For more than a decade, "free restaurant online ordering system" basically meant one thing: GloriaFood. Oracle has now confirmed the platform is being retired on April 30, 2027, no successor product, and no data retention after that date. If you were one of the 123,000+ restaurants running on the free tier, you have a year to find something that does the same job without quietly charging you in ways the old tool didn't.
This post is the honest version of that search. We define what "free" actually means in 2026 (it's not what it meant in 2014), compare every free restaurant online ordering system worth your time, and call out the hidden costs the marketing pages bury three scrolls down. We've helped a few hundred restaurants migrate off GloriaFood already, so the recommendations are operator-tested, not affiliate-ranked.
What "free" really means in restaurant online ordering today
The first thing to know: there is no longer a true free-forever-with-zero-strings product on the market. GloriaFood was an outlier. Everyone calling themselves a free online ordering system for restaurants in 2026 falls into one of four buckets, and you need to know which before you commit.
- Free-forever with per-order fees. The software costs nothing but the platform takes 1–3% of each order, or charges the customer a "convenience fee."
- Free tier, paid features. Pickup is free, delivery is $30+/month. Or single-location free, multi-location paid. This was GloriaFood's own model — and the model most of its alternatives copied.
- Free trial, then paid. You get 14–30 days, then a monthly bill. Listed as "free" in directories. Not free.
- Free and open source (self-hosted). Truly free software, but you pay in hosting, setup, plugins, and your own time.
If a tool says "free" without telling you which of these four it is, treat it the same way you'd treat a contractor who won't quote a price. The good news is that even with payment processing factored in, several of these still beat 25–30% commissions to Uber Eats or DoorDash by a country mile.
"Free model only applies to pickup — delivery requires $30/month."
That quote is from a GloriaFood customer reviewing the product on Capterra. It's also the template most of the alternatives use. Read the small print before you migrate.
The free restaurant online ordering systems worth considering in 2026
Here's the honest shortlist after we stripped out trials, abandoned products, and tools that haven't shipped a release in two years. Order is based on operator fit, not commercial relationships.
1. Fleksa — free tier, branded domain, no commissions on direct orders
Fleksa is the closest direct replacement for what GloriaFood actually did: a real website on your own domain plus an ordering widget that's yours, not a marketplace. The free tier gives you the ordering page, your menu, your branded subdomain, and zero commission on pickup and delivery orders processed directly. Payment processing fees go to your processor, not to Fleksa.
What you give up on the free tier: the custom top-level domain, advanced loyalty, and the white-label POS bundle. For most independents migrating off GloriaFood, the free tier is enough on day one. Strong fit in the US, UK, and especially DACH (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) where it competes head-to-head with Lieferando.
If you're migrating off GloriaFood, you can set up a Fleksa restaurant for free — branded domain, real ordering, your own customer list. No commissions on pickup or delivery.
2. Square Online — free tier, watch the processing rate
Square Online is the most-recognized name in the bucket and it does have a real free plan. You get a basic restaurant site, online ordering, pickup and delivery, and the Square ecosystem (gift cards, marketing, basic loyalty). The catch is the processing rate. Square Online charges 2.6% + $0.10 for in-person card payments and 2.9% + $0.30 for online — competitive on swipe, less so on small online tickets.
Where Square shines: if you already run Square at the front counter, the back-of-house unification is best-in-class. Where it stings: you don't get a real branded domain on free (you're stuck on a yoursite.square.site URL until you pay), and you do not own the customer email list.
3. TastyIgniter — free and open source (you host it)
TastyIgniter is the only truly free option on this list in the open-source sense. The software costs nothing because you self-host. That means a VPS or shared host (~$5–20/month), a developer to install and update it, and the comfort to deal with a Laravel-based stack.
For a tech-comfortable owner, or an agency that wants its own white-label, TastyIgniter is excellent. For a single-location operator running between shifts, it is not the right tool. Be honest about which one you are.
4. eHopper — free POS + ordering tier, capped at $30k/month transactions
eHopper bundles POS and ordering. The free tier supports one register, one tablet, and a cap of around $30,000/month in card transactions before you're pushed to the paid plan. For a small takeout shop doing $20k/month, that's a workable free path. For anyone above $400k/year, you'll graduate to a paid plan within months.
