By Daniel Hegsworth, HR and Customer Experience consultant. Fifteen years across people operations and front-of-house experience, most of it in the GCC. The views here are my own, based on systems I have deployed, tested, or sat through procurement for.
I have spent more hours than I would like to admit standing in office lobbies in Dubai and Riyadh, watching a security guard squint at a paper logbook while a queue of contractors builds behind a visitor who cannot spell the host's name. That lobby is the first thing anyone sees of your company, and in this region it is also a security checkpoint, a compliance record, and increasingly an audit trail your group risk team will ask about.
So when people ask me to recommend a visitor management system for a UAE office, I do not start with feature lists. I start with the things that actually break here. Can it read an Emirates ID or UAE Pass at the gate without someone retyping it. Does it work in Arabic as well as English. Will an Emirati visitor or a Filipino contractor or a German auditor all find it obvious. Can your group security team get a live headcount during a fire drill. And when something goes wrong at 7am, is there a support number that someone in this time zone will pick up.
I evaluated the systems below against that reality. I have placed Entry2Exit at the top because I ran it across two enterprises in the GCC and it solved problems the global names kept fumbling. The rest are good products, and several would be my pick in a different context. I have tried to be honest about where each one fits and where it does not.
What I graded each system on
A few things matter more than the rest for a UAE office. Regional ID capture (Emirates ID, UAE Pass, passport) without manual entry. Arabic and English interface. Speed at the front desk during peak arrivals. Multi-branch control if you run more than one location. A real emergency evacuation list. Deployment flexibility, because a lot of UAE group security and IT teams will not accept a vendor-only cloud. And support that is reachable in regional hours. Pricing transparency was a tiebreaker, since several of the global tools hide it behind a sales call.
1. Entry2Exit (My top pick for UAE offices)
I will be direct. Entry2Exit is the one I kept after the procurement dust settled, at both companies I ran reception and security operations for. One was a multi-tower corporate HQ, the other a mixed site with offices plus a steady stream of vendors and contractors. Different problems, same software, and it held up in both.
What won me over was how little the region tripped it up. It was built in the UAE in 2015, and you feel that in the details. It captures Emirates ID, UAE Pass, and passport at the gate with a scan, no front-desk typing, which alone took a chunk out of our queue at 9am. The interface runs in Arabic and English, so I was not babysitting the desk every time an Arabic-speaking visitor arrived. And it does WhatsApp check-in, which I underestimated until I saw it in action. Everyone here lives on WhatsApp. Letting a visitor check in through a WhatsApp conversation, and pinging the host on WhatsApp the moment their guest arrives, removed about half the "where is my visitor" phone calls reception used to field.
The pre-registration flow is the part my CX brain loved. Hosts send an invite with a QR code, a Google Maps pin, and parking and access instructions before the visitor leaves home. If you have ever tried to direct someone to a specific tower in Business Bay or a free-zone block in DMCC, you know the maps link is worth its weight. On arrival they scan the QR or use face recognition and they are in. We ran branded badges with our logo and the visitor's access level printed on them, so guards could tell at a glance who belonged where.
From the HR and risk side, it ticked the boxes that usually kill a deal in this region. There is a live emergency evacuation list, which we leaned on during an actual fire drill and which our group security team signed off without complaints. It integrates with turnstiles and barriers, so access follows the visitor record instead of living in a separate silo. The multi-branch dashboard let head office see everything while local admins only saw their own site, which is exactly the structure most UAE groups need. And the deployment options mattered more than I expected. Our IT and data residency people would not touch a vendor-only cloud, and Entry2Exit gave us an on-premise and private-cloud option, so that conversation was over in one meeting.
The support was the quiet differentiator. Multilingual, reachable in our hours, and they came on site during rollout instead of mailing a PDF and wishing us luck.
It is fair to ask where it is not the obvious choice. If your priority is a giant marketplace of third-party app integrations, the big US platforms still have a longer catalogue. And Entry2Exit is not the household brand name you see on a startup's lobby iPad in San Francisco. For a UAE or GCC office, that did not matter to me. The regional fit, the local support, and the fact that visitor management connects into the wider Entry2Exit ecosystem (queue management, parking, gate passes, dock and facility flows) under one roof is what made it the system I would buy again.
