Looking for a place to stay on Airbnb and can’t find what you are looking for? Didn’t have a good experience or just don’t want to see the host in his underwear in the morning? Or wondering what are accommodation sites like Airbnb? Well, we have you covered with the exhaustive list of alternative sites to Airbnb and Airbnb competitors where you can find places to stay anywhere in the world. Check out these sites like Airbnb below and be sure to let us know of any others in the comments.
Questions Answered in Article: What sites are similar to Airbnb? What are Airbnb alternatives? What are Airbnb’s competitors? What are accommodation sites like Airbnb? What are booking sites like Airbnb?
Top Airbnb Competitors and Airbnb Alternatives List
Booking.com — 6.5/10 (9,681 reviews*)
A newer competitor in the rent by owner and short-term rental space, Booking.com (part of the Priceline Group.) is ahead of the curve with its traveler friendly user interface and instantly bookable inventory (can book it just like a hotel). It states that it has over 1 Million hotels/rentals with 108+ Million reviews. As the largest accommodation booking site in the world, Booking.com tends to have traveller friendly cancelation policies, which make it great for travelers that need flexibility. Currently they don’t charge the user a fee for booking like most other sites. Their rental inventory in the past has predominantly been in Europe but they are making great strides in the US and Asia-Pacific markets as well as the rest of the world. These rentals tend to be professional managed and therefore rarely have a host onsite, which alleviates a lot of the problems of staying at an Airbnb.
Homeaway and VRBO — 8.0/10 (4,420 reviews*)
The largest provider of vacation rentals on the list, HomeAway has over 1,000,000 vacation rentals, apartments, cabins and cottages. It has world wide inventory and runs numerous brands including: VRBO, Vacationrentals.com, BedandBreakfast.com, Travelmob (Asia), Homelidays (France), OwnersDirect (UK), Abritel (France), Stayz (Australia), Bookabach (New Zealand) and FeWo-direkt (Germany). All of the brands have the same booking policies, which include the traveler now paying a fee (~10%) for all bookings that go through the platform. Unlike Airbnb, travelers will likely not be interacting with the owners/hosts of the property. HomeAway and its brands are great for finding rental accommodations for families or people with pets in non-urban destinations.
Trivago — 8.2/10 (329 reviews*)
Traditionally a European hotel player, Trivago has a surprisingly good selection of serviced apartments, vacation homes, hostels and bed and breakfasts. For ease of use, there is not a site that is easier to navigate. When Airbnb lacks inventory, this is the site to check out due to its wide breadth of inventory and ease of use. It is a site worth clicking around on before booking solely on Airbnb. To find these hotel alternatives, click on “Extra Filters” and then on “Type of lodging”. Unlike Airbnb, these accommodations don’t have hosts.
Airbnb Alternative: Homestay.com
Homestay — 8.5/10 (4,620 reviews*)
A newer player, Homestay is a direct competitor with Airbnb and Couchsurfing. They focus exclusively on hosted housing e.g. where the host is present. This is very similar to Airbnb though they tend more towards Couchsurfing in that the pricing is very low and it is more typically a shared room, bed or couch rather than Airbnb, which tends to be an apartment or guesthouse. Started in 2013, Dublin based Homestay seeks to create a worldwide network of homestay accommodations for both hosts and guests. If you are looking for an accommodation with a host, this is a great alternative to Airbnb.
Hotels.com — 2.8/10 (1,056 reviews*)
Don’t let the name fool you, Expedia owned Hotels.com is a great place to find non-hotel accommodations. In major markets, up to 30% of their inventory is serviced apartments and apartment hotels. What is great about Hotels.com is that its entire inventory is instantly bookable and they are one of the few sites to offer true discounting. You will be hard pressed to find better deals through its inventory is smaller than Trivago and Booking.com. Unlike Airbnb none of the inventory has a host present.
Expedia — .7/10 (1,466 reviews*)
Much like Trivago, Expedia has traditionally been all about hotels and in particular focused on US travelers. More recently, Expedia has branched out into the alternative accommodation space via its acquisition of vacation rental giant HomeAway. With this acquisition, HomeAway has added to a large inventory of serviced apartments and now even has a vacation rental tab on its homepage. Given the overall breadth of inventory and instant book-ability, Expedia is a great alternative to Airbnb. Plus it is one stop shopping for flights, cars and accommodations.
Roomorama — 6.7/10 (2 reviews*)
Based in Singapore, Roomorama has about 80,000 properties worldwide but caters particularly well to APAC area. Unlike Airbnb, all the vacation homes and apartments are instantly bookable. This means that a user can book what they see on the site right away. When we think of sites like Airbnb, Roomorama is a contender though as shared, the inventory is significantly less and is really bested suited for traveling in Asia. An additional bonus is that they have 24/7 customer service and claim to have fully verified hosts.
Flipkey — 5.8/10 (1,474 reviews*)
More traditionally a vacation rental company, Flipkey offers ~300,000 vacation homes and rooms in 11,000 cities throughout the world. Acquired by Tripadvisor in 2008, Flipkey has all the advantages of Tripadvisor reviews (largest in the vacation rental industry) with one of the largest inventories of vacation homes. Like Airbnb, every host/owner is verified to ensure that the property is real and safe for users. Flipkey offers are a variety of methods for booking including inquiries, booking requests and instant bookings. For the bookings that occur on the platform, travelers are required to pay a fee much like Airbnb. Owners are typically not present with these rentals.
