-student charge, no setup fee, no paid tier. Full pricing →

How does a school move to Kindred?

One class first, about a working day, running alongside your current system. No cutover weekend.

Does Kindred do everything a full school ERP does?

It covers the daily school day end to end — see the list above. For payroll, inventory, hostel or library modules, check against your own requirement list before switching.

Where does Kindred host school data?

India — DPDPA-compliant, never sold and never used for model training. Security detail →

Run one class and compare for yourself.

Free, about a working day to set up, alongside whatever you're using now.

Apply to onboard your school →