Coast vs. Brightly Asset Essentials: A 2026 CMMS Comparison

Choosing a computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) feels a lot like choosing a car. They all promise reliability, but what you really want to know is which one will actually start every morning.

When moving away from spreadsheet-based maintenance, Coast and Brightly Asset Essentials often end up in the final list of platforms to evaluate. But settling on one can feel daunting because both have great reputations.

The choice boils down to whether you want more extensive, enterprise-grade features or a highly customizable equipment maintenance software with intuitive design and faster implementation. In this guide, we compare both platforms to help you choose one that fits your needs best.

Coast vs. Brightly Asset Essentials at a Glance

Both Coast and Brightly Asset Essentials are built for companies of varying sizes. Both of them also offer desktop and mobile access.

Coast positions itself as a mobile-first CMMS focusing on fast setup and field use, while Brightly focuses on broader enterprise needs with deeper reporting capabilities.

Here’s a quick comparison of Coast and Brightly Asset Essentials:

Implementation	Cloud deployment with formal onboarding, built for larger portfolios	Fast, low-friction rollout designed for quick adoption; also offers a free plan and easy signup to get started
Ease of Use	Full-feature interface with deeper capabilities — more powerful but generally higher learning curve	Mobile-first UI, simple workflows and in-app messaging to reduce training time
Mobile Experience	Mobile access available but less impressive	A field-friendly app for technicians to open and close work orders; quick QR code access to maintenance information
Customization & Scalability	Customizable dashboards as well as a Report Designer (only available for enterprise customers)	Extensive customizations for different workflows that streamline asset lifecycle management
Customer Support	Formal support and client services tailored to enterprise customers, plus product docs and release notes	Self-serve help center, designed for fast self-onboarding, as well as assigned support team with great reviews

At a high level, the contrast is straightforward. Coast prioritizes simplicity and speed with a cloud-based setup and mobile-first workflow, while Brightly prioritizes structure and depth with an extensive feature set that also requires more time for configuration.

However, remarkable differences show up during day-to-day use. Coast’s mobile experience and clean UI speed up maintenance execution, especially for teams that rely on mobile devices to manage work orders and assets. Plus, its flexible software makes it easy to pick and choose which features you need for your operation. Brightly offers an extensive feature set that appeals to broader enterprise clients, provided they have enough bandwidth to make good use of those options.

The right choice depends on which of these capabilities aligns more naturally with your operating reality. On that note, let’s dive a little deeper into what Coast and Brightly Asset Essentials offer.

Coast Is Intuitive & Easy to Implement

One of Coast’s biggest strengths is how easy it is to implement. In fact, it was named No. 1 on G2’s CMMS Implementation Index Report for Winter 2026. You don’t need any complicated onboarding or external consultants to get set up. Here’s why Coast makes implementation and adoption a breeze:

• Minimal setup friction: Coast is cloud-based and purpose-built to adapt to your needs. You can get started within minutes by creating a free account (no credit card required) and assigning work orders..
• Highly customizable: Customization options are one of Coast’s most powerful features. It adapts to how your team works, rather than forcing you to reengineer processes, no matter how small or distributed your organization is.
• Mobile-first design: The mobile app lets your technicians create, view, update or close work orders while working in the field. This reduces lag between task assignment and completion because technicians don’t need to go back to a desk or paper log to view or update work orders.
• All-in-one maintenance toolkit: Coast brings everything you need for your maintenance program into a single platform. This includes automated work orders, preventive maintenance workflows, asset and parts inventory tracking, maintenance history, performance reports and more.

Brightly Asset Essentials Offers an Extensive Feature Set

Brightly Asset Essentials is an enterprise-grade CMMS. It brings together a wide range of tools for managing assets, maintenance ops, compliance and long-term facility planning. It’s one of the most feature-rich platforms in its category. Here’s what it offers:

• IoT-powered predictive maintenance: Brightly offers Smart Assets IoT integration, which connects your sensors with the CMMS. The sensors feed real-time data from the equipment to the CMMS, allowing your team to monitor equipment condition and perform maintenance on an as-needed basis.
• Compliance and audit support: The platform includes documentation tools designed to help teams stay audit-ready. It also generates reports, allows you to build dashboards and enables you to export data or documentation for audits.
• GIS mapping for large, distributed operations: Brightly supports geospatial asset mapping, which allows your team to visualize equipment locations across multi-site portfolios, facilities, utilities or municipalities. This is particularly useful if your organization has outdoor infrastructure or assets that are geographically dispersed.
• Advanced reporting and analytics: Asset Essentials includes configurable dashboards, work history analysis, cost reporting and performance KPIs. It also offers a Maintenance Forecast tool that helps teams plan upcoming maintenance and budget more accurately.
• Robust asset and lifecycle management: In addition to basic asset tracking, Brightly offers detailed asset histories, condition monitoring, total cost of ownership insights and long-term lifecycle planning. These support your strategic decisions for large asset portfolios.

Both Streamline Work Order Management

Both platforms offer a centralized platform to manage work orders, but they take different approaches in how those workflows feel during day-to-day use.

Coast keeps your work orders simple and fast. 

Coast’s work order system is designed for quick intake and real-time collaboration. Your team can create tasks from the web or mobile app, attach photos, track progress and communicate through built-in chat, so technicians and managers are always in sync with each other.

Coast also lets you customize work order forms and add checklists. This makes it easy to standardize tasks across locations.

Brightly offers structured work order workflows.

Asset Essentials supports a range of work order types, including reactive, corrective, preventive and predictive work orders. You can schedule tasks or auto-generate them based on your preventive maintenance schedule or triggers from IoT sensor alerts.

If you’re a large corporation, you’ll appreciate Brightly’s routing rules, priority settings and detailed record-keeping features, which make it easier to manage high volumes of work orders across multiple facilities. However, its lack of real-time communication may be a barrier for some.

Both Offer Detailed Reporting & Analytics

Coast and Brightly Asset Essentials both give maintenance teams the ability to track performance, understand asset history and make better operational decisions with their respective reporting and analytics features.

However, each platform has its own unique reporting and analytics toolkit and individual strengths.

Coast provides essential maintenance reporting. 

Coast generates reports for work orders, repair costs, downtime and overall maintenance activity. It’s easier for you to review historical trends with Coast and see which assets require frequent maintenance, providing insights into total maintenance budgets and asset replacement planning.

Brightly offers advanced analytics and long-term insights.

The platform includes configurable dashboards, custom reports and performance KPIs that help analyze maintenance workload and asset condition. Its Maintenance Forecast feature also helps predict future work and estimate costs. This is an excellent feature for anyone managing a large portfolio or aging assets.

Does Coast or Brightly Asset Essentials Make Sense for You?

Both Coast and Brightly Asset Essentials can help you gain more control over assets and preventive maintenance. But the right fit depends on what you value most.

Brightly is ideal for companies that need a more feature-dense platform with IoT connectivity, GIS mapping and advanced reporting capabilities. This feature depth may be valuable for operations with complex infrastructure or broad regulatory needs.

Coast is a no-brainer if you want a modern, intuitive CMMS that’s quick to implement and offers thorough customization options. It also outperforms Brightly across every category in the G2 Winter 2026 CMMS Reports, including ease of use and implementation.

If you want to learn more about how Coast can help your team, book a demo today.