Arabic and English are one build, checked for parity on every change, and every document the system issues exists in both.
CargoSharks vs CARGOES Runner: an independent alternative to DP World’s ERP
A DP World product, which is the fact that matters most about it and has nothing to do with software. Here is what that buys you, and where a smaller independent system is the better answer.
- Built for
- Forwarders in Kuwait, the UAE and Saudi Arabia
- Modes
- Sea, air, road, rail and courier
- Languages
- Arabic and English, one build, documents in both
- E-invoicing
- ZATCA Phase 2 and UAE e-invoicing, in the product
- Your data
- Your own database, in your own instance
- Getting started
- Free demo call, then 15 working days of paid setup and onboarding
The difference that matters is who owns the software
DP World operates terminals and also sells software to the forwarders who book through them. Both parties publish that. For a forwarder whose volume runs through those terminals, the closeness is the reason to choose it; for one whose volume does not, it is a question worth asking out loud.
Where each software vendor stands in the freight chain
- Shipper
- ForwarderYou
- TerminalDP World
- Carrier
CargoSharks
Sells the software and nothing else. It operates nothing you book through.
DP World
Runs terminals in this chain, and sells the software to forwarders.
What CARGOES Runner says about itself
DP World describes CARGOES Runner as an ERP built from the ground up for small and medium-sized freight forwarders, aimed at back-office operations: quotations against your own tariff, quote-to-ship, digital invoicing and margin analytics, with an integrated ocean sailing-schedule search.
Read from www.dpworld.com/smart-trade/freight-forwarding-erp on 2026-08-25. If it has gone out of date, tell us and we will correct it.
Pick CARGOES Runner if
- Your volume runs through DP World terminals and you want the platform that sits closest to them.
- The backing of a group that size is part of what you are buying. That is a legitimate reason to choose a vendor, and we would say so on a call.
Pick CargoSharks if
Each point is a mechanism you can check in the demo.
The dinar keeps its three decimal places from the database to the printed invoice. Money is decimal end to end and never a floating-point number.
Separation between branches and entities is a row-level policy in the database on every table. A query written wrong returns nothing rather than somebody else’s shipments.
Nothing is deleted. A database trigger stamps every change with who made it and when, and a superseded row is marked superseded and kept.
You can open all of it now, on seeded data, with a sign-in for you, your customer and your agent, without talking to anybody.
One database per customer, beside the shared table we did not build
What we build
- A forwarder
- Kuwait
- Another
- UAE
- A third
- EU
No tenant identifier in the schema, because there is no second tenant in the database.
The shape we did not build
tenant_id…
A
B
C
Every query must remember it, and one that does not is enough. Respectable engineering, and a different promise.
Check each claim in the demo
No sign-up and no call. All of it takes about ten minutes.
| The claim | How to check it |
|---|---|
| Five transport modes | Start an enquiry in the demo. The mode selector offers sea (FCL and LCL), air, road, rail and courier. |
| Three decimals on every dinar | Open any invoice in the demo. A system built for dollars and adapted shows two. |
| Separation enforced by the database | Sign in to the demo as the customer contact and try to open the operations board. Other customers’ shipments are not hidden behind a filter; they are never returned. |
| Changes kept, nothing deleted | Revise a milestone on a demo job. The planned time stays beside the revised one instead of being overwritten. |
| Arabic and English, one build | Press the language switch and issue a document. The layout, the figures and the document all turn right-to-left, with no English label left behind. |
| About ten minutes for all of it | No sign-up and no call. The whole page rests on that. |
The screen this argument rests on
Ask both of us these, and compare the answers
Our answers are written down, and under each is what a good answer sounds like from any vendor, us included. If another vendor answers better, buy from them.
Is the Arabic a translation layer, or the same build?
The same build. Right-to-left is part of the layout, and a build check fails if a string exists in one language and not the other. Open the demo, press the language switch, and look at a delivery order.
What a good answer sounds like: A good answer names a mechanism: a parity check that fails a build, one catalogue for both languages, right-to-left in the layout. A weak one is “yes, we support Arabic” and a screenshot. Ask to see a printed delivery order; that is where an added-on language shows first.
How many decimal places does an invoice in Kuwaiti dinars carry?
Three, everywhere, because the dinar has three. It is the fastest way to find out whether a system was built for dollars and adapted.
What a good answer sounds like: “Three” should come back at once and without conditions. Hesitation, or “it is configurable”, usually means money is a floating-point number somewhere and the decimals are a display setting, which is fine until a rounding difference lands on a reconciliation.
Whose database is it, and can I have a copy of my data without asking?
Yours: a PostgreSQL database in your own instance, shared with no other customer. An export in an open format is yours any day at no charge. Today we assemble it for you; a single self-service export action is specified and not yet built. Source escrow is available on request.
What a good answer sounds like: Listen for a named engine and an export you can trigger yourself. “We can arrange an extract” is a different answer from “here is the button”, and the difference is what leaving costs you in three years. Hold us to the same test.
What does it cost when volume doubles?
Ask every vendor this, in writing. Per-shipment and per-transaction pricing is normal in this category, but it is a different shape of bill from a flat one, and the difference shows up in year two rather than at signature.
What a good answer sounds like: Any pricing shape is defensible; a refusal to put the shape in writing is not. Ask for the figure at twice and five times today’s volume, in the contract rather than on a call, and ask us the same way.
Can I see it working, today, without a call?
Yes: demo.cargosharks.com, with no sign-up. This question separates vendors more reliably than any feature question, which is why it is last.
What a good answer sounds like: Yes and no are both legitimate. A demo that needs a discovery call first is a sales process, and also a reliable measure of how long onboarding will take to start.
A flat bill against a per-shipment bill as volume grows
Illustrative, not to scale
- Flat
- Per shipment
Why there is no tick-and-cross grid
We know our product properly and theirs from the outside, and a grid written by one side goes stale silently. Ask us directly at hellocargosharks.com and you will get a written answer that cites what each vendor publishes, and “we do not know” where we do not.
See it on your own lanes.
The demo is the real software on seeded data, open with no sign-up. The demo call is free, and we tailor it to your shipments.