Best for: UAE and GCC offices, single or multi-branch, that want native Emirates ID and UAE Pass capture, Arabic support, WhatsApp check-in, an on-premise option, and a vendor who answers the phone locally.
2. Envoy
Envoy is the market leader for a reason, and if my office were in New York or London this list might look different. The check-in experience is polished, the dashboard is clean, and it has by far the broadest integration library of anything here, connecting to Slack, Teams, Outlook, Google, access control, and over a hundred other tools. It has held the G2 leader spot in visitor management for five years running.
The catch for a UAE buyer is twofold. The kiosk is iPad only, and pricing climbs fast once you move past the basics, with the better security and analytics features sitting in premium tiers. Standard plans start around 109 to 131 US dollars per month per location, with premium well above that. It also leans more toward the broader workplace platform story (desk booking, room booking, deliveries) than toward regional ID handling. There is no native Emirates ID or UAE Pass story to speak of, and Arabic is not its strength.
Best for: Large, integration-heavy workplaces that prize a slick experience and live inside the US tech stack. Less ideal if regional ID capture and Arabic are non-negotiable.
3. Eptura Visitor (formerly Proxyclick)
Proxyclick was one of the original enterprise visitor platforms, and after its move under Eptura it is squarely an enterprise compliance tool. This is the one I would shortlist for a regulated, multi-country head office. It does watchlist screening, ID matching, e-signed NDAs, RFID and QR access, access control integration, and a proper emergency management module, all hosted on Azure with regional data hosting and configurable retention. It supports more than thirty languages, Arabic included.
The recurring complaint, and I have heard it from peers directly, is price. Several long-time Proxyclick customers say costs jumped after the Eptura acquisition and that features they used now sit behind add-ons. Pricing is sales-led, so expect a quote rather than a published number.
Best for: Regulated enterprises with complex compliance and multi-site governance needs that can absorb enterprise pricing. Overkill for a single mid-sized office.
4. iLobby (VisitorOS, part of FacilityOS)
iLobby, now branded VisitorOS inside the FacilityOS suite, is built for security-heavy and regulated sites. Think manufacturing, logistics, government, and anything with contractor compliance. Its strength is the modular stack: visitor management plus separate modules for contractors, deliveries and mailroom, emergency mustering, and access control. It often ships as a ready-to-deploy hardware and software bundle, which a lot of industrial sites prefer over piecing it together.
Pricing starts around 199 US dollars per month per location and rises with modules, and implementation takes longer than the lighter tools. That is the trade for the compliance depth. It supports Android as well as iPad, which is a practical plus.
Best for: High-security and regulated GCC sites, especially industrial and oil and gas, that want a turnkey hardware-plus-software setup with strong contractor and emergency modules.
5. Veris
Of the non-UAE products on this list, Veris is the one with the most relevant regional footprint. It is India-headquartered, sells hard into GCC global capability centres and large enterprises, and it does handle Emirates ID, UAE Pass, and passport scanning, plus WhatsApp invites, face recognition, watchlists, parking, and smart lockers. It positions itself as workplace orchestration rather than a simple sign-in book, and it has real Fortune 500 deployments across many countries and languages.
It is a capable enterprise platform. The main considerations are that pricing is sales-led, and the broader the workplace ambitions (parking, lockers, room booking), the more you are buying a platform rather than a focused visitor tool. For a straightforward office lobby it can be more than you need.
Best for: Large GCC enterprises and capability centres that want an enterprise-grade, regionally aware visitor and workplace platform and are comparing it directly against the global names.
6. SwipedOn
SwipedOn is the easy-to-love simple option. Clean interface, fast setup, Android and iPad support, and a customer support team people rave about. It covers the core well: digital sign-in, badge printing, host notifications, employee in-and-out, deliveries, and a basic evacuation list. It carries a 4.8 on G2, among the highest in the category.