The bigger asterisk: the design and UX feel a decade behind Square or Fleksa. Operators care, but customers care more.
5. ChowNow — not free, but the trial is worth a mention
ChowNow does not have a free-forever tier. We're listing it because it shows up on every "free restaurant online ordering system" listicle by mistake, and because the 14-day trial is the cleanest way to test commission-free ordering at $149+/month. Worth a trial if you're a multi-location brand with strong direct-traffic already. Skip if you need the free option.
6. Jotform Food Ordering — free-tier form builder, not a real ordering system
Jotform shows up at #2 on Google for free restaurant ordering system searches today. It's a form builder, not a true ordering system. No menu editor, no real KDS, no integrations with delivery, no customer accounts in the way operators expect. Fine for a pop-up. Wrong for a working restaurant.
What GloriaFood gave you for free that some tools will charge you for now
This is the part nobody on the alternative-vendor pages will tell you. GloriaFood was unusually generous for a free product, and a chunk of what you took for granted is no longer free elsewhere. Audit your stack against this list before you migrate.
- Free pickup orders, unlimited. Square Online and Fleksa free tiers both keep this. Most others cap it or take a per-order cut.
- A real (branded) subdomain. GloriaFood handed you one for free. Square Online does not. Fleksa does. Most builders make this a paid feature.
- Facebook ordering integration. GloriaFood shipped this years before anyone else. Fleksa supports it on paid tiers. Most others don't ship it at all anymore.
- A reservation app (FoodBooking). Bundled free. Almost no replacement is free here — budget $20–60/month for a dedicated reservation tool, or use a system that bundles it.
- Promo and coupon engine. GloriaFood's coupons were free but limited (no fixed-dollar delivery discounts — a real complaint). Most paid tiers actually do this better.
- A POS-style order screen on tablet. Free, but capped at one tablet — "Limited to one tablet only — no front-of-house + kitchen split" was the #1 complaint on Capterra. The good news: most modern alternatives unlock multi-device on day one.
Two pieces of GloriaFood you cannot replace for free anywhere: the partner-program white-label (if you ran a "WordPress + GloriaFood" stack as an agency) and the FoodBooking reservation system. Plan for both.
How free online ordering systems compare on hidden costs
Here's the practical decoder. When a tool says "free," check these six lines:
- Per-order commission. 0% (Fleksa), 0% (Square Online direct), 0% (TastyIgniter), platform processor fees on all.
- Payment processing. 2.6–2.9% + $0.10–0.30 across all major options. This is the floor, not the platform's fault — every processor charges this.
- Domain. Free subdomain on Fleksa and TastyIgniter. Square stays on
*.square.siteuntil you upgrade. Custom.comis paid everywhere ($10–20/year regardless). - Customer data ownership. Yours on Fleksa, Square, TastyIgniter. NOT yours on third-party marketplaces (Uber Eats, DoorDash). This is the single most important line.
- Delivery. Direct delivery free on Fleksa pickup; delivery-zone setup is a paid tier on most. Marketplaces take 25–30%.
- Multi-device. Free on most modern tools; was the #1 GloriaFood pain.
If you're optimizing for "lowest invoice number," self-hosted TastyIgniter wins. If you're optimizing for "lowest total cost of ownership including your time," Fleksa or Square Online's free tier is the right starting point for most independents. For a deeper breakdown of POS-included options, see our guide to the best restaurant POS systems for 2026 — ordering increasingly belongs inside your POS, not bolted on top.
What to set up before April 30, 2027 — the migration short list
Even if you haven't picked a replacement yet, do these five things in the next 30 days. They preserve your business when the cutoff hits.
- Export your menu from GloriaFood. Settings → Menu → Export. Save the CSV and download every photo manually. Photos do not export with the CSV.
- Export your customer list. Marketing → Customers → Export. This is the single most valuable file you'll save. It cannot be recreated after April 30, 2027.
- Document your delivery zones, hours, and prep times. Screenshot every config screen. They're not in any export.
- Pull your last 12 months of order data. You'll want it for tax records, marketing segmentation, and your next platform's onboarding.
- Decide on a replacement and run parallel for at least two weeks. Do not flip DNS on Sunday at 9 PM. We wrote a full playbook here: how to migrate off GloriaFood before April 2027 — a step-by-step playbook.
