Plinth vs MyGate: Choosing Between a Gate App and a Governance Platform

Gate app or governance platform?

We make Plinth, so read this as our argument rather than an impartial review. We have tried to make it a fair one, and to be explicit about where a gate-first product is the better choice.

Feature lists on both sides change constantly, so we are not going to publish a tick-box grid that will be wrong in three months. What follows is the structural difference between the two categories and how to work out which your society actually needs.

What each category optimises for

Gate-first apps — the category MyGate defined in India — are built outward from the security gate. Visitor pre-approval, delivery handling, guard workflow, resident convenience. They are widely deployed, guards across the country already know the interface, and the resident experience is polished because that is where the product's attention has always been.

Governance-first platforms — where Plinth sits — are built outward from the general body. Voting and elections, meetings and minutes, billing tied to resolutions, compliance deadlines, and an audit trail designed for the moment a decision is challenged. The gate matters, but it is one operational surface among several rather than the organising idea.

Both categories have expanded toward the other over time. The difference that persists is what the data model is organised around, and that shows up in the parts of the product nobody demos.

The question that decides it

What is currently costing your society the most?

If the honest answer is "we do not know who is entering the building, and the gate register is useless" — that is a gate problem. Deploy a gate-first product. It will do that job well, your guards will probably recognise it, and you should not over-think it.

If the answer is "our AGM resolutions are unprovable, the treasurer's spreadsheet is the only record of who owes what, and we missed the audit deadline again" — that is a governance problem, and a gate app is not built for it.

Most societies have both. The question is which one is generating the disputes.

Where the difference actually shows

Voting. A poll feature and a defensible election are different things. For a committee election you need a frozen voter roll, secrecy by construction rather than by policy, duplicate prevention as a database constraint, server-side result computation, and a record you can produce at the registrar. Ask any vendor to explain the secrecy mechanism technically — the answer tells you whether voting was designed or added.

Billing. Society bills are several heads on different bases — service charges equal per flat, funds by built-up area. A product that supports one blended per-square-foot rate will push your society into a basis its bye-laws do not support. Test it with a real bill, plus arrears, a part payment and a mid-cycle ownership change.

Audit trail. Ask whether an administrator can edit an issued receipt, a cast vote, or a confirmed minute — and what the log shows if they do. Append-only is a design decision, not a setting.

Compliance. Whether the product knows what an AGM deadline, an audit filing or a lift certificate renewal is, or whether that lives in the secretary's head.

Where a gate-first app wins

Being straightforward about this:

• Guard familiarity. If your security agency's staff already use one, retraining has a real cost.
• Gate polish. Years of iteration on the highest-frequency interaction in the building.
• Resident network effects. Residents who used it at their last society need no onboarding.
• Ecosystem services — home services, partner offers — if your residents value them.

That last one deserves a note in both directions. Ecosystem services are genuinely convenient. They also mean resident attention and data have commercial value to the vendor beyond your subscription. That is a legitimate model, and the committee should simply know it is the model and decide whether it is what the society wants.

Questions to ask either vendor

1. Explain technically how a secret ballot separates the voter from the vote.
2. Can different charge heads use different calculation bases in one bill?
3. Can an administrator edit an issued receipt or a cast vote, and what does the log show?
4. Can we export our full history, in a usable format, during the trial?
5. Is resident data used for advertising, cross-selling or shared with third parties?
6. What is the default retention for visitor logs and identity documents?
7. What happens to our data if we terminate?
8. Time a routine gate entry on the guard's actual device, offline.

Run these against us too. If our answer on any of them is unsatisfactory for your society, that is useful information.

How to decide

• Gate is the pain, governance is fine → gate-first product.
• Governance is the pain — contested resolutions, weak records, compliance slipping → governance-first.
• Both → decide which generates the disputes, and check the other side is genuinely adequate rather than a checkbox.
• Large managed township with professional staff → look at facility-management suites as well.

Whichever you choose, pilot with one wing for a month, test with your own data, and confirm you can export before you commit.

Frequently asked questions

Is there a good MyGate alternative for Indian housing societies? Several products serve this market with different emphases — gate-first, accounting-first, governance-first and facility-management. Plinth is governance-first. Which is "better" depends on which problem is costing your society most.

Can we use a gate app and separate accounting software? You can, and many societies do. The cost is maintaining the resident roster in two places, which drifts. If you go this way, decide which system is the source of truth for membership.

Does Plinth do visitor management? Yes — pre-approval with expiring codes, delivery and staff flows, gate intercom, and entry records tied to the same flat roster used for billing and voting.

What should we test before choosing? Gate speed on the guard's device including offline, a bill with arrears and a part payment, the secret-ballot mechanism, the audit trail's editability, and a full data export.

Can we migrate from one to the other? Depends on export. Ask for a full history export during the trial rather than accepting a promise.

Related: visitor management evaluation · how to evaluate society software · online voting for housing societies · Plinth pricing