Floreant POS in Mexico: what free open source really costs

Floreant POS is a restaurant register you can download and run without paying anybody a licence fee. That is genuinely true, which makes it unusual, and it is worth understanding properly before you build a business on it. This article covers what Floreant is, what it costs in work rather than money, what a restaurant in Mexico still has to buy separately, and the part of the day it was never designed to touch.

What Floreant POS is

Floreant is a desktop point of sale software program for restaurants. It is written in Java, it draws a table map, it takes orders at a counter, it prints to a kitchen printer and it produces reports at the end of a shift. Its SourceForge project page describes it as an open source restaurant POS that has "powered 30,000 restaurants in 25 countries around the world", lists the licence as Mozilla Public License 1.1, and shows the software still being updated, with a build published in May 2026.

Two details from that page matter more than the feature list. It runs as an embedded or client and server database, which means the data lives on a computer you own. And it is Java, so it needs a working Java installation on every machine that runs it.

None of that is a criticism. It is a description of a category. Open source pos software hands you the program and hands you the responsibility with it. As restaurant pos software goes, Floreant is unusually complete for something with no price attached, and the trade is that everything around it becomes your job.

What free pays for, and what it does not

The licence costs nothing. Here is the list of things that still cost something.

Installing it. Somebody has to set up the database, connect the printers, and get the table map matching your floor. If that person is you, the price is your weekend. If it is a technician, the price is a technician.

Keeping it alive. A machine under a counter in a busy kitchen lives a hard life. Heat, power cuts, spilled drinks. When it dies, your menu, your prices and your sales history die with it unless somebody has been taking backups. Nobody is going to remind you.

Upgrades. New versions arrive on the project's own schedule, not yours. Installing one is your job, and so is checking that nothing you rely on broke.

Help at nine on a Saturday. There is no support desk you have a contract with. There are forums, other users, and consultants who will quote you for their time. That is a fair trade and it is not the same as a supplier who owes you an answer.

This is why the honest comparison is never free against paid. It is your time against somebody else's. We set out how to price that properly in the guide to choosing pos software for a restaurant.

The Mexican part nobody mentions

If you are running a restaurant in Mexico, a register that prints a ticket is only half of what the law expects.

Value added tax is charged at the general rate of 16% on sales of goods and services, and any customer who asks for a factura needs a proper electronic one. Mexico requires those invoices to be issued in CFDI 4.0 XML format, cleared in real time through an authorised certification provider, delivered as a printable PDF with a verification code, and kept for five years.

Floreant is built in the United States and does not do that. Neither does any general purpose foreign register you download. Stamping a CFDI means working with an authorised provider, and that is a separate arrangement with its own monthly cost. Anyone comparing systems on price in Mexico has to put that line in the sum, whichever system they pick.

The job a register was never built for

Set installation and tax aside, because there is a larger question sitting behind them.

A register answers the person standing in front of it. It is very good at that. What it cannot see is the order that arrives as a message, from somebody who is at home, asking whether you deliver to their street. Somebody on shift reads that message, types it into the register, reads the address back twice, and hopes the kitchen got the right one.

That work does not appear in any report Floreant produces, because as far as the software is concerned it was just another counter sale. The pattern is the same everywhere, and we describe both halves of it in the piece on what a restaurant pos actually covers.

"I have taught people to build and host software for a long time, and the part they underestimate is never the building. It is the Tuesday two years later when something stops and everyone is looking at each other. Free software is a fair choice. Just choose it knowing who is on call."

— Tanzeel ur Rehman, co-founder of Get Menu

What Get Menu covers

Get Menu is the ordering half, not a cash register. If Floreant is working at your counter, keep it there. What follows is what sits beside it.

A page at an address of your own. It sits on getmenu.ae and comes with the account from the first day. There are 12 page layouts, plus colour themes and a font picker, so a taqueria and a quiet dining room need not resemble each other. Guests open a link, with nothing to install.

One code per table, print ready. The system draws a code for every table, a designer dresses it in your branding, and the finished pack reaches your email for a printer. Because the code knows its own table, the guest types nothing, and several handsets around it can build a single bill.

Nothing arrives half decided. Extras and options carry prices of their own, and anything you mark as required must be answered before the item enters the basket. Prices are read again from the live menu at the instant of checkout, so what was shown is what is charged.

Portions that fall on their own. Say how many exist and the figure drops with each order. Options keep separate figures, so one salsa running dry does not remove the whole dish. Zero greys the item out unattended, and a cancellation returns what was taken.

The kitchen finds out in the group chat. A confirmed order sends 3 messages inside roughly 2 seconds. One returns to the customer as a receipt. One becomes a ticket in the managers' group. One reaches the riders' group carrying the pin the customer dropped on the map. Whether each of them arrived is recorded.

An address a driver can find. A customer chooses their building and unit from a list you set up, instead of describing a landmark over the phone. Charges can differ from one building to another, and delivery can be made free above a total of your choosing.

A reason to come back. A stamp can be given for each order, or for each amount spent, whichever suits your prices. Regulars move up through tiers, and any tier can hold an automatic discount. Every reward carries an expiry, which is what makes people use it. Google Wallet holds the card and refreshes it by itself, so there is no download. Apple's version exists and awaits a certificate.

Offers with a fence around them. Coupons take caps, item exclusions and expiry dates. Any three dishes can be bundled at a single price. Two discounts never combine by accident, because only the better one lands.

Books you can hand over. Each invoice shows your registration number and downloads as a PDF with no login, and your sales history comes out as a spreadsheet whenever you ask. None of it runs on a machine under your counter, so a dead computer costs you a computer and nothing else.

Fifteen days of trial begin with no card details, and after that the charge is one monthly figure, with 0% of what you sell going anywhere else.

What Get Menu does not do

It does not stamp a CFDI. The invoices it produces are ordinary PDF documents carrying your registration number, which is not the same thing as a tax receipt certified by an authorised provider. In Mexico you will still need your invoicing arrangement, and that is worth knowing before you compare us to anything.

It also takes no payment online. Payment is cash or your own card machine when the food arrives, so no card details exist anywhere in the system. And it is not a counter register, so walk-in sales still belong to Floreant or to whatever you use today.

Who should choose which

Choose Floreant if you have somebody technical, your orders arrive at a counter, and you would rather spend hours than money. Thirty thousand restaurants have used it, and the licence really does cost nothing.

Choose an ordering page if the messages on your phone have become a second job. If you want both, run both. They are answering different questions, and a fuller comparison of the hosted option is in our guide to a cloud based point of sale.

Frequently asked questions

Is Floreant POS actually free?

The software is open source and its SourceForge page lists it under the Mozilla Public License 1.1, so there is no licence fee. Installation, hardware, backups, upgrades and any help you need are the costs that remain.

Does Floreant POS handle Mexican electronic invoicing?

No. Mexican rules require invoices in CFDI 4.0 format cleared in real time through an authorised certification provider. That is a separate arrangement, and it applies whatever register you use.

Can Get Menu replace Floreant at my counter?

No. What it takes over is the customer's side of the evening and what follows it: the menu itself, the basket, the address, the group messages, the stamps and the figures at the end. Running Floreant on the counter and an ordering page for the phone is a perfectly normal pairing.

Can my customers pay online?

No. Payment is cash or a card machine at the door, which also means there are no card details stored anywhere for anyone to steal.

How long does setting up an ordering page take?

Usually one day. A menu that already exists as a spreadsheet is uploaded whole, so nobody has to retype it dish by dish.