Lumina vs SLiMS · 025.04
SLiMS is wonderfully easy to install and runs happily on modest hardware, with a visitor counter and guest book that small libraries love. Lumina gives up that minimalism for deeper cataloguing, richer circulation rules and mobile apps.
SLiMS
What SLiMS does best
GPL, PHP and MySQL (from Indonesia)
- One-click install and a low-bandwidth interface
- Covers and file attachments next to the catalogue record
- A visitor counter and guest book
- OAI-PMH Dublin Core and JSON-LD output
Rough edges, as reviewers describe them
- Limited cataloguing depth
- A small ecosystem
Lumina
Where Lumina differs
- A keyboard-first desk with a three-state answer and a reason for every block
- Staff and member mobile apps, and a guard-only gate check
- Events, room booking and a modern public catalogue
- INR fines, Razorpay and UPI, Hindi and English
- A guided report builder and 34 built-in reports
Where Lumina is behind
- A new product (version 0.1.0), not a mature community
- SIP2, Z39.50/SRU, OAI-PMH, NCIP, EDIFACT, RFID and plugins are planned, not built
- Consortium features and UNIMARC are not there yet
Capabilities
| Capability | Lumina | SLiMS |
|---|---|---|
| MARC21 cataloguing | Strong or native | Partial, add-on or early |
| UNIMARCPlanned in Lumina. | Absent or weak | Absent or weak |
| Consortium and union catalogueLumina has library groups; shared catalogue and inherited policy are later work. | Partial, add-on or early | Partial, add-on or early |
| Title-level holds on any copy | Strong or native | Absent or weak |
| Metarecord (any edition) holds | Absent or weak | Absent or weak |
| Floating collections | Absent or weak | Absent or weak |
| Self-checkout and kioskLumina has a browser kiosk flow; SIP2 hardware support is planned. | Partial, add-on or early | Partial, add-on or early |
| RFIDPlanned in Lumina. | Absent or weak | Absent or weak |
| Room and equipment booking | Strong or native | Absent or weak |
| Events and registration | Strong or native | Absent or weak |
| Reading challenges and clubsThe engagement module is early; some pieces are Planned in the parity table. | Partial, add-on or early | Absent or weak |
| Modern public catalogue UIPartly a matter of taste; see the screenshots. | Strong or native | Absent or weak |
| Digital lending integrationsPlanned in Lumina. | Absent or weak | Absent or weak |
| Dashboards and analytics | Strong or native | Partial, add-on or early |
| SMS, WhatsApp and push notices | Strong or native | Partial, add-on or early |
| Online paymentsRazorpay (UPI) with a sandbox in Lumina. | Strong or native | Absent or weak |
| Staff mobile app | Strong or native | Absent or weak |
| Patron mobile app | Strong or native | Absent or weak |
| WCAG 2.2 AALumina is built WCAG-minded but has had no independent audit. | Partial, add-on or early | Absent or weak |
| Indic scripts and collation | Partial, add-on or early | Partial, add-on or early |
| Interlibrary loan | Partial, add-on or early | Absent or weak |
| Course reserves and reading lists | Strong or native | Absent or weak |
| E-resource management (licences, KBART, COUNTER) | Partial, add-on or early | Absent or weak |
| Open APIs and webhooks | Strong or native | Partial, add-on or early |
| Offline circulation | Strong or native | Absent or weak |
| Time to first value (install to working) | Partial, add-on or early | Strong or native |
Strong or native Partial, add-on or early Absent or weak
Based on vendor documentation, community pages and our own review as of October 2026. Ratings are judgements; spot-check any cell that matters to you. The Lumina column reflects code that exists today, not its roadmap.
Choose SLiMS if
- You are a very small library that wants the simplest possible install
- You need OAI-PMH or a visitor counter today
- Hosting is a constraint
Choose Lumina if
- You want full MARC21 cataloguing and rule-based circulation
- You want fines, receipts, holds, notices and reports that scale
- You want mobile apps and a modern public catalogue
Is Lumina as easy to install as SLiMS?
No. SLiMS is a PHP application you can drop onto a web server. Lumina needs Postgres and a Node host, or a managed setup. That is part of why we offer setup and migration as a service.
Coming from Koha instead? See the migration plan or compare with Koha.
Next step
See your library in Lumina.
Thirty minutes, your questions, and a walk through the desk, the catalogue and the Koha import. No slides.