While you're at it, run a free SEO scan — most GloriaFood-stack sites have major on-page gaps that your new ordering platform won't fix automatically.
Restaurant tablet ordering, table ordering, and digital ordering — does free cover them?
The free tiers above are built for the online ordering system for restaurants use case — a customer on their phone or laptop, placing pickup or delivery from your website. Three adjacent use cases are not covered by most free tiers:
- Restaurant tablet ordering (in-house staff taking orders on a tablet). Free on Square's POS app if you own a Square reader. Free on eHopper free tier. Not free in most ordering systems.
- Table ordering system for restaurants (customers ordering from a QR code at the table). Almost never free. Expect $20–80/month per location. We cover the setup in our QR code ordering guide.
- Digital ordering system for restaurant (kiosks and self-order screens). Hardware-dependent; not free.
If table ordering or kiosks are core to your concept, the free tier conversation is the wrong one — go straight to a POS-bundled solution.
Free online ordering for small business — does it work for non-restaurant food?
Yes. A free online ordering system for small business that started life in restaurant tech (Fleksa, Square Online, TastyIgniter) handles bakeries, coffee shops, butchers, dessert pop-ups, cloud kitchens, and ghost brands without much modification. The core flow — menu, cart, payment, fulfillment window — is the same.
What you lose by using a restaurant tool for non-restaurant retail: deep inventory tracking for products with variants (size, color, etc.). For that, Shopify's free trial or Square for Retail are stronger options. For everything that looks like "menu of items + pickup or delivery window," restaurant tools are honestly better than generic ecommerce.
The honest recommendation
If you're a single-location independent who relied on GloriaFood's free tier, start free on Fleksa. You'll get a branded subdomain, a real ordering page, your customer list in your own hands, and zero commission on direct orders. The migration runway runs to April 30, 2027 — don't wait.
If you already run Square at the front counter, Square Online's free tier is the path of least resistance. Accept the square.site URL until you upgrade.
If you're a developer or agency running multiple sites, TastyIgniter is your white-label foundation, and it's truly free in the open-source sense.
Everything else — Jotform, eHopper at scale, ChowNow under "free" — is either the wrong tool or not actually free. The good news is the restaurant online ordering system market in 2026 is genuinely competitive, and the post-GloriaFood reshuffle is the best moment in a decade to pick something that fits your shop instead of the other way around.
Ready to move? Start free on Fleksa — we'll help you import your menu from GloriaFood before it goes dark on April 30, 2027.
FAQ
What are the best free online ordering systems for restaurants in 2026?
For most independents, Fleksa's free tier and Square Online's free tier are the two strongest options — both give you a real ordering page, customer data ownership, and no platform commission on direct orders. TastyIgniter is the best truly-free pick if you can self-host. ChowNow and most "free" listings on directory sites are trials or freemium models with significant hidden costs.
Is there really a free restaurant online ordering system after GloriaFood shuts down?
Yes — but the definition of "free" has narrowed. Free-forever-with-no-strings disappears when GloriaFood retires on April 30, 2027. What remains is a healthy set of free tiers (paid features locked) and one open-source self-hosted option. You will pay payment processing fees regardless of platform; that's a processor cost, not a software cost.
What is the difference between free online ordering and commission-free online ordering?
Free online ordering means the software itself costs $0 on a particular tier. Commission-free means the platform takes no cut of each order's revenue (you still pay payment processing). The two usually overlap — Fleksa and Square Online free tiers are both — but not always. Marketplaces like Uber Eats are neither: they charge 25–30% per order on top of any subscription.
What free ordering system replaces GloriaFood for small businesses?
Fleksa is the closest 1:1 replacement: branded subdomain, ordering page, menu, customer list, free tier. Square Online is the next-closest if you already run Square hardware. For agencies and developers, TastyIgniter is the white-label replacement for the old "WordPress + GloriaFood" stack.
Can I get free online ordering with my own domain name?
You can run free online ordering on a free subdomain (e.g., yourshop.fleksa.com) on most platforms. A custom domain (yourshop.com) is paid almost everywhere, but the cost is the $10–20/year you pay the registrar — not the platform. Square Online keeps you on *.square.site until you upgrade, which is one reason most operators move off the free tier within their first year.