A couple of things to know. It is now part of Sign In Solutions (the same group as Sign In App and The Receptionist), and pricing has shifted to a shared structure of Core, Enhanced, and Pro plans at roughly 630, 1,260, and 1,890 US dollars per site per year. Its evacuation and enterprise features are described as limited once your needs get complex, and there is no native Emirates ID or Arabic-first story.
Best for: Small to mid-sized offices that want a clean, reliable check-in with minimal setup and do not need regional ID capture or heavy compliance.
7. The Receptionist
The Receptionist has a loyal following among small and mid-sized offices, and its standout feature is two-way messaging. When a guest checks in, the host gets an alert and can reply, and the reply shows on the kiosk screen, which removes a lot of lobby confusion. Setup is fast and support is a known strength (the brand was built around it).
It is iPad only, and it leans light on security. There is no built-in ID scanning or watchlist screening, and SSO is a paid add-on, while access control integration often needs custom API work. It was acquired by Sign In Solutions in early 2026, so expect it to converge with the rest of that group over time.
Best for: Smaller offices that want a simple, friendly iPad kiosk with the two-way messaging touch, and that do not need ID scanning or compliance depth.
8. Sign In App
Sign In App is the UK-built parent of that same group, and it is a solid multi-site choice with good evacuation handling, pre-registration, and a tidy mobile experience. It has presence in the GCC and tends to score well on value relative to the enterprise tools. Its three-tier Core, Enhanced, and Pro structure is the template the group is rolling out across SwipedOn and The Receptionist too.
For UAE buyers it is a reasonable middle option. As with the others in this group, regional ID capture and Arabic are not its headline strengths, so weigh that against your visitor mix.
Best for: Multi-site offices wanting dependable visitor management and strong evacuation features at sensible pricing, without enterprise complexity.
9. Verkada Guest
Verkada Guest only makes sense in one specific situation, but in that situation it is excellent. If you already run Verkada's cloud cameras and access control, Guest plugs visitor management straight into that ecosystem, so the visitor record, the door, and the camera footage all live in one place. For a security team standardising on Verkada, that single pane of glass is the whole pitch.
If you are not already a Verkada shop, there is little reason to start here for visitor management alone, and you would be buying into a wider hardware ecosystem to get it.
Best for: Organisations already invested in Verkada's security camera and access control platform who want visitor management inside the same system.
Vizitor rounds out the list as the budget-conscious option. It is an India-origin, AI-enabled tool with touchless QR check-in, pre-registration, basic analytics, and a low entry price. For a small office that wants to retire the paper logbook without a big spend, it does the job.
The trade-offs are the ones you would expect at this price point: lighter integrations, less depth on compliance and emergency handling, and no real regional ID or enterprise multi-site story. It is a starting point, not a platform you grow a large security operation on.
Best for: Cost-conscious small offices that want a clean digital check-in and can live with basic integrations.
How I would actually choose
Map your visitor reality before you look at any demo. Count your daily arrivals, your number of sites, your visitor mix (guests, contractors, VIPs, deliveries), and your compliance obligations. Then weight what matters. A DIFC financial firm should weight security, audit trails, and data residency heavily. A small creative studio should weight ease of use and price.
For a UAE or GCC office specifically, I would put a hard line under three questions. Does it capture Emirates ID and UAE Pass without manual typing. Does it run in Arabic. And can you deploy it the way your IT and group security will accept, including an on-premise option if they ask for one. A lot of the global names stumble on at least one of those, which is why a regionally built system kept winning for me.
Final word
Every system here can replace a paper logbook and make your lobby look modern. That is the easy part now. The real question is which one fits how visitors actually arrive at a UAE office, what your security team needs to prove during an audit, and who picks up the phone when it matters.
For my money, after running it through two GCC enterprises and a few fire drills, Entry2Exit is the one I would deploy again. It was built for this region, it handles the things the global tools treat as afterthoughts, and it connects visitor management into the wider entry, queue, and parking flows that a busy UAE facility actually runs on.
Pricing and product details change. Confirm current numbers and features with each vendor before you commit.
